Anime Review: Dream Eater Merry

You know at some point I really need to stop buying more games, cause right now I have way more games that I have time to play them. I really need to figure out some way to get me more free time to have fun the only way I know how. Anyway, This week I'm going to review Dream Eater Merry, an anime that really should have been more than just 13 episodes. What about Kaleido Star? Well about that... HEY LOOK A PUPPY!

In reality girls don't just fall from the sky, but in anime this happens every Thursday.

Yumeji has a unique power. By making a circle with his fingers and looking through it, he can see a spectrum of color surrounding people, indicating what kind of dream they will have. Though like most fortune tellers his accuracy isn't 100%, but there is one dream he never fails to predict: a Nightmare. Yumeji himself has been a victim to a constant nightmare where he is being assaulted by cats, but that all changes one day where he finds himself sucked into this nightmare while he is wide awake. There he meet the leader of the cats who torment him, A Dream Demon called The Chaser John Doe, who wants to take control over Yumeji's body so that he can leave the dream world and enter the real world. But before John Doe could take over Yumeji, another resident of the dream world, a girl named Merry Nightmare, saved him. For some reason Merry is trapped in the real world, and she will do anything and beat up anyone to find her way back. And so Yumeji offers a deal to Merry, he finds the Dream Demons and Merry sends them back home, both in an effort to protect the real world and to help Merry find her way back. Thus the story of Dream Eater Merry begins.

You should meet with Vash the Stampede, I'm sure you two would have a lot in common.

Dream Eater Merry is your typical Shonen anime. Lots of action, supernatural powers, and cheesy speeches about never giving up that sort of thing. But Dream Eater Merry holds these elements together well thanks to it's great cast of characters and unique set up for it's universe. The nature of the Dream World and Dream Demons is explained very early on and remains consistent throughout the series (well mostly consistent). But what really works is it's cast of characters, who both fall into standard archtype but have enough personality and presence to carry the show. Yumeji is your typical young boy who idolizes heroes, but he still a total dork when he is trying to be cool (often times being told his lines are made entirely out of cheese). Merry is a tough as nails tomboy but goes into a complete insatiable bliss every time she is even in near proximity to donuts. It's the combination of likeable characters and a unique but still well thought out and relate-able universe that helps Dream Eater Merry stand out from the crowd.

You'll poke someone's eye out with that thing.

Unfortunately, the series isn't without it's problems and there are some rather glaring problems here. First of all, the series seems to be way too short for the type of story they are telling. The later half of the series has two nearly separate story archs that are being told and by the end one of the two is completely forgotten about. It felt like the series was trying to cram two separate stories into a single space (which if you actually read the Manga that is pretty much what they did). There is also an element of tension that is held for over half the series; however, to an observant audience this tension is lax because an earlier episode relieved that tension and is never brought up. And lastly, some of the action scenes have awkward edits, sometimes it is enough to make the entire fight feel disorientating, as you can't tell what is going on half of the time.

In the end Dream Eater Merry is a fun series that really could have used another 13 episodes to finish out the story. I have started reading the Manga and it is clear that most of the problems it had was in the way that they chose to do the adaptation. It's not a bad series, it just feels unfinished. Like they where expecting another season but never got it. Dream Eater Merry comes recommended.

Until Next Time

-Crescent, wait is that a black mage?