Kaze no na wa amunejia

It takes a good Japanese animation to impress me. And this is one of my favorites.

A strange amnesia has swept over the entire world. People have forgotten who they are, how to speak, how to do anything of their past lives. Chaos runs all over. But a young man tries to figure out what the mystery is, and along the way, we see some touches of lessons in humanity.

Some people who watch this movie, however, may think to deep in to it, and think that it's trying to send out all kinds of social messages and not understand that that's not what films like this are made for. Look at the premise, understand it's basic value, and enjoy the film. Thats what it was meant for. To dissect it means your over-thinking it.

Very different from the average action anime, I recommend this not only to the anime fan, but to the casual viewer as well.

This is by far the best anime I have ever seen. Most anime is just an excuse to show huge robots, tons of violence, and cartoon nudity, but this one is different. It has an incredibly thought provoking and interesting plotline, and if you watch it with someone else you'll have plenty of conversations concerning it. I remember the first time I watched it was out of luck. I was flipping through channels and landed on IFC. The first seen I saw was a huge robot mowing down a bunch of unarmed civilians and I thought "This is gonna be just like any other anime movie", but I was very soon afterwards drawn in by it's intriguing plotline and excellent animation. I recommend this movie to anyone who likes interesting and mysterious plotlines. Even if you don't like anime, you will still love this movie! Just one thing: I BEG OF YOU DON'T GET THE DUBBED VERSION!!! It is terrible. The subtitled version is much better.

In describing what I found impressive with A Wind Named Amnesia, I must first get out of the way what wasn't good. The art and animation has an old look and feel to it, older even then it's 1993 standard. Several times I had found where it almost seemed that there was a bit of laziness on the addition of frames. Some of the dialog was a bit silly (even sillier in the voice dubbed version) and it's not exactly the most original story. Memory loss, an apparent apocalyptic Earth ravaged by war? It's been done before. Mecha units? Check. Naked anime babes? Here!

But the movie didn't stop there. What seemed to start as a simple story turns out to be epic. Our protagonist, Wataru, is educated by an intelligent experimental boy who survived the world-attacking amnesia. Wataru surly isn't perfect, as he stumbles from place to place, but he's not dumb. His morals are there. The people he encounters range from animalistic humans, which only know to eat and kill, to a mysterious and beautiful woman who seems to know more then she lets on. To add to it, something is following him, meaning to kill him.

I think the negative comments I have seen were induced by a feeling that the movie should, for some reason, give much more then what it has. The simple fact is, it doesn't have to. It's neither boring or stupid, as some imply, as it gives exact reasons as to why things occurred the way they did, and the action is steady and interesting.

I highly recommend it to anyone who like action, sci-fi, and post-apocalyptic movies with a twist.

I rented this movie one day on a whim and was pleasantly surprised! This movie is not only a great piece of anime, but a great piece of cinema. Well worth checking out!

The pacing during the first... roughly 90% of this movie is good. The relationship between Wataru and Sophia is given nearly no development, which gives a scene towards the end no impact and a feeling of randomness. The ending, overall, would have had more impact if it wasn't done so abruptly and delivered in such a bland way. A 6/10 is all I can give this because of its rushed feeling ending. Again, it is a great premise. It just fails to deliver a satisfying story due to poor relationship development and a lackluster ending that doesn't stick the landing.