Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two

Yuko Amamiya (雨宮 優子, Amamiya Yūko, voiced by: Yumiko Nakajima (Japanese), Carli Mosier (English)), a mysterious girl dressed like a nun, and Yu Himura (火村 夕, Himura Yū, voiced by: Kōichi Tōchika (Japanese), David Matranga (English)), a mysterious gentleman who is somehow attached to the church where Yuko first appears,[7] are having a reunion in a church during Christmas time. Despite her attire, Yuko is not affiliated with the church. She always appears generally out of nowhere, and disappears just as quickly in various places throughout the story to talk with Hiro or other characters and give them advice.[7] Yuko and Yu reminisce about the past and remember events of the previous year around the same time at the beginning of the first chapter of the story. Yuko hints of events that are revealed throughout Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two. After the conclusion of the first chapter, the story cycles back to the prologue and the talk between Yuko and Yu. Yuko ends with her talk about the events in the first chapter. At the end of the second chapter, the story shifts again to the scene with Yuko and Yu. Yuko finishes her talk on the events from the second chapter and says that she misses talking to Hiro, Kyosuke, and their friends. Their talk ends with allusions to the continuation of the story, Ef: The Latter Tale.[8]

The first chapter's protagonist is Hiro Hirono (広野 紘, Hirono Hiro, voiced by: Hiro Shimono (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English)), an already established manga author despite still attending high school. Due to the pressures of his work, he often skips school and puts most of his time into his job as a manga artist of shōjo manga under the pseudonym "Nagi Shindo" (新堂 凪, Shindō Nagi).[7] Writing manga causes him to lose interest in school and focuses mainly on his work in order to earn an income, as usually he does not have much money as it is. While out one Christmas night, a purse snatcher rushes past Hiro on a bike and soon Miyako Miyamura (宮村 みやこ, Miyamura Miyako, voiced by: Hiroko Taguchi (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)) appears, chasing after the purse thief, taking Hiro's bike without asking to pursue the culprit. She ends up destroying his bike, and later hangs out with him for the rest of the night.

Hiro later meets Miyako again at school, and learns that she is a student of the same year there, but in a different class; she too does not attend classes much because she finds them boring.[7] Miyako has an energetic personality and enjoys doing unorthodox things.[7] She eventually starts to become attracted to Hiro after they start spending more time together, but during this time Hiro's childhood friend Kei Shindo (新藤 景, Shindō Kei, voiced by: Junko Okada (Japanese), Brittney Karbowski (English)) begins to feel left out and a love triangle develops between the three students.[8] She is attracted to Hiro, and becomes jealous when she finds out how much time he is spending with Miyako Miyamura. Hiro and Miyako eventually become a couple, despite Kei's feelings for him.

The second chapter begins several months after the end of the first. It is now summer, and the story focuses on a new protagonist named Kyosuke Tsutsumi (堤 京介, Kyōsuke Tsutsumi, voiced by: Yūki Tai (Japanese), Chris Patton (English)). Kyosuke is an acquaintance of Hiro's and happens to be in the same grade and school. He has a passion for filming, and constantly carries a digital video recorder around with him.[7] On Christmas night, he saw Kei Shindo, who is the main heroine of the second chapter, running down the street and tried to get a shot of her, but a truck passed by, so he could not get a clean shot of the mystery girl. After thinking about the mystery girl, he ends up quitting the film club and agrees with his girlfriend, Emi Izumi (voiced by: Kaori Nobiki (Japanese), Allison Sumrall (English)), to break up.

One day, while filming near the gymnasium, Kyosuke catches sight of Kei practicing basketball for her school's girls' basketball team[7] and becomes infatuated by her image. He desires to cast Kei in an amateur film he is making for an upcoming film festival. Occupied with thoughts of Kei, he sets out determined to get closer to Kei by becoming better friends with Hiro, Kei's childhood friend.[8] Kei is one year younger than Hiro and she attends the same school as him too.[7] After being asked to be cast in one of his films, Kei initially refuses Kyosuke's offer, but agrees to watch some of his previous films. While initially put off by the films, she eventually comes to like aspects of his work. After hanging out together more, the two eventually fall in love and go out together.

Ef: The Latter Tale begins once again with Yuko Amamiya and Yu Himura in the middle of a reunion in a church during Christmas time. Yuko tells Yu how she has influenced people in two separate stories (from Ef: The First Tale). After she is done with this, she asks him to tell her about the people he has influenced. Yu starts to tell his first story, that of Chihiro Shindo; the third chapter begins.[9] Like Yuko, Yu also abruptly appears out of nowhere and disappears just as mysteriously.[7] He often gives advice and warnings to Renji and others.[7] Yu is close to Chihiro and takes care of her. After the conclusion of the third chapter, the story goes back to Yuko and Yu with Yu ending his recount of the third chapter, and goes on to talk about how he and Yuko were separated in the past. Yu starts his recount of the events from the fourth chapter. At the end of the fourth chapter, the story shifts one final time back to Yuko and Yu. Up to this point the two have been recounting individual tales to each other. The meaning of the overall title Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two is revealed to be in connection with Yuko and Yu.

Like the first chapter, the third chapter is also set in winter, but now focuses on another protagonist named Renji Aso (麻生 蓮治, Asō Renji, voiced by: Motoki Takagi (Japanese), Clint Bickham (English)) who is half German, half Japanese.[7] One day, he goes to an abandoned train station in town he would often frequent to read at since it is so quiet there and meets a girl wearing an eyepatch over her left eye and sitting alone named Chihiro Shindo (新藤 千尋, Shindō Chihiro, voiced by: Natsumi Yanase (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)). Chihiro is the younger twin sister of Kei Shindo from Ef: The First Tale and the main heroine of the third chapter in the story. Despite them being mutually shy, Renji comes back to see her at the station every day after school and quickly becomes friends with her. Renji later learns that she has a severe case of anterograde amnesia, where she can only remember 13 hours' of memory at a time, aside from the events before the accident that led to her current state, which she can recall perfectly.[7] Now, she carries a diary with her which she writes in every day the events of that day so that the next day, after she had forgotten everything, she will be able to remind herself of what happened the previous day. Ironically, she has a fantastic memory of anything that happened that is less than thirteen hours old.

Renji also finds out that it is her dream to write a fantasy novel, but due to her condition has never been able to get far. Renji loves to read novels, and after discussing it with Chihiro, he collaborates with her to see if he can finally make her dream come true.[9] Through the process of writing the novel, the two eventually become very close and they fall in love with each other. As the story progresses and more of the novel is written, Renji soon discovers that the novel is an allegory for Chihiro's life and how she sees the world around her due to the state of her limited memory.

Shuichi Kuze (久瀬 修一, Kuze Shūichi, voiced by: Kenji Hamada (Japanese), Illich Guardiola (English)) is the main protagonist of the fourth chapter in the story. He is an older man who is a professional violinist.[7] He had been studying abroad in Germany for a time, and comes back to where Ef's story takes place.[7] Shuichi is a neighbor of Renji's and is good friends with him despite the age difference.[7] Shuichi knows Yu Himura and Chihiro as well, but she forgets Shuichi due to her condition. He meets the main heroine from the fourth chapter of the story named Mizuki Hayama (羽山 ミズキ, Hayama Mizuki, voiced by: Mai Goto (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English)) after being introduced by Renji's mother. She goes to an affiliated school and admires Kei greatly as someone who is older than she is; in fact, Mizuki is also on her school's girls' basketball team.[7] She greatly enjoys reading shōjo manga.[7] She has a straightforward attitude and likes to be frank towards others, especially to Kei.[7] She initially comes to Otowa to visit her older cousin Renji, and this is when she meets Shuichi. Shuichi keeps to himself that he is dying of a special case of neurosis, of which Mizuki is aware of, but even though she tries to get closer to him, he forcibly pushes her away and rejects her affections. Mizuki becomes depressed and obtains Chihiro's diary. Casually reading it, she finds Yu's name which she recognizes from her past. Mizuki goes to the church to find Yu, but the chapter ends shortly after.

A manga adaptation titled Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two began serialization in the April 2005 issue of the shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao! sold on February 27, 2005, published by MediaWorks.[19] The manga ended serialization in the April 2008 issue Dengeki Comic Gao! at 35 chapters,[20] but continued serialization in the June 2008 issue of ASCII Media Works' manga magazine Dengeki Daioh sold on April 21, 2008. After a lengthy hiatus, the manga ended serialization in the March 2015 issue. The story was written by Mikage and Yū Kagami, two scenario writers of Minori, and illustrated by Juri Miyabi. Ten tankōbon volumes were published under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint between February 27, 2006 and January 27, 2015.[21][22]

A series of 24 short side-stories in a light novel form were serialized under the title Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two Another Tale in Kadokawa Shoten's seinen magazine Comptiq between the July 2006 and July 2008 issues sold on June 10, 2006 and June 10, 2008, respectively.[23][24] The stories are written by the same scenario staff as with the original games and manga, and illustration is handled by Naru Nanao, 2C Galore, and Mitsuishi Shōna. The chapters of Another Tale were released in a single volume on February 27, 2009 entitled Another Tales..[25] Another two separate light novels, under the general title Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two, were published by Fujimi Shobo on October 25, 2007. They were written by Yū Kagami, and illustrated by Kinusa Shimotsuki. The first novel was a novelization of Miyako's route, and the second was centered around Kei's route.[26]

The Ef series, encompassing the visual novels and anime adaptation, was the only Minori title to receive coverage in an entire issue of Dengeki G's Festival! Deluxe, a special edition version of Dengeki G's Magazine which is published by ASCII Media Works; the issue in question was the first, and was published on November 30, 2007. Along with information pertaining to Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two and Ef: A Tale of Memories, the magazine came bundled with an ergonomic mousepad, a small cell phone cleaner which can also attach to a cell phone, and an ID card/pass case.[27]

There are two Internet radio shows for Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two The first, entitled Omoshiro Minori Hōsōkyoku (おもしろミノリ放送局), was broadcast between October 13, 2006 to June 1, 2007 every Friday and was produced by Onsen, Cospa, and Minori. The show contained thirty-three episodes and was mainly used to promote the visual novels. In this way, the promotion mainly entailed news about the series and any updates related to the visual novels while also discussing points about the games themselves. The second radio broadcast began on June 8, 2007 called Yumiko & Yūna no Ef Memo Radio (ゆみこ&ゆうなのえふメモらじお). This broadcast is mainly used to promote the anime series which entails reporting on updates related to the anime and goods for the anime including musical CDs or DVDs.[28]

A set of four drama CDs were released by Frontier Works based on the series between October 2006 and April 2007. A special edition drama CD was released on November 21, 2007,[29] and another special drama CD was released on January 1, 2008. The first print release of the special edition CD will contain comments from the cast. The drama CDs used the same female cast as with the games and anime versions (albeit under assumed names), but the two males that appeared in the dramas, Hiro and Kyosuke, had different voice actors in respect to the anime version. Hiro was voiced by Takashi Komitsu, and Kyosuke was by Kakeru Shiroki.[30]

On August 24, 2007, a short prologue for an Ef anime series was released as a DVD.[31] The prologue was a teaser which introduced the characters and some conflict that would appear in the series. The anime series, under the title Ef: A Tale of Memories, aired 12 episodes on Chiba TV between October 7 and December 22, 2007.[32] The anime was produced by Shaft and directed by Shin Oonuma who volunteered for the job when it was offered.[33] Even though the script for Ef: The Latter Tale was finished at the time of the anime's production, in order to direct the anime from the viewer's standpoint, Shin Oonuma himself never read it. However, Katsuhiko Takayama, who wrote the screenplay for the anime, had read the script.[34] Each episode ends with a still image drawn by Japanese illustrators of anime, manga, and visual novels. The first letter in each episode's title, plus the "coda" title of the last episode, can be brought together to form "Euphoric Field". The series was released in six limited and regular edition DVD compilations, each containing two episodes. The first DVD volume was released on December 7, 2007, and the sixth DVD was released on May 9, 2008. A second season entitled Ef: A Tale of Melodies aired 12 episodes between October 7 and December 22, 2008 in Japan.[3] The license holding company Sentai Filmworks licensed both Ef anime series.[5] The DVD and Blu-ray Disc box sets of Ef: A Tale of Memories were released on January 31, 2012 in North America with an English dub,[35][36] and the Ef: A Tale of Melodies box sets were released on March 20, 2012.[37][38]