Kaze no na wa amunejia

Watching one of the very few Japanese Animation which has been available in German dub-version for a long time I felt deeply moved and impressed. Imagine almost all people in the world are made to forget everything they have known before. They don't know who they are, they don't know where they are, they even lose the ability to speak and forget about their families. This leads the world into chaos and desperation, a few modern computers take the power of the big cities. This nightmare comes true in Wind of Amnesia. Only a very few people have gone away without losing their memory. This is the story about a man who searches the reason for the Wind of Amnesia. General speaking, this is an Action movie with a big philosophical touch, far away from the normal action-anime. Even though the situation is almost unsolvable, the movie becomes a great appeal for the value of human existence and the beauty of our planet. Winds of Amnesia - an extraordinary, fascinating movie !

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.

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.

Although I feel that this film could have been much more than it was, I must nevertheless recommend it for a couple of reasons. The plot itself is quite thought-provoking, and for that reason alone I am glad I saw this movie. I was also very impressed with the opening scenes that explained how the central male character could function much like he probably did before the wind blew in that changed the world forever. The ending was a disappointment, but it did manage to keep me interested right up to the end, and I must confess that I continued to think about the basic premise of the film long after the credits had finished. For those of you who like to think while watching a movie, this film should prove to be an enjoyable experience.

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.