Dream Eater Merry – Anime Review

Hanabee Entertainment is the newest anime distributor in Australia, and despite not having even opened their official website yet dived into their first releases as a company. The first releases, totaling three included the first collection of Toradora, The Best Red vs. Blue DVD Ever of all Time (The Red vs. Blue series being a big draw of theirs during earlier conventions) and finally this series… Dream Eater Merry. How did the series fare overall? Was it a good choice to be part of the company’s first ever release slate? Read this review to find out.

Storyline

Dream Eater Merry was an ambitious series with an interesting concept behind it and potentially a lot of backstory / plotlines which they could have delved into. The series follows Yumeji Fujiwara, your typical male protagonist with the ability to predict the dreams someone would have and more interestingly… able to enter into the dreams and “daydreams” of individuals. Yumeji suffers from his own recurring dream involving an army of cats and a dream demon by the name of “John Doe”.

About to be possessed, he is rescued by a mysterious girl named Merry who is a Dream Demon herself. Unlike those who seek access to the human world, she is trapped there and desires to return – a task Yumeji desires to see fulfilled. As the storyline progresses, Merry and Yumeji face against other dream demons and uncover further mysteries behind Dream Demons and the “antagonists” which puts the fate of humans at risk – through several different means.

The relationship between the two of them proves quite interesting, especially when it comes to many of Merry’s quirks and both generally have likable personalities. Outside those two the series does come with a rather sizable character cast who range in importance from two additional pairs of Human Vessels / Dream Demons to a number of side characters who pop into the series now and again. While I feel the series did quite well on developing characters who appeared in a single episode, those who are recurring secondary characters didn’t get that adequate level of development and left me wondering if there was more about them I was not being shown.

Dream Eater Merry comes with what I feel is an interesting concept that used well could result in a great series. Unfortunately, while I am uncertain of what is contained in the source manga it felt that they didn’t have enough episodes to work with or they didn’t effectively use each episode. Dream Eater Merry is filled with concepts that they begin building upon and either never resolve or come back to while other content just felt like filler. It felt like they were just hinting towards other plot points from the source material which of course is not available in English at this moment in time. While it did not keep it from being a good anime series, it did keep it from being an excellent one.

Design

The design and visual quality of Dream Eater Merry is overall of a pretty good standard. The overall aesthetic suits a series of this theme, from the often darker and more mysterious landscapes of the dream world to the more realistic surroundings of the ‘human world’. While quality still does vary, they are for the most part well detailed and help contribute to the intended mood of the scene. In terms of character designs, Merry easily remains the highlight from her unique apparel to interesting emotions and actions. The quality differs between the other characters but overall does a solid job.

Music / Voice Acting

Dream Eater Merry comes with a single Opening Sequence/Theme “Daydream Syndrome” by Marina Fujiwara and a single Ending Sequence “Yume to Kibō to Ashita no Atashi by Ayane Sakura“. Both of the sequences are overall pretty enjoyable to listen to and the opening sequence provides sufficient animation to complement its respective song. The rest of the series backing soundtrack complements the respective scenes well and offers a decent variety of tracks.

The English dub of this series in my opinion is pretty good, although this is one that will come down to personal preference. Hanabee is following the trend of Siren Visual by automatically selecting the Japanese dub over the English one, so be sure to change your selection in the ‘Setup’ menu if you want to listen to the English dub. The main characters Merry and Yumeji were voiced by Hilary Haag (Fuuko Ibuki – Clannad) and Blake Shepard (Yuzuru Otanashi – Angel Beats) respectively while other voice roles were provided by Brittney Karbowski, Luci Christian and Melissa Davis to name a few. All of them did a pretty good job in my opinion so I could recommend either dub.

Extra Content

The only bonus content included in this release were clean opening and ending sequences for the series which seems to be on par with the North American release, along with additional trailers for current and upcoming Hanabee Entertainment releases Toradora, Arakawa Under the Bridge and Bodacious Space Pirates.

If I could critique one slight issue it would be the packaging.. While it looks pretty good overall, the decision to have pink descriptive text on an already pink background made it difficult to read – a problem for people who pick up the DVD off a store shelf and want to know about the show. This was a trend Hanabee carried over to their release of Toradora albeit easier to read thanks to bigger text and a lighter pink background.

Final Word

While the Dream Eater Merry anime might not be a series I would personally include in my first set of releases, aside from a couple of issues it proved to be an interesting anime series and was one I am glad was picked up for the Aussie market. I went in not knowing much about the series, and overall thought it delivered a creative concept and was one I would love to read the manga version of down the track or even see another season of somewhere down the track.

Final Score
Storyline / Character Development: B-
Design: A-
Music/Voice Acting: A-
Extra Content: C
Personal Preference: B
Overall Score: B