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R2 DVD Reviews
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Monday, 20 September 2010 00:00 |
 "Violence, kinky sex and violent kinky sex", says the PR for Mnemosyne (a quote from ANN, apparently), which leads you to believe that you're going to get a certain type of show. Well, yes, but... While those aspect are certainly here, they're not as prevalent as you'd think, with affairs of a more investigatory nature taking centre-stage...
1 - Cats Don't Laugh
Rin Asogi is a detective running her own private investigation agency in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. Together with her partner and assistant, Mimi, she'll take on almost any case, from finding lost pets to hunting rare stamps. Chance has brought young man Maeno to Rin's side, though. With no memories other than his name, and a worrying number of men in black on his trail, Rin finds that she just can't let Maeno's problems slide. Her investigations lead back to drug trials being carried out by a major pharmaceutical company, that Maeno was taking part in - and despite Rin's investigations, they still haven't given up on getting him back...
2 - Angels Don't Cry
When Maeno finds a young woman, crying while looking out of a window, he can't pass her by - she's looking for an angel, she claims, and can't find it. Her response throws him a little, but he still finds himself agreeing to help her. Her brother's disappeared, and she believes an angel was responsible - and now Maeno's got to find it. Rin, meanwhile, has accepted a commission from a major company to find the owner of a rare stamp - a job she would have preferred to turn down, if Mimi hadn't been stamping pointedly on her foot at the time. The stamp in question is a Sutherland, one of the first to be issued in Japan - and the rarest version of them, at that. The owner is rumoured to be in Shinjuku, but with nothing else to go on Rin's got her work cut out for her - and Rin's misgivings about the job are heightened when the man that brought it to them is brutally murdered. But what could there be about a stamp that would lead people to kill..?
3 - Flowers Don't Shed Tears
A phonecall summons Rin to the roof of a partially-completed building, where a young girl in a maid's uniform is waiting for her - and she's clearly in bad shape, covered with blood and coughing worryingly. She has a warning for Rin that the Tree of Death is about to flower in Tokyo - and with her warning delivered, she falls from the building and dies. Rin's not quite sure what the warning means or why it was directed to her, but she soon ties the events to a series of bombings that have been happening n the city - and to the 1945 outbreak of a deadly disease, Equinox Disease, which the military attempted to use as a biological weapon. Rin recognised the symptoms of Equinox Disease in the girl - but connecting events of 1945 to what's now happening in the city proves to be more easily said than done...
4 - Ghosts Don't Scream
The thing with being immortal is that there's a lot that changes around you. It's now 2025, and Rin and Mimi are faced with finding new offices now that their old building is condemned, while Maeno's son Teruko has grown up to be something of a problem in the absence of his father. When a girl he met online is killed in front of him, though, Teruki is directed to Rin to help him find out why. But the girl, Ruon, should only have existed as an online avatar - so why was she in the "1.0" world in the first place, and why are those who "killed" her now so keen to get to Teruko..?
5 - Holy Night Don't Shine Brightly
Kyoto, 2055, and the divide between online and the real world is more blurred than ever before, something that Teruki's having increasing problems dealing with. As the CEO of a major company, he's got enough money to make sure he and his daughter, Mishio, have everything they need - but he can't allow for Mishio's nosiness. Digging through some old computer records of his, she finds reference to Rin, so when Rin herself turns up at a party her curiosity is naturally piqued even further. But the Rin of this time isn't quite the Rin we're familiar with - with no memory of her past beyond being washed up on a beach five years previously, she's settled into the life of an office lady and wants nothing more than to know who she really is. But there's another Rin on the loose, killing immortals and taking their Time Fruits - and the two are about to meet...
6 - And Then, to the Door of the Kingdom...
Mimi used to tell a story, of a traveller who found within an abandoned castle a room, where many women were skewered to the wall. It's a fearsome place indeed, and it's the place that Rin has just woken up in. That she's awake at all is an achievement, given that Apos had taken her Time Fruit. After many, many years, the time has come for his plans to reach fruition. Mimi, having quickly gotten over her violation by Apos, knows instinctively that Rin is still alive and is doing what she can to find her, but so far she's drawing a blank. Since the time they first met, it's always been Rin who protected Mimi, and now she's determined to return the favour. Eventually, her investigations lead her and Mishio to central Europe - and Apos' castle. But with normal mortals now able to see the Yggdrasil tree and the Time Fruts it's clear that their time is running short...
The series takes place over the course of around 100 years, which can lead to a little confusion towards the end of the series when the boundary between the real world and online has become so blurred as to be meaningless. At the start, though, it's the familiar surroundings of the recent past or present, and some fairly inventive detective stories that drive the story - with Rin and Mimi being in the investigation trade, the strange and unusual have a way of finding them out. While the early episodes feel standalone, though, there are common threads running between them: Apos and the plans he nurtures (and that inevitably include large-scale destruction); the bond between Rin and the Maeno family, three generations of which feature across the six episodes; and the rather brutal connections between Rin, sadistic medic Saya, and Apos' pet assassin.
But let's consider that ANN quote first. "Violence, kinky sex and violent kinky sex", it reads, and while I can understand why it appears on the PR (there seems to be nothing that sells anime in the UK better than sex and violence), I can't help but feel that pitching the series in that way does it a disservice. The sex and violence aspects are undeniably there, and you wouldn't want to show the series to someone who didn't have an open mind about such things, but it's far from being the focus of the show. It's not what you'd call sex for sex's sake, either, as there's usually a context to it that links into the plot and provides motivations for what the characters are doing. I'm not going to dwell any further on that aspect of the series, then, as there are greater things afoot.
Those greater things are being planned by demigod Apos. The source of Rin's immortality (and those like her) is the yggdrasil tree, and there's a natural order to how the tree operates - a natural order that Apos wants to usurp in favour of his own immortality and powerbase. Rin, as possibly one of the longest-lived immortals (by the end of the series it's been around 1,000 years since the Time Fruits first made her immortal) has a key role to play in his plans. He's been planning for the long-term, of course - immortals have that luxury - but along the way he's been keeping a close eye on Rin, watching her progress and throwing occasional obstacles in her way to ensure that she's still the one he needs to complete his plans. It's those obstacles that provide the main stories in the first four episodes, with each unfolding as an investigation, with Rin doing the dangerous work (you could have a fairly good drinking game here, down a shot of something every time Rin's killed and you'd be nicely drunk by the end of the series) while Mimi uses her 133t hacking skills to provide the information that her partner needs. There's always a twist of the unexpected to these, as we're not dealing with normal people here, and that keeps the interest level high - you never really know what to expect, even when you think you've got a handle on what's going on.
The final two episodes, set in 2055, finally see Apos put his plan into action, and with Rin decidedly not herself for the first of the two parts there's a noticeably different feel here. It also sees the end of the investigations side of the series - there's not really anything left to investigate - with the story instead being a series of increasingly dangerous events. The body count just keeps rising as Apos gets closer to his ultimate goal, but as you'd expect there's a get-out clause that Rin can use to avert disaster - if she lives long enough to make use of it. I wasn't so sure initially that I liked the way the series was playing out when it got to this stage - with Rin and Mimi separated for a large chunk of the story, the usual dynamic just wasn't there - but the addition of Mishio (who is, frankly, awesome) and the eventual reunion of the two immortals gets things back on course before the new gang of three have their final confrontation with Apos. It's not the quickest moving of stories, but it plays out well and gives a conclusion that's satisfying on just about every level.
Which goes to describe most of the series, to be honest. Mnemosyne is easily the best thing I've watched on DVD this year, going beyond the other titles we've seen released in ambitions and style - I think we can safely say it'll be the only show of its type this year and, led by two genuinely likeable if somewhat eccentric characters (to be expected when you're immortal), there's a lot about it to like. Definitely one to pick up.
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