Urban legends are quite popular in Japan, especially amongst high school students. However, in Japan they come in sets of seven, known as The Seven Mysteries. Supposedly every school has them and the school Niiya Teiichi goes to is no exception. While most of the mysteries vary from rumors of special places to simple ghost stories, The Seikyō Academy's mysteries all revolve around a ghost named Yuuko. One day, Teiichi finds himself face to face with the famous Yuuko. Along with Kanoe Kirie and Okonogi Momoe, they work to uncover Yuuko tragic past.
While I would like to say the anime is a devoted to the seven mysteries, I find it focused a bit more on the relationship between Yuuko and Teiichi. At best they cover five of the seven mysteries and don't really do a good job at explaining completely the relationship between them and Yuuko. Though I have to admit that they did a fairly good job at covering the main plot points.
Sixty years ago there was an epidemic that was killing off many of the townsfolk. The town elders, desperate to stop it from killing anymore people, decided that the best course of action was to offer a sacrifice to the shrine that they had built the original Seikyō Academy over. They believed that by doing so, it would appease the god's wrath that they may have incurred by building over the shrine in the first place. At the time Yuuko was just an average fifteen year old girl taking care of a friend, Asa, who had lost her family to the epidemic. Yuuko and her younger sister, Yukariko, over heard this plot to appease the local god and managed to escape the elders. Yuuko had thought it was best to keep Asa with her for safe keeping. Unfortunately she failed to do so. In the hopes of saving Asa, she ran to the school. She found Asa unharmed, but she was playing the role of Akahito. Akahito was a messenger for the local god and would take human sacrifices to the god. Upon hearing Yuuko's voice, Asa called out her name... and unwittingly brought Yuuko to death. The town elders grabbed Yuuko and threw he into the pit which housed the local shrine. The fall broke Yuuko's leg and she soon found herself sealed in the pit. As time passed, the candles that surrounded the shrine were snuffed out, and eventually, so was Yuuko's life. The next thing she knew she was in the storage room that leads to the pit where her body lies, with no memory of the misery she went through.
I don't mean to get off track with the anime, but here is some fun psychology for you. Ever heard of "dissociative disorders?" They are psychological disorders that involve a sudden loss of memory or change in identity. The one we're going to talk about is dissociative amnesia, which is extreme memory loss due to extensive psychological stress. What does this have to do with the story? As it would turn out Yuuko dissociated the memories of her suffering and what brought it on. Hence the name "Dusk Maiden of Amnesia." The second half of the anime is trying to get Yuuko to accept her severed half... her negative emotions and tragic past. Eventually she was able to accept her other half, but not before breaking Teiichi's leg...
With Yuuko reconciling with her other self, she can finally go onto the afterlife in peace... but not before a tear-jerking good-bye with Teiichi. When she had found peace with herself, she started to fade away, little by little. Eventually it gets to the point in which she can't even talk, leaving her to write out what she has to say... even then she has trouble keeping her grasp on the world. With one last kiss, she disappears.
Pretty good ending, right? Rather fitting for a Japanese anime, right? Sadly that isn't the true ending... The true ending has her come back to be with Teiichi. That's it. There isn't much to say about it, other then the fact I was disappointed in it. I was perfectly fine with her disappearing and all... and then they pulled that out of the hat... I rather not go on about the ending anymore.
I'm not sure what else I should add. I guess I can say this, there is nothing scarier then people blinded by fear and beliefs.
Well that is it for the anime. Go and read the manga! What has been translated anyways... I might do a review of that once it is complete.