If you’re looking for eye candy, then this is an excellent recommendation. Yumekui Merry is a piece of art, with some of the most artistic direction. Jut about every camera angle is interesting and dedicated to make its cast stand out. Every single background drawing is utterly gorgeous. With a rock-solid that brings a ton of life into the cast, this is a great show to watch, though it has its problems.
Shigeyasu Yamauchi‘s influence is all over this series. The camera-angles, the timing, the intonation, all is very carefully planned out really put some emotions behind them, and the animators and artists only back this up. If anything, this show is immersive and a terrific example of what can be done with the animation medium.
The bugs in this show are in the story. Most notably in how it’s way too short for 13 episodes and it failed to really understand what that means. In the first half we get a very interesting series that questions the nature of dreams, what would happen if they were taken hostage and the main characters are put on a wonderfully gray moral scale.
In the second half, though, the creators realized that the manga that this series is based on is in no way going to fit in 13 episodes and that there wasn’t going to come a sequel. They then try to wrap this show up with their own story arc that fails to wrap up anything, has a bad one-sided villain that doesn’t allow the story to go anywhere and specifically seeks out cliches, even when it has to resort to Deus ex Machina to get there. The delivery is still as good as ever, but the story that the second half of this series is trying to tell is just… unimpressive. It reduces a complex moral question back to cliches.
do bother to check out the first half if you have the time, though. It’s a wonderful little series with excellent characterization. It’s always nice to see Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s unique style of directing, but I do wish that he had been put on a story that… actually had the potential to show itself off. The big victim of this syndrome for the next season will be Deadman Wonderland. Seriously, don’t screw up yet again on a flaw that has struck so many series by now! It’s really getting annoying seeing so many shows end without ever getting to their potential.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – Excellent timing and atmosphere, but loses points for the lazy way in which it tries to wrap itself up in its second half, especially with one heck of a deus ex machina ending that could have easily been avoided. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – Excellent characterization, and really well animated. A few cliches here and there holding them back, though. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – A visual feast. Period. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – A very interesting premise, however the second half doesn’t use it as well as it should have been used. |
Suggestions:
– Digimon Movie 3 – The Golden Digimentals
– Casshern Sins
I know I’m stating the obvious here, but the manga is a lot better than this particular adaptation.
To be honest though, I’ve never understood the trend of adapting ongoing series into 13 or even 26 episode series that don’t do justice to the original material. Is it done for financial reasons? Promotional ones?
Well, one fo the big reasons to do so is indeed for promotional purposes: the production of an anime also leads to much more people buying the manga.
I’m much more negative about this adaptation, I loved the manga yet I understood they hadn’t too much source material too begin with but still I found the original content rushed and uninspired. They formally introduced the antagonist and “rivals” 3 episodes before the ending; It was almost impossible to feel any sympathy for them. Yumeji’s character was much more agonizing than in the manga (that is one of the series strongest points in my opinion). Another big flaw was the music: I kinda understand they tried to give a dreamlike feeling to the score but the result was anticlimactic and rather dull. I feel that if they ended the series with the fight against Noir and Landsbrough maybe it would have been just as ambiguous but it sure wouldn’t have been such a train-wreck.
Talking about Deadman’s Wonderland, that series is almost finished manga wise, unless what seems like a final arc isn’t actually one…
for deadman wonderland, i think they’ll have enough material to wrap it up nicely even if, like maskedguy mentioned, what seems like the final arc in the manga isn’t actually the final one.
Once we debated how a good conversion should have been. It was in some old Letter Bee comment. Well here a good use of anime-only stuff that does not go in the way of the original storyline.
Knowing it was impossible to shrink all in 13 episodes, they simply did the introduction as well as the reference manga and then added this anime only arc just for (temporary) closure.
Of course you can’t expect to clear all the holes with that, so a second season would be needed. If they will do that, you’ll se how many ‘deus-ex-machina’ elements aren’t really there, but are simply elements took from the original storyline that are to be explained yet.
WAAAAY too high of a rating. After the first half this show sucked. Just sucked. Important plotlines were abandoned in favor of a over-the-top bullshit villain and just downright stupid writing. And then went back and read the manga and it was a double slap in the face because it is so superior to the adaptation.
I am getting so sick of JC staff shitting all-over solid manga and light novels with nonsensical filler and side stories. See ZnT, Shana, Index for adaptations they’ve failed at by injecting un-needed BS.
It’s just bad and stupid. Don’t watch this crap if you haven’t already seen it.
Didn’t Merry go nuts and unleashed some strange power when she fought Play? I was at least expecting an explanation and the only logical way for Merry to beat Mistletein, we all know that Merry isn’t a normal dream daemon from the start. My lame guess is that she is part human and part daemon.
Didn’t Merry go nuts and unleashed some strange power when she fought Play? I was at least expecting an explanation and the only logical way for Merry to beat Mistletein, we all know that Merry isn’t a normal dream daemon from the start. My lame guess is that she is part human and part daemon.
I’d also have to say you really over rated the show. No amount of eye candy can make up for a seriously poor story.
I found this anime unwatchable. A real shame too since the first episode was very interesting. It did not follow up on what it started and the lack of a good story made the rest of the episodes end up going nowhere.
@8, yeah I thought so too. It seemed like Merry wasn’t even trying in the battles after she fought Play. She just would jump around a lot and scream.
I think the director himself understood the flaws you pointed out, Psgels.
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