(Sheesh, I now have TWO unfinished draft posts lurking under the surface.)

Anyway, I've been trying to work my way through the various series I've downloaded and never watched over the past few years, and decided to take them on alphabetically. (And this came first because the circle was Ayako.)

And the verdict is, "Man, I should have recovered that drive space ages ago."

What a MESS this show is. Clearly they expected a second season or something, or else they just dropped plot lines left and right for lack of attention span. They certainly didn't pay much attention to what they were doing. I mean, they set up one big bad, and then halfway through, they completely forgot about him to play with another big bad who was cuter and more psychotic.

So, the Hero is a guy who can see auras when he looks through his thumb and forefinger, and predict people's dreams, and he meets Merry, who is a girl from the dream realm somehow lost in the real world. Our hero is haunted in his dreams by a dream villain who has an army of anthropomorphic cats who chase him through his dreams. But this isn't too important, since they drop him after a couple of episodes.

Our Hero can somehow forcefully enter the "Daydream" state, and bring Merry with him, where she fights off the other dream creatures, called Muma, who are taking over humans, making them their "Vessels."

And this is where the concept breaks down. Because there are about four different factions here. There's an organized Big Bad, who acts as a "Lighthouse" drawing Muma towards the real world, where they can lodge themselves in people's dreams, another crazy one called alternatively "Mistilteinn" (Mistleteen in the subs) or "Sea of Trees." She's a very powerful Muma who basically murders other Muma for kicks. There's another girl who is the vessel for a sort of dream cop who wants revenge on Mistleteen, and another girl who is the host of yet another revenge-seeker named Engi who is after the first big bad for luring her sister off to her death.

One of the side effects of killing off a Muma who has successfully infested the dreams of someone is they become listless and unmotivated and lose their dream in life. (Now, sometimes this is actually a positive, symbiotic relationship, but the big bad has perverted this). BUT, in the first few episodes, Merry does this exact thing, making her just as bad, although the results aren't shown. Engi is also out slaughtering Muma who are part of the Big Bad's plot, with similar devastating results for the victims.

But the worst of the worst is Mistilteinn, since her host is the school's guidance councilor who is equally as evil and hateful as her. He builds up the dreams of his students so that they will be a much tastier slaughter for Mistilteinn, and it's also implied that he has brought to her some new things to do in the dream state that involve tearing off her clothes. Together, they are a really nasty piece of work.

The Cop type tends to run his vessel's life into the ground, she lives in a filthy apartment filled with the cans of coffee which is her only sustenance, has no friends, and she slips into the dream state because the Cop's gun which supposedly can kill Mistilteinn runs on the deaths of dreams, they're saving up enough for one "bullet."

Eventually Merry and Engi, who have allied, realize they can't just keep killing off other Muma, which puts them at the typical good guys' dilemma.  Especially when it turns out that our hero's sister, whose passion is art, has attracted a cute little Muma of her own, making her a delicious target for the guidance councilor. They battle Mistilteinn a couple of times to protect her, but avoid letting her in on the secret battle through the mechanism of having her unconscious all the time.

The final battle (and remember, the big bad is forgotten by this point) results in Mistilteinn thoroughly kicking everybody's ass, the gun failing to kill her, and even our hero, who has been utterly useless in a fight so far getting his ass handed to him. BUT, he has one thing going for him, "heart" and that inspires Merry to revival, and eventually to beating Mistilteinn. It is WEAK storytelling at best, and so many things get lost along the way, like our hero's quest to help Merry get back to the dream world, or the explanation about how she got to the real world without a vessel, or even why the cat guy makes a brief appearance as a useful source of information after an eight episode absence.

There are only a few bright spots about it. First is that they DON'T feel compelled to suddenly make Merry start going to our hero's school (Although they do get her to work briefly in the family cafe). Engi is a rather attractive character with her ball gown and crystal swords (and the oddest opera-length ... mittens ... ever), and when the cat guy for some reason helps spiritually heal our hero in the dream world, it is with the helpful ministrations of a couple of cat-girls.

Sorry, no screen shots. I was watching it on Etna, and I don't feel like going through this mess again to find a few shots. (although, if I get enough requests, I might pick a few things.)

There is a beach episode that is the most poorly justified excuse of a beach episode ever. For the plot holes, abandoned plot threads, the obvious openings for a second season that never came, and the heroine who is the least special Muma in the show (seemingly the only one without powers), I'm ashamed I allowed this trash to take up my drive space for two years. It's just utterly unsatisfying.

Posted by: Mauser at 06:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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