Interestingly, this episode showed that this show can be quite good at slice of life. A lot of this episode featured just random stuff as going to a karaoke bar, or characters randomly talking to each other. What makes these random scenes so good in this show is that they always manage to relate it back to the characters and themes, so that none of it is really pointless. It’s also good to have these kinds of scenes, as the characters of Merry were in dire need of some more variation in their personalities, and this episode gave it to them.
Another thing that I just realized that this show is very good at is keeping its random stories short but sweet. I mean, this show spends a lot of time on its main characters, considering how they also need to flesh out a random character each episode, and yet they consistently do this right so far. At the start it seems simple, and not very interesting, but during the action scenes at the last quarter of the episodes things come together quite nicely. The story in this episode had a villain who was very nicely in the gray scale between good and evil: he was simply a lost dream who didn’t know what was going on either, and for the heck of it decided to take control of the girl he came into contract with.
It’s also clever of the creators in the Karaoke scene, where Merry noted that an awful amount of songs were about hope and dreams. Now that they mention it, that is surprisingly true. ^^;
Finally, I like how the terms of this series are really vague: first we had dreams in this series that could both be the strange things that happen to you while you sleep and your hopes and goals for the future. Now this episode comes and gives multiple meanings to sending someone back. Merry just uses it an expression when she gets rid of another Numa that invaded the real world, but the Numa in this episode seemed to believe that she could actually send people back to the world in which they came from.
Still… what was up with that maid outfit?
Rating: ** (Excellent)
“Still… what was up with that maid outfit?”
The dad is not all “there”, if you haven’t noticed.
Yeah, I find it weird how most generic opening songs(mostly for shounen) always mention stuff like “heart” and so .-.
What worries me is MAL lists this as having 13 episodes… So even if we get an actual plot it will just be 6 eps? Baaaah what a waste… Casshern was awesome because the plot picked up in the 2nd half, but if this is nothing but an episodic series it will be a huge disappointment
This is produced by J.C. Stuff so there is a big possibility for this to get S2.
BTW, I just checked on Wikipedia and… Yumekui Merry manga is targeted at Seinen audience?! I always thought this was more of a Shounen but maybe later plot is more Seinenish? Hopefully the aniem will accelerate teh scanlation of the manga so I can check the original source later because right now, this is my favourite show this season (tough critically I’d say Level E is the best from what I watch).
Was it really necessary to kill/send back Chris? I mean he really wasn’t doing anything bad and Mei didn’t seem to really dislike him either. Does Yumeji just have a grudge against Numa?
Well, he was already beaten when w came to a conclusion that it maybe wasn’t necessary. Not to mention that he DID hurt the girl.
Agreed Frost, similar to Casshern I’m really enjoying this and the story is really intriguing but there’s no way they could do a story this interesting and keep the mood and style of storytelling they’ve got going if they intend to finish this in merely 13 episodes, so I hope that this is getting more episodes beyond winter season.
Luckily, this has nothing to do with Casshern. And, moreover this show doesn’t develop by the mean of short but sweet random stories: They all are part of an introduction. They show the settings as a recollection of broken dreams.
You’d also notice how there are at least three nightmares that are recurring chars here, together with Yumeji. One is obviously Merry, but what about the other two?
I couldn’t help but spoil myself with the manga, and having read a little ahead, and given they hopefully wouldn’t screw from the manga plotline, things will end being tied pretty soon.