Asougi Rin is a private detective. She has a devoted secretary, Mimi, with whom she has a close (physically and emotionally) relationship. It is obvious that they genuinely care about and for one another. They have an employee, Maeno Kouki, who is a normal guy with good “finding things” skills.
Rin’s got mean hand-to-hand combat skills, and a load of contacts in the underclasses. Useful qualities for a private detective sort.
And, incidentally, she can’t be killed.
In Mnemosyne 2, Maeno tries to help a damsel in distress, (who turns out to be two steps from loopy, but he can’t possibly know that when he meets her) and Rin tries to find a rare stamp for a client. These cases are tied together by the appearance of an “Angel.”
We also learn that Mimi and Rin can’t die because time spores entered their bodies. What the spores are, what they do, why they affect women that way and cause men to become “Angels,” why women who have them are obsessively attracted to those Angels, who Rin talks to on the phone, what Apos’ deal is (aside from him being a sadistic lunatic) and where Mimi got a book on Linux in 1991 is not explained. (I meant to check this in Books in Print, but forgot. I’m sure one was published – that’s the kind of detail that dork-o-matically makes people like myself looking stuff up, even though really, no one cares.)
And why do we not care? Because we’re watching Mimi heartily snogging Rin and later, Rin, sighing heavily over the unreasonably high price for information, dig in and have some sex with a female informant. That’s why. WAY more important than the dumb Linux book thing. I particularly liked how the first scene kind of confirmed the apparent Yuri of the first episode, and also established that she has “that kind” of relationship with Mimi.
Lots of other stuff happened too, and in the end, the good guys win.
By the end of this OVA, my biggest complaint was that there is no *way* this series was going to be long enough to make me happy.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 8
Series – 7
Overall – 9
Unless something *spectacular* comes down the pike, this is almost certainly going to be my number one anime of 2008.
I really like this show too. It does have a very dark feel to it, however, and for some reason, I have to be in a good mood to watch it- otherwise, if my mood is too bad, I end up sitting in a corner and hating the world for awhile. It just does it to me, I guess. XD
Overall, I really think this series stands out from the rest of the season, and I’ll continue watching it too.
There is one thing that bugs the bejeebers out of me, though- it has to do with the random white thing that appears on Maeno’s head.
If you look at certain shots, you’ll see something like a small white band appearing the left [our left] side of his hair. What the heck IS that? Was it something that was explained in the first episode that I missed?
LOL. You kids. He’s going *grey.* Time has passed between the first two episodes – Maeno is aging, and that’s the visible sign that he’s doing so. I imagine that the series will end in the present day.
I vaguely wonder if the staff actually did their homework on the relevant clone-related technobabble and that’s the tele… telo… something-mere copying issue setting in…
I hate to say this, but, as a pessimist, I cannot help but wonder whether the series lasts long enough to disappoint you. I have a horrible thought lingering at the back of my mind that the producers may have decided that Episodes 1-2 are the ‘Yuri fanservice’ episodes and all that comes subsequently will be in a more ‘conventional’ mould. Not saying it will happen, but it would not surprise me.
Hopefully, it will be the first serious and adult Yuri series in recent anime memory. Or ever. I pray for that to be true.
I don’t expect it to stay Yuri. I do expect it to be about Rin. Therefore, it wins. :-)
I’m so happy I gave Mnemosyne a chance. When I first saw the trailer I was sure I wouldn’t like it but decided to at least what the 1st episode before judging. I’ve loved every second of it.
“Time has passed between the first two episodes”
First episode happens at the year 1990, second at 1991. I´m sure he can´t get so grey in just a year. Maybe his hairdresser messed up his hair while he was getting stripes or something?
Yes, a person can go grey in a year. And he had a trauma to the head there. Very often, hair grows back in a different color.
But hey, you don’t want to think it’s grey hair, fine.
Isn’t the “grey” hair growing in the exact spot where a right-handed person usually shoots him/her self?
Maybe it’s because of the trauma. We DO know that he shot himself cause we see him with bandages at the end of the first epi.