So it looks like ef ~a tale of melodies~ is going to be the first in a long awaited new series of posts here on Miao on My Mind: A Certain Whoredom Index. Basically, what this means is that ef ~a tale of melodies~ is deep. Like a whore.

Before I go on, I want to make something clear: admittance to the Index is not necessarily bad. “Whore” is usually used as a derogative, but on this site it only means “thing that has some semblance of depth.” You know. Like a standard Kyoto Animation show. Or like Author’s incisive postings. Or like CJ. I could give more examples, but I’d rather add to the Index with further posts. That said, let’s examine our current specimen!

I called it before anyone else! Eat my dust, bitches!

So I was watching episode 3 of ef ~a tale of melodies~, and the OP came up, and I was like “lol” because the OP makes me lol. But then I stopped myself—”lolikit! Get it together! This show is srs fkn bsns!!” And I forced myself to take a second look at what I was watching. One opening of VLC, a shitload of play/pause syncing, and half a minute later, I was looking at the OP sequences of episodes 2 and 3 side by side. As I’d remembered, the OP had once been far more monochrome. It’s got colors now! Lots of them! They clash and look bad!

Shinbo must be up to something!

Furthermore, the girls have faces now. I remember when, in ef ~a tale of memories~, the OP visuals were changed so that the girls were like, no longer chained, or something (I don’t recall all the details, geez). But that was for the last episode, and this is episode three. If the changes were less subtle, I’d guess that the animators finally got comfortable with their budget, but really, it’s just a matter of colorizing something.

I guess another difference is in the amount of text displayed in the background at any given point.

Speaking of text… the text in the last ef’s OP was the text of Chihiro’s novel. What could this OP’s text be? The “policies” of Himura? It’ll be interesting to see where this ef goes, since Kuze seems to be on a 24 hour clock at this point and Himura’s backstory is not cool at all. He’s much better sitting on a church altar playing Isako than he is being angsty about his dead sister. Well. He is better. I’m not sure the plot is. But it’s all questionable either way.

And we’re left wondering, did the lily exploding and fading like a firework inside the dark recesses of Kuze’s mind at 00:26 somehow symbolize his chance at raw sex with Mizuki disappearing as his death draws nearer?

Fear not, Kuze! You can make like Narcissu and disappear into the waves, and then you’ll have no regrets because you didn’t die at home or on 7F.

Lily’s less important than that, right?

Eventually, Mizuki will get over you and begin screwing her love interest’s twin sister. After a couple weeks, Renji will find out and bow out of his relationship with Chihiro like the true wimp he is. Maybe, in desperation, he’ll settle on his mother (whom, incidentally, people seem to be forgetting is just as delicious as Furukawa Sanae). But no matter what happens there, everyone’s happy—including Himura, ’cause he got to send you off with some poorly-pronounced German.

Did I do a good job of presenting an “omg stylistic thingy omg” element, pretending to begin analyzing it, and then launching into rabid fanboyism? A good impression, right? You guys are impressed, right? I could take over for Owen anytime, right?

lol lights don’t work that way and neither do shadows

I have to confess to something shameful—Shirukii’s no-nonsense straighter-than-a-Euclidian-line anime blog has, in fact, affected my sense of humor. I’ll always remember a playful response by one of his readers to a comment by “Raigomaru“—”chickens don’t work that way, and neither does death.”

Alright, that’s all from me for now.

Hopefully that’s all the ef blogging I do for the rest of this season. We really don’t need more pseudo-intellectual elitist pricks around here, right?