Opinions on ef - A Fairy Tale of the Two?

[Mr Poltroon]

Muwahahaha! I'm reviving an old thread for no good reason! I'm so evil! I was, anyways, damn censorship.

 

I would like to ask people's opinions on ef - A Fairy Tale of the Two. Does it have a lot of Romance? What are the main genre's?

How is the Romance if it does have it?

[Eclipsed]

(Sure thing )

 

~~

I was actually supposed to read ef but then i randomly decided to go Yumina but I'd like to see others' thoughts on ef as well.

 

Have you read eden* yet? It's Planetarian short so you can prob finish in a day if you blitz it. Same devs so it can give you a taste of how they do things.

[suikashoujo]

I really liked ef. It's definitely a romance-oriented VN, as each of its chapters revolves around a different couple. The presentation is gorgeous, the soundtrack is pretty, and while the first tale (aka Miyako and Kei's chapters) can drag on, the latter tale (everone else) makes it completely worth it. Yuuko's story in particular tends to hit pretty hard.

 

So as long as you don't mind romance with a bit of melodrama from time to time, I would check it out.

[Decay]

ef does indeed have a lot of romance, and I would say that is its biggest focus. Practically everything it does is in service of developing the relationships, even the fluff. But there isn't actually much fluff, nor is there much slice of life, the VN is almost laser focused on character development and romance. But that isn't to say there's no comedy either, there is quite a bit of it, but also a whole lot of melodrama. You have to be prepared for the teenage melodrama and love triangles.

 

As to whether or not it's actually good, I'd say it's pretty good. Not great, just good. I found the romance to be compelling enough and the comedy to be amusing. A chapter or two might have been a little lackluster. The art is rather good and there is a LOT of it. I mean a whole lot. There may be more unique CGs in ef than any other VN translated to english. So at least you get visual variation. Looking on VNDB, I gave it a 7.5. That may be a little generous, but is in the ballpark. (I try to stay on the true ten point scale).

[Deep Blue]

Ef has a lot of main characters and not just one, each chapter revolves around a different main character like suika said but later on some of them are continued even when you think that they don't have an ending they do, it's a little weird but it works, some of them have really good plots others are meh.

There is a lot of romance and you have ero-scenes that add something to the plot!! Prob the 1% of the vns out there where the sex makes sense and it's not there just for fan-service so yay for that

The chihiro's route is the best love story I've ever read by far, not your typical bs love story it was really well written.

The vn is really sad at the end, really sad aka utsuge.

The art is great and it's fully animated with a lot of cgs A LOT of them, 9/10 for me, btw eden* was good but a bit boring for me.

[Decay]

There is nothing that actually happens during  the sex that is important to the plot. The only thing that is important is that they have sex at all. So really, the ero scenes are still just there for fanservice, as you can have sex in the plot without h-scenes (see clannad)

[Soulless Watcher]

The story of Ef is comprised of several different "couples" and the struggles that each couple have to work through. Honestly most of the vn was a bland read for me, the first four stories (or couples) are pretty cliche, boring, and are comprised of douchebags of varying degree. Really these stories are a set-up for the fifth couple, which puts the previous stories to shame.

 

It is also worth mentioning that the art is pretty gorgeous, with a metric fuck-ton of cgs.

 

Ef is a vn I would suggest people read, but not necessarily kept downloaded on your computer after finishing.

[Deep Blue]

There is nothing that actually happens during  the sex that is important to the plot. The only thing that is important is that they have sex at all. So really, the ero scenes are still just there for fanservice, as you can have sex in the plot without h-scenes (see clannad)

not true, what about Kyosuke and Kei the first time? when they are doing it but she stops in the middle?What about with Shuuichi that acs like a rapist with Mizuki? when you stay with chihiro in the school and then you have sex on the roof that wasn't fan service it was part of the plot and character development for both of them

[Zalor]

Ef a fairy tale of two is pretty good, but this is one of those few cases where I actually preferred the anime adaptation. Ef a Tale of Memories, that is.

[Eclipsed]

^out of curiosity, did you watch the adaptation first

[Deep Blue]

the anime was butchered all over :/ really bad compared to the vn imo

[Decay]

The anime was pretty bad, would not recommend.

[Conjueror]

Huh, that's odd. Actually, I always held ef to be the best VN anime adaptation ever produced so far, slightly outperforming even Phantom of Inferno and Steins;Gate. And ef - A Fairy Tale of the Two is one of my favorite VNs, and I saw anime years after reading it.

 

I found SHAFT's artistic visuals to work way better at giving the work tasteful romantic atmosphere than the VN's prose (which was fairly good in its own right, dunno if translation does it justice or not though). And they also re-worked some of the better scenes in a way that totally blows VN's presentation out of water, like the phone booth scene, or Yuuko's confession.

I did think that one completely original episode in Tales of Melodies was out of place and made little sense, but I loved everything else with passion. Jesus, just check out those OPs!

[Deep Blue]

on its own maybe it's a good anime but as an adaptation of the vn it's pretty bad because they changed every single story in the worst way possible, some of them I kinda understand why they did it

like the rape part with Shuuichi btw I hate this character so much

but for others there is no explanation...

[Zalor]

I found SHAFT's artistic visuals to work way better at giving the work tasteful romantic atmosphere than the VN's prose (which was fairly good in its own right, dunno if translation does it justice or not though). And they also re-worked some of the better scenes in a way that totally blows VN's presentation out of water, like the phone booth scene, or Yuuko's confession.

 

 

You basically summed up why I prefer the anime to the VN in way less words than I would have used.

 

^out of curiosity, did you watch the adaptation first

 

Admittedly I did, although it appears even Conjueror who did read the VN first also preferred the anime. 

[rainsismyfav]

Ef felt like a surreal journey to me. I think I attribute that to Makoto Shinkai's artwork. It made it easier for me to immerse in the world. Imo, it has one of the better executed romantic stories out there.

 

I don't prefer the route structure though (made up of smaller arcs vs. a long overarching plotline).

[Snowtsuku]

It's a romance centric VN with 10 MCs that are somehow linked together. It changes perspective every arc so it's not your normal harem VN. Overall it's pretty good and it's something I recommend. For some reasons though, it feels like a VN that nobody talks about.

[Bolverk]

I can't stand Minori's drama, it's damn horrible. Ef was godawful for me to read, Eden* was luckily good enough I could enjoy the vn even with the minori drama.