Yumekui Merry

Alternate Titles: Dream Eater Merry

Original Japanese Release Date: 2011

Episode Length/Run-time: 13 Episodes

Summary:

Fujiwara, a stereotypical good-hearted yet slightly oblivious high school boy, possesses the ability to see people’s “Dream-auras,” a colored haze surrounding a person which indicates the type of dream which they will have.  One day he meets Merry, a dream demon who is looking for a way to get home.  They end up teaming up as Merry enters his daydream and saves him from his own dream demon who was seeking to possess his body and enter into the human world.  The effort to return Merry home soon becomes locked in struggle against the dream demon Engi, who seeks to destroy others.

Review:

Dream Eater Merry is based off a manga which began back in 2008. It currently has 6 volumes and is still ongoing.  As a result the series suffers heavily from two main things.  One, operating from a story that has yet to reach a conclusion and likely won’t for some time (like a FMA versus Brotherhood situation).  And Two, as a byproduct of one, being far too short.

This anime is one that could have easily been great.

The animation alone is a notch above the rest, even among modern animation standards.  Everything flows smoothly and fight sequences are animated flawlessly.  But high-gloss colors and quality movement is a dime-a-dozen now a days.  What really takes Yumekui Merry above and beyond is the camera angels.  Shot like a high-quality cinematic film the angle for the images is used in both artistic and creative ways.  The style of art is a cross between dream-like and surreal.  Painting an astounding picture of each original dreamscape.

What further improves the atmosphere is the music.  Dreamlike, whimsical, and sometimes haunting the music of this show is fantastic.  A perfect example of how you don’t need a full blasting orchestra to create fitting and evoking music.

So right now, this anime is at a 5/5. Unfortunately, it was doomed to failure from the beginning.

The anime, as mentioned before, is only 13 episodes long.  This is not nearly long enough for this series.  The first arc focuses on establishing Merry and Fujiwara’s relationship and overcoming his demons.  Now about one third of the way through the series the focus shifts to returning Merry back to the dreamland.  In comes a slew of interesting characters and dream demons, a number of battles, and a thickening plot.  Each character begins to get fleshed out with decent back story and elaboration on the important parts.  Some more would’ve been nice and had it been longer we would’ve had the chance, but we didn’t.  Then around episodes 9 and 10 the creators went “oh shit, we have to finish this” and employed an arc that wasn’t even in the original manga.  As a result the story seems to jump from this careful development phase to a thrown together ending which feels forced and awkward, despite answering the necessary questions.

The premise of the story is cool, really cool, this connection between dreams and reality.  But the fact is they execute it poorly.  They don’t have nearly enough time to both set up this elaborate world, flush out the characters, and unravel the plot before the ending is upon the series.  As a result, it’s just about average.