Mnemosyne - Episode 4

Mnemosyne is one of those series that has shown off some interesting concepts thus far, but not always managed to deliver on them. It has, however, seemed to slowly improve with each episode, and with this in mind episode four has proved to be the best of the bunch thus far.

This instalment of the series fast forwards us further into the future - 2025 to be precise, and a world where the Internet (known as 2.0 - have I mentioned how much I hate the phrase Web 2.0 before?) is becoming so immersive that many people have become what is known as 1.5, that is alive in the real world but totally attached to the virtual one. People addicted to the Internet, who would have thought?

Anyway, the story begins with a good old-fashioned bout of graphic cybersex between a real-life guy named Teruki and an Internet idol known as Ruon. After inviting her to see him in the real world, nobody is more surprised when this actually happens, with Teruki witnessing her murder just moments later. Or does he? From here on in, we learn a little about Teruki's genealogy, and find out the truth about Ruon and her own origins.

Despite being filled with hacking and cyberspace references, I don't think Ghost in the Shell will be losing sleep any time soon after seeing Mnemosyne's relatively clumsy attempts are showing and predicting the Internet of the future. However, despite all that, the overall story is well paced (aside from a few confusing moments) and actually really rather enjoyable, eschewing a lot of the focus on angels and all that nonsense in favour of some good old-fashioned mystery and the like.

Overall, the one thing that has impressed me about Mnemosyne is the way that each episode has jumped forward in time, leaving our ageless immortal protagonists intact while seeing those around them age, wither and die, which makes for an interesting take on the show at times. That aside, there's plenty of blood, gore and sex on show again here if that floats your boat (some of it pretty unnecessary to be honest), and some particularly nasty 'deaths' for Rin this time around, none of which really distracts from a pretty decent forty-five minutes of entertainment. It's still no classic, but the series' improvement over each episode so far should at least be commended.