Mnemosyne was one of the most disappointing anime I’ve seen in a while. It failed to live up to the hype and to my expectations. The reason I had such high ups for it is because it starts off so good! What’s not to like about a story that stars a lovely, smart woman who runs a private investigator business, can handle herself in a fight and is immortal? She also comes with a merry band of sidekicks: another immortal forever trapped at the age of 13 who loves her hard liquor, an endearing amnesiac, and a loyal (also immortal) sheep dog. Together they DO fight crime!

The first four installments of the OVA series are really fun romps, very violent and a bit squeaky in places romps, but fun none the less. There are hints of a bigger plot looming on the horizon and we’re given clues on how these immortals came to be and their goals. There is also a main villain, but he’s content to lurk in and orchestrate his machinations from the shadows, whilst cackling maniacally. Maybe not cackling so much, he IS voiced by Akira Ishida. Would “sexily laughing maniacally” be acceptable rephrasing?

Then in episode five, the writers realized they only had two hour long episodes left and proceeded to force feed us the main plot. They hit us with lots of information, most times conflicting and/or vague, that is really important but speeds past us so we can get to the “action”. Said action isn’t the least bit enjoyable because the audience is still reeling from information overload and the feeling that they are missing something important. The writers still felt they could spare enough precious episode time for really awkward sex scenes though. And they are awkward, let me tell you, and kind of crammed into the story. They wouldn’t have had to resort to sex to sell the story if the story was actually… good. And by good I mean understandable. If they would have trimmed back on the adultness and dedicated the time that took up to developing the plot more, it would have lead to a more solid anime.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that is was really unsatisfying. Everyone (I am sure even the characters) are left with their heads cocked to the side and a “Huh?!” expression on their faces. It is worse than a first watch of The End of Evangelion. At least with EVA the audience was left with the feeling that even if they didn’t understand what just happened, someone out there (hopefully the writers) did. I am not giving the writers of Mnemosyne the benefit of that doubt. I don’t think they had a clue where the story was going and they should have just left it as episodic goodness. They seemed to think that by adding lots of blood and sex in the last two episodes the viewers wouldn’t notice that no one had a clue what was going on. Not so. 

I went into this anime thinking I would adore it, I do like my dark tales and a good flavoring of detective noir can’t be beat, but sadly my hopes were dashed. My recommendation is to give this anime a wide berth. It’s not worth the time investment, unless you like watching things so you can complain about them afterwards. If you do, than this is the show for you!