Anime Hajime Review: Yumekui Merry

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Yumekui Merry. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

Yumeji Fujiwara (voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto) has a unique ability. He’s able to predict, with decent accuracy, what kind of dream a person will have any given night. Yet there’s one outcome he’s never failed to misinterpret. If a night would bring a nightmare.

Unbeknownst to Yumeji, the dream world is more connected to reality than one might think. And out of what seemed to be pure chance, he learned how deep that connection goes.

One day, Yumeji meets a strange girl named Merry Nightmare (voiced by Ayane Sakura). She claims to have come from the dream world and is searching for a way back. In fact, inhabitants of the dream world are all over the place. Known as dream demons, they attach themselves to a human vessel. Merry is unusual since she can exist in reality without a vessel.

With their unique set of skills, Yumeji and Merry form a powerful duo. As they look for a way to get Merry home, they run across a sinister development. For you see, there are some dream demons who wish to make the dream world and reality one in the same.

Series Positives

I almost had a good time with this one. There were things about this show which were fine. Some things were even better than that.

Yumekui Merry wasn’t a bad idea. It was, however, an underdeveloped one.

Yumeji

In the areas where this series focused, it did them well. Unfortunately, that focus was a little misplaced. Yet this did allow for solid moments. So sometimes there were things to get excited about. Sometimes the show got intense. Sometimes it was entertaining. Sometimes this was an okay show.

Merry

Too bad “sometimes” wasn’t “most of the time”. Most of the time, Yumekui Merry was boring.

Take the animation for example. It was alright in the majority. On occasion, way too dark. And I’m not talking about tone. No, there were points, particularly in the beginning, where it was hard to see the action. But other than that, it was decent.

Except this was a show centered on dreams and the dream world. Whenever Yumeji saw when a person was about to have a nightmare, it was unsettling. That and it was a fantastic way to say what was going on without saying anything. A concept this show did seem to understand.

Often characters would remain silent. They let their emotions, actions, and reactions do the work.

I say, “seemed to understand” because this show almost never committed to it. This series would ruin commendable visual storytelling. All because someone had to open their mouth. This was frustrating since it was so close so often. But it could pull it off.

When we got to the dream world, that was when the animation was at its strongest. Yumekui Merry had great moments of style. The imagery was striking. Locations were unique. The action was fluid and big. Everything picked up at these points.

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine yourself at the top of a hill with your bike. It was tiring to get there. But there was a purpose behind the struggle. The ride down. It’s fast, exhilarating, and a ton of fun. It makes you almost forget how hard it was to get to this point.

Plus, if you manage to pick up enough momentum, there’s a chance of carrying the next hill without much effort.

This was the dream world of Yumekui Merry. It rode that bike down and up. But again, only sometimes. To finish the analogy, this series had a lot of hills to climb.

There were aspects that helped, though.

Music and Atmosphere

Yumekui Merry had an effective atmosphere. Which had everything to do with the soundtrack. A soundtrack that did its job and did it well.

Am I going to rush out to buy it? No, it wasn’t that memorable. Yet it did create great tone. Nowhere more so than when the story wanted to go intense.

This could be before a fight, during a fight, or whenever revelations were happening. Even when Yumekui Merry was at its lowest, the music had a way of grabbing you back. And the atmosphere it conjured kept you invested.

It was amazing how much weight got added to scenes that otherwise wouldn’t have been that special. The circumstances of an encounter weren’t doing much to set the feel. But the music sure did.

In fact, it was a combination of the music and atmosphere that gave this series two decent villains. To start, they were pricks and you want to see them get humiliated. This isn’t hard to accomplish. If a series only has someone do jerky things, that’s enough to make this happen.

Whenever the villains were on screen in Yumekui Merry there was a tangible sense of dread. The stakes in each fight were “real”. I put that in quotes because what the villains were trying to do was bad. Except there was an easy out for the heroes to take. And by “an” easy out, I mean to say there were several. The heroes’ handling of this is a discussion for later. As for the villains, they were causing problems.

This was all a byproduct of nailing the atmosphere. Which, led to an outstanding build-up to the show’s climax. Up to that point, Yumekui Merry only had quick bursts of excitement. And what it did have was sparse. Yet this series did manage to find a stride. A strong one at that.

Granted, I was more interested in the final fight itself. Not so much on why it was going to occur. That’s because it could’ve been avoided. An outcome that would’ve meant a much bigger defeat to the villains.

Yumeji and Merry

These two made a pretty good team. The series was easier to stick with when it was Yumeji and Merry together.

“Together” is the key word.

By themselves, they were like everyone else. Flat and uninteresting. They needed something to do. As well as someone to play off of. Whether in a fight or not, Yumeji and Merry were always better as a duo. Through each other, their best qualities came out.

Merry was a dependable fighter. She recognized her opponents tended to underestimate her. She didn't mind using that to her advantage. She was a small package that could deliver a devastating blow. And that was only her standard performance. There was one instance when she demonstrated what her true power entailed. Emphasis on the “one” in that sentence.

Plus, despite what she said, Merry did care for other’s well-being. Fighting was the last resort if she knew the result meant the risk of hurting an innocent party. She took care to ensure the people she loved were out of danger before letting lose.

For Yumeji, he was always aware of what was taking place at the moment. He knew when it was time to ask questions and when he needed to act. He also accepted the reality. There were times when it was better for him not to fight. If he would end up being in the way, he made sure to say out of the way.

Yet if he needed to do something, Yumeji would do something. He never hesitated to take a hit for someone. If he was the only left who was able to act, he wouldn’t stop until the job got done. Even if the odds were away out of his favor.

For out leads, these traits wouldn’t have come out on their own. Merry and Yumeji complemented each other. Together they managed to do the impossible because they had the other’s back.

Series Negatives

That Positives section may be representing a false reality. I need to stress how few and far between the exciting and fun times were. Yumekui Merry was, to its core, dull. As I said in the beginning, this show had misguided focus.

The series may have been well animated. But the story was lacking. Fights were cool. Except almost all of them played out the same way. The one face-off the heroes lost only served as a catalyst for the climax.

“How is that a problem,” you may be thinking to yourself. After all, I did say the lead-up to the final battle was good. And yes, it was.

The makings of an awesome series were playing out. All it had to do was bring it home. This was shaping up to be Yumekui Merry’s chance to make up for the blandness. This would’ve been the thing that made this show worth recommending.

Want to know what happened instead? The climax kept going. And going. And going. This ending dragged on.

I’m not sure why either. It wasn’t like I was wondering what the outcome would be. All I wanted was for Merry and Yumeji to wipe the smugness off the villain's faces. Which we kind of got.

Except not with the character who deserved it the most.

Not to mention Merry possessed devastating power. We saw her tap into it earlier. She only needed an excuse to unleash it again. She never did.

So not only was this ending way too long, it wasn’t satisfying either.

While disappointing, I can’t say this was anything new. It actually par for the course.

The Characters

Every character was made to feel important. Most weren’t.

For a while, this series operated under a new antagonist per episode model. That meant that someone new would come by for Merry and Yumeji to help. Considering how much we learned about these random additions, you would’ve thought they were permanent additions. They weren't. The problem would get resolved and we’d almost never see these characters again.

All the while, actual core members would appear late and without any reason. Well that, or someone was implied to be the evil.

There were like five different people in the running for the main villain at one point. It was never subtle either. This series was very heavy handed while doing this. It took away any shock value there could’ve been.

This brings up another problem. A few of the characters who got this treatment weren’t important to the story at all. So, they were nothing but a huge waste of time. Yet I couldn’t help feeling these people had some role to play. It turns out I was right.

These characters were prominent in the manga. A manga that’s still going. Perhaps the anime was setting up a second season. A poor call there. At the time of this review, it’s been six years since the final episode.

I don’t think a second season is going to happen.

If one did come, maybe it can explain Yumekui Merry’s most confusing point.

Plot Holes, Incompetence, or Both

According to the show, it was bad for someone’s dream demon to die. When that happened, a person’s dreams and motivation went away. They became a husk of their former self.

This posed an issue since some dream demons didn’t have a person’s best interest in mind. Thus, it was harmful if the demon stuck around. Too bad Merry and Yumeji couldn't kill these demons, due to what would happen to the host.

Also, there was an assumption that demons couldn’t return to the dream world.

This posed another serious dilemma for Merry and Yumeji. Except it didn’t and they should’ve known better.

There was an instance where Merry and Yumeji did defeat a dream demon. A dream demon with a human host. When this happened, there should’ve been one of two possible consequences.

One, the demon returned to the dream world. Not a likely scenario since demons, supposedly, couldn’t do that. Unless Merry was the only one capable of pulling this off. If that were true, it would’ve made fighting all later dream demons easier.

Let’s choose to not accept that as fact. That then leaves us with the second consequence. Merry and Yumeji killed the demon. That shouldn't have been possible either. For you see, the human host didn’t lose their dream. They didn’t lose their motivation. In fact, they gained a dream. They gained motivation. They grew stronger after the defeat of the demon.

And the human host was one of the rare characters that did appear again in the show. Merry and Yumeji interacted with this person all the time.

Something’s not right.

If demons could return to the dream world, then Merry and Yumeji were idiots and quick to forget things. Or, perhaps defeating a demon wasn’t a for sure death sentence for the host. That would mean the show’s self-made explanation was complete bull. I’m leaning towards the latter.

Final Thoughts

I’ve already said it. Yumekui Merry was an underdeveloped idea.

This series put way too much effort into making everything look nice. By doing so, it ignored some of the more key features. Like giving us characters to like. Or making a story that made sense.

There was a point where I almost convinced myself to give this one a recommendation. The beginning wasn’t great. But it no doubt picked up a bit. If only the ending had delivered, then I would’ve pulled the trigger. However, much like the rest of the series, it couldn’t quite get there.

Yumekui Merry isn’t worth the time.

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