Dream Eater Merry: Complete Collection [Blu-ray]

It needs a second or third season.

Yumekui Merry as a series gives a very strong showing. It takes place in dreams where supernatural beings dubbed dream demons either help people reach their dreams in life, or form a more parasitic bond to take control of their lives. There is more than one antagonist and plenty of action to accompany them. There is also some real moral questions brought up when dealing with these dream creatures.

Merry herself is the exception, she comes from the dream world and is manifested as a real girl in ours. But she wants to go home. The main character on the other hand has the ability to see if people will have a bad dream, as well as if they have a monster attached to them. Together they confront these monsters in their journey to find a way to send her home. I won't spoil the story more than that. The series picks up and doesn't let you go even into the last episode. But if you are looking for some real solutions to questions that arise in this series, don't hold your breath. The series has enough energy to be a 24+ episode saga, but sadly it only received a short 13 episode run.

Hopefully, Merry gets greenlighted for a second season and beyond. It really needs it. The ending won't bug you as much Sacred Blacksmith's, but you will wish there had been more episodes. Still, its a great series, lot of potential. Enjoy it!

Dream Eater Merry reminds me of Soul Eater in its visual approach especially with the dream demons and how each has their own unique dream world seperate from all others. The story is pretty solid and the chacaters are given enough development. The show balances the action and drama pretty well and it doesn't waste time on throw-away episodes save for one beach episode, but even there the story is advanced at least somewhat. There really isn't much of any romantic development between the lead male character and Merry, but the opening sequence of the episodes suggest that there is some past connection between the two. While there is some comedy, the show is actually quite dark especially with what can happen to humans who have made pacts with dream demons.

Where the show falls short is that at 13 episodes, it only feels like a warm-up for a bigger story arc. A much bigger and badder dream demon, Pharos Heracles, with plans to take over the real world is introduced, but the show ends before the story of how Merry and her allies plan to combat him has a chance to begin.

Definitley worth a look, but unless a second season appears, it will ultimatley feel incomplete.

For a series that was animated by J.C.Staff, I was surprised I could not find a single breast jiggling anywhere. Most of the females in this anime are conservatively flat. That was a nice change of pace. If you are in the habit of watching anime in Japanese, you may take notice that a majority of the main cast comprise of voice actors one would normally see star in side-character roles. If you keep up with "doujin music" you may also notice the opening theme is from a singer/songwriter team who not too long ago only sold their music on self-published CDs at comic events. Essentially, the entire anime plays out like an indie flick; and in that respect this anime is actually worth buying. However, what this anime really failed at was depth, despite the overall tone of the show and the somewhat Freudian leap into dreams.

I admit the only reason I watched this series in its entirety was because the main heroine, Merry, is sort of cute. However, she is a bit dim; and while for most anime this would be a redeeming quality, this particular theme involving abstract ideas turned concrete dreams, the character's lack of rationale become annoying and time consuming. Considering you can't fast forward through all the crap without missing out on the all important character development... Actually I don't recall any of that.

Merry is about as useless as they come. She doesn't use many of the tools available to her, such as say, the main character's eyes which should be able to discern a nearby Muma. Practically every other episode features someone's hope and dreams being slaughtered while Merry is within shouting distance; but of course she is absent every time, except when she's duly unnecessary. Every episode shows her crying, self-reflecting, or otherwise conflicted in some way continuing her useless existence the only way she knows how: by doing nothing.

Merry fails to save a single soul in thirteen episodes. If Merry had a backbone she'd have beat all the bad guys by episode five and allowed me three hours of sleep, but she's too busy dealing with inner conflict to resolve any actual conflicts. So what good is she? She can't beat bad guys, she can't save good guys, she can't cook or clean, she can't wait on tables, and hell, she can't go four minutes without doing something stupid.

I would personally recommend just borrowing this series from a friend, and avoiding the hassle of having to pay for it.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars