Yumemiru Danshi wa Genjitsushugisha

Let me start with where this review comes from. I can't stand the "will-they-won't-they" romcoms. What is this anime? Yes, a psuedo "will-they-won't-they" romcom. I also hate tsundere to my guts. Hell, they make my skin crawl. Who is the FMC? Yes, a damn tsundere. What do I hate even more than tsundere? Self-insert simp MCs. Who is the protag here? Yes, exactly, your avarage joe self-insert simp. So, as you can see this anime ticked all the checkboxes which could make any show a candidate for the "my most hated anime of the year" award. Why did I watch this then? Well, this summer ... season was so abysmal, I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Yet, I gave it a 6 and slapped a recommended tag on it. You may think, "it ain't much, but it's honest work", but you are wrong. I mean, most of the time I'm not finishing even the first episode of a romcom anime due to the unbearable second hand embarrassment. Yeah, they are painfully unfunny and cringe. So this 6 is actually a really high score from me.

Damn, finally a tsundere who is handled properly by the MC. Yes, exactly, the correct way of approaching them is to ignore them until they finally wrap their head around what the hell they want. If they didn't? Ohh, well... You didn't lose anything of a value. The cherry on the top is the fact, that our resident annoying tsundere barely had any screen time for a quite a few episode. It was refreshing to see the annoying tsundere moments are kept bare minimum. Sure, we don't really get to know why the MC is head over heels with this "fine" lass. I'm not sure even after the end, but who cares? I don't get most people taste anyway, so it is nothing new to me. Also, there is one more thing which caught me by surprise. There is only a single (or maybe 2) cockblocking scene here. I couldn't belive my eyes.

The animation is subpar though, but honestly I don't really care about how well a sprite resembling a girl is drawn in a romcom. I'm not here to fall in love with 2D girls. I would have been fine with some powerpoint slideshow. Although, some scenes really reminded me of that. Oh wait, I almost forgot... You most likely care about it. Well, it sucks, you are not gonna find the latest and greatest bouncing boob tecnhology here.

Instead, what you get is a genuinely intersting sidecast, simple lifelike problems, and a somewhat self-aware MC who improve on himself (not much though). The dialoges and the story didn't come from a Shakespearean drama, but it gets the job done. No pretentious bs, no excessive melodrama, just simple people with simple issues. Well, I really like the simplicity of this show. If I would have been looking for some complex psychoanalytical lectures I wouldn't have watched a romcom anyway.

At this point you may think, I'm just being sarcastic here. Well yeah, mostly, but I genuinely had a good time with this one. Ultimately though, this is just a crappy bland romcom. You get what you paid for. So basically nothing, but this one is a slightly bigger pile of nothing than the usual.

Imagine Oregairu with shittier writing and a 10th of the artistic and animation quality. That’s Yumemiru. Whether or not that appeals to you really depends on how much you like the witty/psycho-social analysis style of romcom.

This was truly a difficult one for me to rate because on one hand, I did actually enjoy the show for the most part. It started slow, but picked up after a few episodes and had some genuinely interesting social scenarios in which the MC found himself needing to help other people. But it’s frustrating because it squandered a lot of potential, was poorly paced and focused on some ... characters who ended up not even really mattering in the end.

The show is unapologetically inspired by Oregairu, even the OP is a direct parallel to Oregairu’s OP, literal frame for frame at some points. Wataru does feel like a poor man’s Hachiman and a lot of the archetypes from Oregairu are present in this story. It’s also got the same approach of someone who’s shut himself off from the world gradually opening up and learning about people by helping them with their own problems. Even though I hated Oregairu, I still recognise that it was objectively a very well written story. That same quality isn’t present here. At least, not in the anime.

So, in order to really explain what I mean by some of my criticisms I’ll have to give a very brief summation of the plot. You can read the MAL summary, but I’ll put it in simpler English. Loser essentially begs a girl to go out with him every day for a few months in middle school, gets rejected every time and they eventually settle as friends. They get to high school and he still pursues her but eventually she has a change of heart and starts liking him. Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine after reading that summary and I watched the damn anime. So yea, that’s the type of writing we’re working with here.

It wasn’t all bad though. Surprisingly, the other characters are actually pretty well written. The supporting girls are all better than the main girl, which is typical for me in romance shows, but it’s particularly pronounced in this. Now, I have been told that this isn’t as big a gap in the LN as it is in the anime, but I can only evaluate the show since I haven’t read yet. And in this, I could not for the life of me understand why the MC is into the FMC.

She’s abrasive, rude, self centred and really only shows interest in him when it seems like he stopped liking her. They did try to give us a “boo hoo my life was so sad so that’s why I’m a tsundere asshole” spill with the FMC, but again it just didn’t add up to the type of behaviour that she displays IMO. She just doesn’t get the sort of development she needs to get the audience to care.

Now as I said, the other girls are solid. They range from ok to legit waifu contenders(Shinomiya and Fuuka) I enjoyed seeing the MC help them with various issues they went thru over the course of the show which led to his development as well. That’s actually probably my favourite part of the show. We do see the MC make legitimate strides to better himself and by the end of the show he’s a solid dude. Each problem he solves feels realistic and has a tangible effect on him.

The other main issue I have with the show is the art and animation. The character designs are extremely generic, they’re basically the 2017-2023 anime design starter packs. From what I’ve seen of the LN art they really don’t do these characters any justice. There’s a few moments that are supposed to be somewhat serious that just don’t hit for me because of the lack of expressiveness from the character models. I’m not saying it has to be ufotable, but damn, I should at least be able to sense some sort of emotion coming from the characters.

Despite my criticisms of the series, I did enjoy stretches of it. It starts slow but really picks up once a few side characters are introduced and there’s some really enjoyable moments in this anime. If you can look past the shoddy animation and inconsistent pacing at the start, you’ll find a decent watch with a decently written main character. By the end of the show I was pretty excited for its release on Mondays, so yea, it’s a tricky one. I’d say give it a shot and see how you like it. It has some interesting ideas and I think it has the bones of a decent story.

Yumemiru gets 7 out of 10

5/10
In short:
Good setup ticked all the boxes that is need to be ticked for a decent psyhological romcom, could have been good i feel like if care was put into it. ChatGPT dialogue, weird animation, convoluted and compliacted characters. Story lines start up and go nowhere, bad message story-wise. I mostly watched it because tsundere interactions. Its mostly about a tsundere having stockholm syndrome towards her ex-simp.

In long:
The story's key points can be summarized in the initial episodes where the two main characters, or MCs, first interact. During this time, the girl begins to experience feelings of loneliness and sadness as the boy ... prepares to depart, leaving her to face the world on her own. As their interactions become less frequent, she gradually comes to realize just how significant he was in her life, acknowledging the profound impact he had on it. This early phase of the story stands out as one of its most poignant moments, even though the two MCs only cross paths two or maybe three times within each episode.

However, this touching connection is short-lived, as it quickly takes a different turn during the job arc. Here, the boy encounters two other girls and embarks on the journey of building his, let's say, extensive harem. During this time, he shares no meaningful interactions with the girl from earlier, and she, unfortunately, doesn't take any proactive steps to bridge the gap between them. In fact, the entire summer passes without them crossing paths, which is a significant departure from the essence of a romance anime, where the heart of the story typically revolves around the evolving relationship between two central characters.

This sudden shift in focus, as the boy's attention diverts to other characters, ultimately detracts from the core of the anime, leaving a noticeable absence of the romantic connection that initially drew viewers in.The standout character here is Sajo, the main protagonist. He doesn't fit the mold of the usual nerd or the enigmatic, attractive figure that appeals to every girl. Rather, he comes across as an ordinary guy who most people can identify with in some aspect, barring the fact that he has stalker tendencies, which I'll choose to overlook. As for the remaining characters, they tend to fade into the background, offering little of note and displaying rather unremarkable personalities.

The only reason, i dont go below 5/10 is because the final episode was very very good.