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{{quote|''Do you have memories you don't want to forget?''}}
A [[Visual Novel]] duology created by minori, formerly the software subdivision of Comix Wave. [[Makoto Shinkai|Sounds familiar]]? Don't be surprised by the amount of [[Scenery Porn]], [[Surprisingly Good English]] and [[Melodrama]] you'd find in these tie-in games.
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The stories are lightly interwoven, with Kei and Chihiro functioning as a linking pin between the various groups in the cast (Hiro, Miyako, Kyosuke and Kei on one side; Chihiro, Renji and their acquaintances on the other). It is similar to series such as ''[[Kanon]]'', ''[[AIR]]'' and ''[[Da Capo]]'', but is much more surreal in its execution, often resorting to very abstract imagery coupled with copious amounts of [[Scenery Porn]].
''ef: A Tale
A combined standalone English release of both games is now available from No Name Losers, who are also known for their localization of an earlier game from minori (''Wind
=== Tropes for the first season include: ===▼
* [[An Aesop]]: "There's no such thing as friendship between men and women," is what Kuze tells Chihiro. Indeed, all the [[Just Friends]] relationships in the series either get a [[Relationship Upgrade]] or result in heartbreak.
** Things go wrong in life and there's nothing you can do about them, but it's not the end of the world and you can still move on from there. This is probably the overarching theme of the story as a whole: Hiro's tendonitis, Miyako's abandonment issues, Chihiro's memory problems and more.
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* [[Broken Aesop]]: The aesop of needing to cope with your problems instead of hoping they just go away is broken in the anime with {{spoiler|Chihiro and Shuuichi. The [[Visual Novel]] does not introduce the idea of some surgery that may save Shuuichi nor does Chihiro get over her memory issues.}}
* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]
* [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]: The pregnancy version is averted-subverted in the game, the first three ero scenes specifically point it out that the couples were foolish enough not to use any protection on their very first time, but nothing happens.
* [[Caught the Heart on His Sleeve]]: {{spoiler|Kei, to Hiro.}}
* [[Cat Smile]]: Mizuki.
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* [[Christianity Is Catholic]]: Averted. The Church and Yuuko's uniform have more of an Orthodox vibe to them.
* [[Clingy Jealous Girl]]: Kei towards Hiro. She even goes so far as to delete Miyako's messages on his phone, and promising to remove her from his memory.
* [[Closed Door Rapport]]: Hiro and Kei are separated by a door as they work out their [[Childhood Friend Romance]] love triangle.
* [[Copy Protection]]: For both games in the series. You can find the specifics in the trope article (scroll down to the very end).
* [[The Danza]]: Hiro Hirono is voiced by [[Hiro Shimono]].
* [[Dating Sim]]
* [[Dead All Along]]: {{spoiler|Yuuko. There are plenty of hints about it.}}
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* [[No Periods, Period]]: Averted with the girl in Chihiro's novel. Averted ''visually'' with Chihiro in the VN.
* [[Nosebleed]]: Of course it doesn't happen in this genre, but the manga fan Mizuki seems to believe that it does after Kyosuke's face hits the pavement.
* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Kyosuke and Mizuki seem to be a lot sillier in the early part of the story than in their own routes, though Kyosuke's actual intelligence is never in question.
* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Miyako's parents left her to her own devices after they split up. Kei and Chihiro's grandfather is the landlord of the apartment that Hiro {{spoiler|And previously, Yuu}} lives in. Hiro and his sister Nagi's father is an artist and is frequently mentioned by the two, but never appears. Renji's mom is the only one who ever shows up on screen.
** Inverted with Chihiro, who abandoned her parents.
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* [[Relationship Upgrade]]: Happens to Kiro/Miyako, Renji/Chihiro, and possibly Kei/Kyousuke (they never explicitly say they're dating, at least in the first season).
* [[Scenery Porn]]: To at times surreal levels.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Several, but most notably to ''[[Da Capo]]'', ''[[AIR]]'' and ''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]''.
** One of the character designers for the original Da Capo game, Naru Nanao, did the character designs for the female characters in this series. Mikage, a screenwriter, works with both CIRCUS and minori.
* [[Second Love]]
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* [[The Tease]]: Sumire, towards Renji. [[Incest Subtext|Yes, her son.]]
* [[Time Skip]]: Each new chapter begins either in the middle of the previous chapter or a period of time afterward, at which point we can see how the previous relationship has progressed.
* [[True Art]]: [[In-Universe]]: A major theme in every chapter.
* [[Tsundere]]: Kei and Hiro.
* [[Twelve-Episode Anime]]
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----
[[File:ef.jpg|
{{quote|"Can you hear it? The true melody?"}}▼
The sequel, ''
▲"Can you hear it? The true melody?"
▲The sequel, ''[[Ef a Tale of Melodies|ef: A Tale of Melodies]]'', shifts focus to the love problems of Yu's past and Kuze's present as occured in the rest of the second game.
Ten years ago, Yuu, Kuze, and their friend Nagi Hirono (yes, Hiro's sister) are all in high school. Yuu meets a girl who he remembers from his orphanage, Yuuko Amamiya, who turns out to be the adopted younger sister of the art club president, who is trying to get Yuu to join.
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Mizuki's cheerfulness aside, this part of the story is significantly darker than the straight-up romance of the first season. It deals with different psychological issues, such as loss, death, facing one's own mortality, familial relationships among non-family members, and several others.
=== Tropes: The second season contains many tropes from the first; only those that differ should be listed. ===▼
{{tropelist|page=ef: A Tale of Melodies}}
▲
* [[Always Save the Girl]]: Heart-rendingly averted--twice. {{spoiler|Yuu can't seem to catch a break.}}
* [[Angst? What Angst?]]: {{spoiler|[[In-Universe]]: Mizuki's mother tried to strangle her, then drove the family car off a cliff into the ocean with everyone in it. As Mizuki sums it up:}}
{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Mizuki:'''}} ''Doesn't this kind of thing happen all the time? You couldn't call this kind of thing a scar!''}}
* {{spoiler|[[Babies Ever After]]: Tragically subverted. Yuuko gets pregnant and after some drama decides to give birth to the baby and everything is starting to look up... but then she gets hit by a car while only a few months pregnant and bleeds to death inside the church.}}
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* [[Dead Little Sister]]: Two of 'em, no less.
* [[Death Seeker]] ({{spoiler|Villainous example: Amamiya. After giving Yuuko a knife to kill him if she wanted, and trying to taunt Yuu into doing it, he finally dies after setting his house on fire.}})
* [[Demoted to Extra]]: The main high school students from the first season. While they're not entirely gone, most of the emphasis this time around is focused on Mizuki, Kuze, and Yuu.
* [[Did I Just Say That Out Loud?]]:
{{quote|'''Yuuko (to Yuu):''' ''Would you mind not speaking out portions of your internal monologue?''}}
* [[Domestic Abuse]]: {{spoiler|Amamiya regularly beats Yuuko. By the time this is revealed, she's become used to it to the point where she can list all the scars and bruises she's received as well as all the ways he's abused her. [[Tear Jerker|It's a long, long list.]]}}
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* [[Foreshadowing]]: Remember Hiro mentioning Nagi's weird friend that gave her the key to the roof? Yeah.
* [[The Gadfly]]: Just like his eventual [[Generation Xerox|spiritual successor]] Kyosuke, Shuuichi has a tendency towards provoking behavior.
* [[Generation Xerox]]: More like half generation, and they are not related, but Hiro and Yuu share many similarities during their high school life. Yuu is essentially a smarter Hiro who drastically devoted himself to studies rather than art because of the earthquake. They also share their relationship dynamics with Shuuichi/Kyosuke, Nagi/Kei, and Yuuko/Miyako, who also fill the same basic character archetypes as their counterparts.
* [[Genki Girl]]: Mizuki.
* [[Gone Mad From the Revelation]]: Seems to happen to Amamiya after he sees a sketch Yuu did of his younger sister Akane, who strongly resembles Amamiya's own little sister who also died in the same earthquake. He ends up killing himself via a fire after he's done painting.
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** [[The Other Wiki]] says it's canonically a form of neurosis. Of course, [[Did Not Do the Research|neurosis isn't fatal.]]
** In the game, it was an unidentified muscle disease. It was changed to neurosis in the anime.
* [[Stepford Smiler]] {{spoiler|Yuuko and Mizuki}} Less negative than most portrayals, this story seems to suggest that this behavior is actually a good way to keep your sanity after horrific trauma.
** {{spoiler|Mizuki}} is actually a subversion and [[Angst? What Angst?|coping just fine]], and {{spoiler|Yuu}} just thought she was one. {{spoiler|Probably because being one wouldn't be very strange since Yuuko taught her it was a good way to deal with things. She also picked up some mannerisms from Yuuko, causing people who knew Yuuko to compare them.}}
* [[Sympathy for the Devil]]: {{spoiler|Amamiya's death is presented fairly neutrally, or even as being somewhat sad despite, well, [[Moral Event Horizon|you know.]] It's strongly implied he committed suicide and suggested that he never truly hated Yuuko but simply could not cope.}} The reader is unlikely to agree, of course.
* [[Tomato Surprise]]: {{spoiler|There are two towns, one in Japan and the other in Australia.}}
* [[Trauma Conga Line]]: Happens to several characters this season, such as Kuze, Yuu, and especially Yuuko.
* [[Twelve-Episode Anime]]
* [[Twisted Christmas]]: Three of them!
* [[Victim Falls For Rapist]]: A complicated variation in the game: {{spoiler|Kuze assaults (but does not outright rape) Mizuki because she loves him and he reciprocates, so he wants to scare her away from him to protect her from a tragic experience.}}
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