Yumekui Merry

[Kou]

Seinen manga YUMEKUI MERRY by Ushiki Yoshitaka.
Fantasy adventure.
High-school student Fujiwara Yumeji can see other people's dreams. One day, he meets Merry who had wandered from the "Dream World" into the "Real World". Who exactly is Merry? What is the Dream World and what are Nightmares? Why are the Nightmares entering the Real World? Yumeji and Merry begin their fight against the Nightmares.

Seiyuus: Okamoto Nobuhiko, Sakura Ayane, Kayano Ai, Endou Aya, Fujiwara Keiji, Nakata Jouji, Akiya Tomoko, Kawada Shinji.
Director: Yamauchi Shigeyasu (Dragon Ball Z movies, Casshern Sins)
Writer: Shirane Hideki (Bottle Fairy, Girl's High, Hayate!!).
Animation: JC Staff. Music: Oku Keiichi (Doremi, Ashita no Nadja). OP Fujiwara Marina, ED Sakura Ayane.


This reminds me of Shakugan no Shana in lots of way~

[shitotaku]

  Spoiler: Finished the 1st episode: 

At a first glance, and most notable scene (before the opening) is the clock tower that woke up a girl. in my opinion and based on my (low-profile kanji reading) the words in the clock tower as if forms back is "mon" or "gate"

Opening song | 9/10 - I'd say it's really great. you'd actually feel the song related to the anime. though I've seen some scenes that is commonly used in animation openings.

Directly after the opening, you'd see a guy in a deserted place with flying fish bones like flags, and guess what he was attacked by a white gloved |boot shinai wealding puss n' boots and his army of felines, chasing him for unknown reasons. he then was caught buy the kitty army, pinned into a black space in his back. soon I discovered that it was a dream by Yumeji stating "Although it doesn't hurt 'cause it's just a dream". just before black puss n' boots does anything, a coo-coo-bird rings, "a mark of a wake-up call"

Morning time, with the usual everyday school setting with a group of friends and a childhood friend... introducing Isara, Saki, and Akiyanagi (a guy who writes in one-stokes ;p) it was also introduced his ability to read everyone's dreams.

The rest was normal while watching, until Merry shows up falling from a tree, down to Yumeji (you numb dog!) Merry lost her hat goes around looking for it. until Yumeji picks it up in a shopping district where he got a dejavu, thus entering the dream world once again. Then the boss came up named "Chaser John Doe". equipped with an ominous mask to cover his face and a guillotine as his weapon. he chased Yumeji around. Yumeji realised that his mind and body has directly entered the dream world thus having pain and wounds.

There Chaser caught Yumeji in a pinch, having nothing but a guillotine in front of him making his resistance futile. until Merry shows up and gets her hat back, stopping Chaser and facing him in a fight.

Chaser underestimated Merry was defeated when Merry crushed Chaser's mask, Forcing him to leave into the dream world once again. The rest was too cute to say it in words ;p

Ending song | 7/10 - something you don't see in every anime, but not entirely unique or much to view. the music's nice to listen to.

Final bits: it was nice watching, a bit unique in some ways,

  Spoiler: Merry is really cute 

guess my enjoy factor was 8/10. +Ayane Sakura voiced Merry, it was similar to Kirino but she's got a whole new role. this might be her debut in the anime seiyuu industry.

[Kou]

I will correct my statement and say it is more like SnS + Soul Eater.

  Spoiler: episode 1 

Not a bad start. Average is the best word for it. Average production values, not the best J.C staff can come up with. There are some stills but the eyecandy and gorgeous backgrounds make up for it. The premise with the dream world part is what pull me into this series and it has potential if done right. Awesome cats i must say. Nothing can wrong with nekos~ As for characters, Merry and Chaser are very interesting. Still have to see how the male lead develops as he is still very passive.

Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s direction is so far really nice: timed well, understated, almost artsy in an unpretentious way. And the battle scene was economical but pretty exciting. Merry and her outfit, though… they’re built for fanservice, and he takes full advantage of it. I just like how everything felt natural and smooth even with the usual cliches. All in all , this can end up as a decent watch so i am sticking with this.

[Kou]

A built up episode.

  Spoiler: episode 2 

No wonder this show has weird camera angles, it is directed by the director of Casshern sins. I enjoyed this episode a lot even if it felt quite disjointed with some subplots appearing which I believe will come to make sense at the end.

This episode introduced a bunch of different new characters, including a childhood friend and her awesome father (Best father of the year?) , along with a bunch of other classmates and a girl who wants to be a nurse. I especially like the latter, as they show how many different dream creatures there can be: beyond just existing, they also can inspire people, creating “dreams” in the sense of long-term goals. Especially that scene in which her dream demon got eaten away was just beautiful to look at. This show has some of the best background art and character designs of the entire season. The dream sequences are still the best parts of the episodes, with atmosphere suddenly turned to overdrive, and being the only source of action, it possesses some of the more unique displays of animation.

Next episode should be interesting with a new dream demon.

[corocoro]

So far this is the surprise hit of the season, turning out to be quite interesting. I just hope they can keep it going until the end, would be a pity if they run out of steam.

[Kou]

Slow pace development episode.

  Spoiler: episode 3 

Yumekui Merry has incredibly beautiful and variant dream world settings, which will undoubtedly help spice up action sequences later on. It gives the added advantage of being able to vary depending on the character focus.

If this becomes an episodic series about various people and their dream demons, I won't mind one bit. The stories introduced so far have been intriguing and fascinating. However, considering what happened to the dream demon last episode and how this episode ended, I can easily see this headed towards an overarching plot, most likely an action-based story arc.

This episode also spent quite a bit of time on fleshing things out. I especially liked that Super Sentai Fortune Teller and his warning of overhead danger, and how this returned throughout the entire episode. There were a ton of other scenes which just slowly let the viewers get a grasp of who little girl in this episode, and also the side characters got a few nice scenes for themselves.

In this episode, Yumeji also gave his best performance so far. And I mean, this guy still needs some sort of backstory and all, but I liked his wit in this episode, and he worked together very nicely with Merry and Minato.

Next week should be most interesting. Episodes that bear the show's title usually are.

[Kou]

Another slow episode~

  Spoiler: episode 4 

More monster of the week stuff.Actually, the story itself was kind of good. The unfortunate thing was that because this was so monster of the week and there had been no focus or development of the club pres. or that Muuma, it wasn't as good as it could have been. There is no emotional attachment to either character, making it hard to care about these two. I liked this week's Muuma's design though.

Merry and Yumeji are starting to work as a team, and she's even taking the "Dream-Eater" name in stride, even if it is a little inaccurate. That entry through the dream church window was pretty wicked, and it was nice to see the Lit Club get a little more focus. Also nice to see Merry in a maid outfit, and with her presence on campus, Yumeji's worlds are starting to intersect.

The preview next week made it look like Merry finds out the truth about what she's been actually doing. Looked liked the truth is disturbing.

[corocoro]

The literature club didn't get much focus until the fourth episode, so at first I had to reorient myself about who is who.

[Kou]

Same case here. I heard that the manga gets better latter so I hope the anime will do the same.

[Kou]

Serious business episode.

  Spoiler: episode 5 

Probably the best episode so far with the most involved fight scene in the series. Merry's fights up to this point have mostly been short and not in very close combat. To see her go head to head with Engi was really exhilarating.

I can't help but notice how distint the character designs are, especially Engi's. Every character is filled with solid, vibrant colors and stark shading, with some great clothes to match. The way Yui's eyes glowed when Engi was searching for Dream Demons was very slick. The stylized characters and slick animation probably are what attracts me to this series. Everything is so vibrant.

An interesting revelation that Merry has actually been killing Dream Demons instead of sending them back to the Dream World. I figured there would have to be a catch: peacefully fighting the demons seemed too perfect. I have to wonder how this is going to affect her. On the one hand, it allows for Merry to develop. On the other, we might stop seeing cool Dream World fights. On a side note, I'm assuming that Engi killed Serio back in episode two.

Yumeji's speech kinda reminds me of Touma xD.