OP song: The song is an average Japanese rock ballad. Nice visuals, establishes Merry's role.
ED song: Pretty average for the song and the visuals. The visuals in the OP song were better.
Voice acting: Top-notch voice-acting. Every seiyuu rightfully fits in his/her character and the display of emotions does not feel forced. Merry's dialogue is quite interesting too.
Background music: The background music is just epic. It is always present and manages to capture the mood. Very eclectic too, the instruments vary from violin to electric piano. You can really see here that the budget is quite impressive.
Animation and character designs: Gawd I just love the background design for the dream world. The creature designs as well as the animation sort of remind me of Studio Ghibli films such as spirited away and Princess Mononoke, and that is saying a lot, in a good way. The setting is well drawn too. You can really see that the background is intricately done. Even though the fighting scene was a bit lacklustre, I think, I hope, that this will improve in later episodes. I usually don't get all fluffy with moe characters but Merry's design is just so well made, especially when she was crying, and not to mention that that the animation is of high quality.
Characters: This is where the interesting part starts. Even though there are some cliché elements such as the protagonist having multiple love interests,one being his childhood friend-- a tsundere-- and another comes from a different dimension, none of these clichés feel too heavy and unbearable. The characters are rather sympathetic and the creatures are well done. I am happily surprised that Merry actually cried. I was not waiting for that at all because I though they would write her as a Tsundere. Not to mention that the antagonists are really fun to watch and the creators succeeded on creating this otherwordly and mysterious manners they have.
Story and pacing: Anime series regarding connections about dream and reality are always my favourites. Their atypical storyline interesting character study never ceases to amaze me. It is the same for this anime; yes some parts may seem cliché but they never feel, as I said, too unbearable. The caricatural representation of the antagonist is really well done because it lets us know that at this point that the creators are not aiming for a serious anime series but rather a light-hearted, fun albeit very creative and intriguing one. As for the pacing, it was neither fast nor slow, it was perfect. Not to mention that they managed to introduce a large cast of character in a single episode, quite well in fact.
While I continue to watch this?: Yes
