English Dub Review: AfterLost “Memory”

Just go and say goodbye.

Overview:

The trio finds themselves in a time loop.

Our Take:

This time isn’t an action sequence like the previous two episodes, but rather, a time loop. The trio enters a time loop from before the Lost incident, featuring an idol group that Geek is rather fond of. One of the members, fearing that the group was going to fall apart following some suspicious commentary by her producer, had an argument with her team members and stormed out, being unable to appear in their final show. Her regrets have recreated the moment of her storming away from the group, putting the moment in an eternal time loop until she finds the courage to turn back and confront her fears with her bandmates.

We also get some insight into what the Tama-shi are, besides people who vanished during the After Lost incident. Because the incident was so sudden, and also didn’t happen all at once: people were disintegrating slowly and experienced something akin to an earthquake before, all of the victims were filled with fear. Fear, and also knowing that they might or might not die, filled them with great regret over what they couldn’t manage to accomplish in life. Their dying thoughts became what defined them, such as Akira, who used his last moments to try to protect Yuki. Yuki suspects that the two Tama-shi that attacked them, the knife wielder and the monk, were controlled to do so rather than coming after her of their own free will.

It’s still not a great show, and it feels very amateur and jarring. At the same time, I think the series handled the more toned-down moments slightly better than extreme action sequences. It feels a lot better because they’re not trying too hard- but as soon as it leaps back into action, the problems start all over again. Having a different venue to explore the Tama-shi’s mysteries, one of the core parts of the series, was fine, but it felt like it came out of nowhere.

The ending definitely came out of nowhere, where a Tama-shi of Yuki’s younger brother appears and attacks the two of them. Extremely distressed, Yuki unleashes her powers, which ends up creating a smoldering crater in the middle of the city. It’s pretty safe to assume that Yuki is actually behind the tragedy from years ago, and was experimented on to see how she could control it. Unfortunately, I’m still not invested despite these mysteries, but this show doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to begin with.