Animation wise, Yumekui Merry had an interesting approach during the dream segments for the first few episodes. I was really intrigued. The watercolor approach worked well for the series and the character designs were charming. The show was full of stills (meaning no movement or very minimal amounts kind of like a slideshow), but hey they were at least pretty stills. Sort of. Then the art lost all its style at the end. Gone were the interesting art choices and the art became inconsistent during the last few episodes. Misty’s face during the last episode comes to mind.
The OP/ED were good. The ED animations were nice. It had some dang midriff. I like me some midriff. The soundtrack was glaring. It was an awful strange choice to choose orchestra music for the more intense fight scenes. I don’t know... it felt really out of place. I mean come on. Why would you put bassoons in a fight scene? The voice acting was okay. Nothing to complain there. Merry's VA is totally new and it was her debut role. And Okamoto Nobuhiko always makes me go crazy as Yumeji. (Okamoto is personally one of my favorite voice actors, so I'm biased.)
The plot is where everything falls apart though. You’re lead into the first episode with a dream demon who can survive in the human world. Wonderful. Our main character has the power to see what people will be dreaming the next night by making a circle with his fingers. Uh weird, but uh interesting. Throughout the first half it was really formulaic. I mean it was basically fight dream demons and send them back to the dreammmm world. It gets boring. So the anime studio then decides that during the second half the plot gets more of a direction, but loses all plans to keep a coherent plot. The ending was awful. Things are developed, but never really mentioned again. Kawanami's character, John Doe, and that one dude that got possessed by a dream demon. And some nonsensical things happen as well. (Yui playing her invisible trumpet comes to mind. What the heck? Why? Did she bump her head? Did she suddenly decide that she was in a band? Is she the one playing the dang bassoon. Dang it Yui. Dang it.)
Mistletine was a good evil villain. Her back story was basically that she likes to be evil and does evil things. Alright, that’s fine. There’s just one thing I have on her. And that is that Misty (Mistletine) has a severe case of ADD. She's fighting the heroes of the anime and then she just gets up and leaves them, so she can enjoy them next episode? What? Why? That makes no sense? Did she get bored? Did she get tired? No, it looked like she had enough energy to insult them. Why? Oh yeah. It’s not the last episode. We can’t have you guys finish each other off till the last episode. Silly me. That’s a perfectly reasonable answer.
Also the teacher (Who I can’t remember his name for some reason. And all I remember about him was that he wears the ugliest striped pants I’ve ever seen.) was kind of bleh. I do like his facially expressions though. They were hawt. Kawanami was the worst character in the series. She felt soooo tacked on. Was her only purpose in the story was so Isana could make friends? Isana has plenty of friends. She has Merry and she has her brother. Well, I guess that isn't much, but still. Kawanami was an anime-original character (same with stripped pants sensei and Misty) but she felt like she had no purpose in the plot. JCSTAFF WE NEED SOME FOCUS IF YOU ARE GOING TO INTRODUCE ANIME-ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.
I mean having an anime-original plot is fine if you do a good job with it. Having anime-original character is fine if you develop them well, but JCStaff didn't. Did JCStaff suddenly decide that the manga wasn’t good enough? If it wasn’t good enough, then why did they choose to adapt this series? I like John Doe. (John Doooooo) I seriously do. I like his name. I especially love how the other characters call him John Dooooo when his named is spelled John Doe. He was cool. Too bad he like totally disappeared, so the anime-original characters can appear.
I feel like there is so much wasted potential here, plot holes, useless anime-original characters, inconsistent art, and Yui playing her imaginary trumpet. I do feel that there are a few good parts in this show, but there are far too few in a sea of bleh. As in my case it’s very hard to recommend this anime. It might be good, maybe, after in taking some alcohol. But whatever. It’s done. JCStaff please do a good job on your next series. I don’t want to see no anime-original characters or plot, unless you can develop them properly, and I definitely don’t want to see your next main character play an imaginary trumpet.
* Nothing is as frustrating as writing a review twice; due to my laptop crashing down right when I click submit. Review is also on AnimeNfo.com
