Genre: Mystery, Supernatural, Immortals
Length: 6 x 45min
Rating: 18 for *very* graphic violence, torture and sex
Score: Good
If I had to describe this in a few words, it’d go like this:
“Lesbian immortals with sado-masochistic tendencies take on conspiracies”
Rin Asogi looks like an ordinary office lady on the outside. She’s actually a private investigator taking on jobs ranging from finding a stray cat to infiltrating a high-security corporate lab. What’s more, she’s literally indestructible, supernaturally healing any injuries and mutilations. Together with her partner Mimi, Rin delves into the darkest secrets of society, but the ones she hides herself are far more sinister…
I downloaded this on a whim, as much as anything because it’s different from the normal anime format of 25 minute episodes (and Shinsen were subbing it, and they generally sub good stuff). I’m glad I did, because it’s really very good. There are 6 episodes set about 15 years apart, all tied together by the two girls and other immortals they’ve had contact with. I guess it’s an anime version of Highlander.
So what makes it good? The cases the girls get involved in are genuinely interesting. Too often, private detective stories end up polarised at one or other end of the scale: all about the characters with crappy stories, or all about the cases and the characters are almost irrelevant. Mnemosyne manages to tread a careful line between the two: we learn about the girls gradually over the series, particularly when things from the past come back and haunt them, but the case of the moment is also interesting and not there merely as a plot device. The 15 year gap between each episode really works: the non-immortal characters age between the episodes, have families, etc., all things the immortals can’t do.
So, this is well worth a download for folks who want something with some good action bits, as well as some fairly cerebrally-challenging stories. A word of warning though: I wasn’t kidding about the rating. This isn’t a hentai, but there’s more violence, torture and sex, and it’s more graphic than a significant chunk of the hentai out there. I’m not deducting marks for it though, because it does seem to be relevant to the story, and drives home the differences between the immortal and the mortal worlds.