Yumeria



Teenager Tomokazu Mikuri is an Ordinary High School Student, an orphan, tortured by a Sadist Teacher, and, it seems, trapped in a perpetual malaise. He's something of a loser and more than a little lonely, having been raised all by himself in a large house by his older cousin Nanase.

However, everything changes for him on the night before his sixteenth birthday. When he falls asleep, he dreams he is in a bizarre landscape where he watches a flying purple-haired girl fight a strange warcraft. When she is shot down, he saves her from certain death.

And when he wakes up the next morning, she's in his bed, naked.

Tomokazu soon learns that the dream landscape that he was in is very real indeed -- Moera, the land of dreams. And the strange warcraft he saw was a Faedun -- a creature born of mankind's nightmares. The Faedun seek to conquer Moera so that they can use it to stage an attack on the waking world.

Before he knows it, other girls begin entering the dream world with him, starting with Mizuki, a childhood friend who has long had an unrequited crush on him. Joining them are Neneko, a street kid with a strange hat and stranger habits, and Kuyou, Nanase's little sister, whose unexpected return from America is not a coincidence. And then there is the mysterious Silk, oldest of the girls, who seems to exist only in the dream world and whose masked face is never revealed, even when she's in a bathing suit. In the dream world, each one has a distinctive costume and power, and together they fight the Faedun.

Tomokazu soon learns that he is the lynchpin of the group, with the ability to supercharge any them into a Wave Motion Gun. He also learns that he is critical to the defense of the waking world from the Faedun -- from one of the few survivors of their successful conquest in the future, who has reincarnated into the past in order to change the timeline. If Tomokazu and the girls fail, the Faedun will leave the Earth a wasteland of ruins and corpses.

Yumeria is a Namco game that later has a twelve-episode anime. The anime starts off looking like a screwball sentai harem comedy but reveals a darker underpinning the further in you get. It has crisp production values and an art style that looks at times like it might be verging on Thick Line Animation. Characterization is precise, and the voice performances in both Japanese and English (the latter courtesy of the fine folks at ADV Films) are exceptional. As might be gathered from that, it is licensed in North America and available on DVD.

This show provides examples of:

 * Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male: Although it's comical and played for laughs.
 * Accidental Marriage: Neneko uses this on Tomokazu after he accidentally lands on her and touches her butt.
 * Accidental Pervert: Mikuri isn't exactly sorry about it, but he takes the cake for setting up Mizuki as one!
 * ADV Films: North American distributor.
 * Almost Kiss
 * Alternate Universe
 * Ancient Tradition: At least it feels like one.
 * Badass Crew: The main cast while in the dream world.
 * Baka
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: When the girls are undergoing a transformation.
 * Bare Your Midriff: Mone, Kuyou, and Mizuki in their battle outfits.
 * Battle Aura
 * Beach Episode
 * Because Destiny Says So: A major plot point;.
 * Bedmate Reveal: Tomokazu's bed is very nearly the only way to get out of the dream world.
 * Blush Sticker: Neneko.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Invoked: The girls decide that since they look like a sentai/magical girls team, they should act like it.
 * Catch Phrase: Neneko frequently says "It's a mystery!" in both English and Japanese.
 * Childhood Friend Romance: Mizuki.
 * The Chosen One: Tomokazu.
 * Clingy Jealous Girl: All the girls at one time or another.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the main girls have a different hair color/style.
 * Color Failure: Happens to Ishikari-sensei after Mone chooses Tomokazu over him when the former suggests she stay with him for some "special tutoring". Tomokazu gloats a little over it as well.
 * Combined Energy Attack: Coordinated attack variation, and they take turns delivering the coup de grace..
 * Conspicuous CG: Power effects, water.
 * Cool Big Sis: Nanase.
 * Cool Mask: Silk.
 * Cranial Eruption: Tomokazu after at least one encounter with Neneko's Hyperspace Mallet.
 * Crash Into Hello: Tomokazu does this to Mizuki when he's running late for school in the first episode.
 * Cross Popping Veins
 * Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday
 * Debut Queue
 * Demonic Invaders: the Faedun.
 * Denied Food As Punishment: In episode 9, after making Mone cry, Tomokazu is denied dinner that night by Nanase, even though he apologized to her already.
 * Dojikko: Nanase asks Tomokazu at one point if he thinks she is one.
 * Dream Land: Moera.
 * The End of the World As We Know It: In a future they're trying to avert.
 * Eyecatch: Usually shows the cat that hangs around with Neneko.
 * False Camera Effects
 * Fan Disservice: Tomokazu has an Imagine Spot in episode 3 where Ishikari-sensei is wearing a female S&M costume when he's referring to a make up test.
 * Fan Service: Including lingering butt-and-crotch shots of Mizuki while in her bathing suit.
 * Festival Episode
 * Flash Back
 * Furo Scene
 * Gainaxing: Nanase, Silk.
 * Genre Blindness: Mostly subverted.
 * Genre Savvy: Kuyou seems to know about the dream world, but immediately acts as if she's never been there during her first trip there with Tomokazu. She's also the first one to suspect Silk is someone she knows...
 * Girls Love: Parodied, mostly, in scenes that exist only in Tomokazu's imagination.
 * The Glomp
 * Hair Colors: Mizuki's pink, Mone's blue-purple, Kuyou's light green.
 * Harem Genre
 * Harem Hero: Tomokazu, of course.
 * Harem Nanny: Nanase.
 * High School
 * Honorifics: A wide variety in use in the original Japanese.
 * Humongous Mecha: The Faedun at least take the appearance of flying war machines of often quite abstract design.
 * Hyperspace Mallet: Appears several times, usually in Neneko's hands, and is labelled "765 kg".
 * I Have the High Ground: Silk, almost every time she appears; parodied with Neneko, who can't figure out how she got on top of a telephone pole, and can't get back down.
 * Imagine Spot: Tomokazu has some particularly perverted ones.
 * Invisible to Normals: All the battles take place in the world of dreams.
 * Joshikousei
 * Large Ham: Ishikari-Sensei. Almost everything he says in fact.
 * Latex Space Suit
 * Lethal Chef: Neneko and Mone.
 * Limited Wardrobe: All the characters seem to have one only one set of "civilian" clothes -- except for the yukata they wear during the Festival Episode.
 * Lolicon: Ishikari-Sensei admits to being one.
 * Magical Girl: Sentai version.
 * Marshmallow Hell: Tomokazu, Nanase.
 * Meganekko: Nanase, others. Tomokazu actually speaks the word when Mizuki dons eyeglasses before tutoring him.
 * Megaton Punch: Tomokazu receives these a lot.
 * The Men in Black
 * Moe Moe
 * Naughty Tentacles: Parodied.
 * Nice Hat: Neneko wears one.
 * Noblewomans Laugh: Kuyou.
 * No Export for You: The game itself.
 * The Nose Bleed: Many, powerful enough to knock their victims over, courtesy of a Gainaxing Nanase.
 * Ocular Gushers
 * Odango: Kuyou.
 * Ordinary High School Student: Tomokazu.
 * Parental Abandonment: Tomokazu's an orphan being raised by his cousin Nanase; Nanase's entire family has been in America for years at the start of the series; Mone apparently has no history whatsoever; Neneko seems to be a street urchin with no fixed abode or family save her kitten Koneko, although she says, in her first appearance, that she'll tell her parents about the mysterious occurrence she's just seen.
 * Pastel Chalked Freeze Frame: Several, with a few played for laughs.
 * Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Played straight and averted, as Kikuko Inoue gets to play a Yamato Nadeshiko and a gruff tomboy-type --.
 * Pillar of Light
 * Pixellation: For some reason, a candy or snack given to Neneko by a shopkeeper is very obviously obscured in one scene.
 * Pre Explosion Glow
 * Pretty Freeloaders: Neneko, Mone.
 * Reincarnation: Only backwards.
 * Sadist Teacher: Ishikawa-sensei definitely has a major grudge against Tomokazu.
 * Screw the Rules I'm Doing What's Right: Kuyou's motivation for setting Tomokazu and the others free from the Head Family's headquarters.
 * Second Episode Morning
 * Secret Identity: Silk.
 * Shout Out: Tongue-in-cheek, to Sailor Moon; another near the end to the "alternate universe" sequence of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
 * First episode: Hilbert Effect?
 * Eighth episode: Tomokazu wonders if Laputa could exist.
 * Sitting On the Roof
 * Speech Impaired Animal: Borderline case: Koneko, Neneko's kitten, who says only "Nono"; this is not the Japanese onomotopeia for "meow".
 * Spinning Paper: Variation: Headline text spins into place over a shot of a printing press; played more or less straight.
 * Stealth Hi Bye: Several characters seem capable of doing this, usually Nanase/Silk. Tomokazu at one point even wonders how they suddenly showed up in his classroom in episode 7.
 * Stock Footage: Transformations and attacks; both are subverted in the Beach Episode where the standard footage was reanimated with the girls in bathing suits instead of their costumes.
 * Stop Helping Me: Tomokazu is thinking this when Neneko and Mone try to help him to "relax".
 * Street Urchin: Neneko.
 * Super Deformed: Mild, infrequent.
 * Super Sentai Stance: Complete with I Always Wanted to Say That.
 * The Sweat Drop
 * Team Shot: Invoked: The girls decide on a standard "victory pose" that they will assume after a battle.
 * Thanks for The Mammary: During one battle with the Fadeun, Tomokazu, Mone, and Mizuki (who all happened to be in swimsuits since it was a Beach Episode), barely dodge an attack, and he ends up on top of both girls, with each of his hands on one of the boobs of each of one of the girls, which eventually triggers their Wave Motion Gun and saves the day.
 * Time Travel: Via reincarnation into the past.
 * Token Mini Moe: Neneko and Mone.
 * Transformation Sequence
 * Two Teacher School
 * Undead Tax Exemption: Mone's entry into school. Even into Tomokazu's class, despite being a few years younger.
 * The Unintelligible: Mone, who -- like a Pokémon -- can only say her own name and its component syllables.
 * Unlucky Everydude: Tomokazu.
 * The Un Reveal: It seriously doesn't need to be spoilered that.
 * Unusual Ears: Neneko, kinda sorta: her hat has "ears" -- and they move in response to her emotions. Some viewers believe she has actual cat ears under it.
 * Verbal Tic: In the North American dub, Kuyou uses "frankly" in almost every sentence; Neneko uses "really" just as much. These tics are also present in the original Japanese as "subari" and "no da."
 * Verbal Tic Name: Mone.
 * Victory Pose: The girls get into one in episode 4.
 * Visible Sigh
 * Wave Motion Gun: Any of the girls plus Tomokazu, plus.
 * Wraparound Background: Variation, in opening credits only: watch the traffic behind the sleeping Tomokazu and see the same truck -- with the production company's logo on it -- drive past three or four times.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Nanase.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Mizuki's school uniform.