Yume Nikki/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A list of some of the Subjective Tropes found in Yume Nikki.

  • Death of the Author: Officially endorsed. The novel and manga despite being semi-official adaptations are advertised as the authors' individual interpretations of the game, and not 'canon' stories.
  • Ear Worm: The Aztec Rave Box, among other things.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Quite a few. Uboa and Masada, especially.
  • Epileptic Trees: There are a lot, due to the fact that there is no plot or characterization at all. Many of these are Poison Oak Epileptic Trees.
  • Fanfic Fuel: The lack of context and background information for many areas and characters, including Madotsuki herself, leaves the game's canon very open to fan interpretation and expansion.
  • Freud Was Right: At least the fans like to think so. Arguably, many examples in game are indicative of this trope.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • According to post No. 1420 on this page, Kikiyama was surprised to know that Yume Nikki was a lot more popular in the West than she expected.
    • For an April Fool's event on reddit where redditors could draw on a big canvas, Madotsuki was initially drawn on a part of the canvas claimed by r/Sweden, who actually completely embraced her and even led to a drawing of Madotsuki holding hands with Pippi Longstocking, a famed Swedish character.
  • Goddamned Bats: Some of the Toriningen. They don't kill you (really, nothing in the game can except gravity), but if they hit you, they'll send you to a secluded area that you can either escape by waking up or by using the Medamaude effect which takes you back to the hub.
  • Good Bad Bugs: The boosted speed trick, which makes exploration a lot easier.
  • Hell Is That Noise:
    • Uboa. Also known as: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...
    • Stab something for a wonderful scream. An easy way to make this sound drive you insane is to take out the pointless room of walking eyes, or doing on of the few instances where you must stab a Toriningen.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Although Masada is often noted as Looking Like Cesare, he arguably looks even more like Tommy Wiseau. One poster of The Room even depicts Wiseau with slightly crossed eyes!
  • It Was His Sled: How to make Uboa appear, as well as his very existence, which ruins a fair amount of the shock of discovering him. Then again, he has a 1 in 64 chance of appearing, meaning that most will never see Uboa anyway unless they either get very lucky or they explicitly try to find him. It can still be very shocking, however, when trying to find him, failing multiple times, doing it more just for the heck of it, and he suddenly appears.
  • Memetic Sex God: Masada and Uboa.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Many of the named NPCs—specifically, Monoko and Poniko/Uboa(aaaaaAAAAAああああ) -- have become just as popular as Madotsuki herself on certain Image Boards.
    • ah not tan neet are not tan neet centimeter has become this for video sites.
    • Within the fandom, "NASU IS VERY EXCITING!" and "Let's monochrome ourselves!".
    • Little do you know that Uboa actually has a smooth, English voice and enjoys long walks on the beach, that is after he sends you to an alternate dimension.
    • One that we can take credit for is pointing out that Uboa looks an awful lot like Che Guevara.
    • A drawing of Madotsuki vomiting has circulated around the web and received many spin-offs.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Many, many bizarre things happen at random in the game and are never referenced again. But then, it's a dream, and there's no dialogue; it's only to be expected.
  • Quicksand Box: Since there is absolutely no dialogue or anything vaguely resembling a hint, getting completely lost is a very real possibility. Fortunately, getting out of them is as simple as a single press of a key.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: In Yume Nikki, once you enter a world, you cannot return to the Nexus. The only way to return to the Nexus is by waking up and go back to the Dream World. And since some of the available worlds are "blocked" until you collect an item or an effect to explore, this becomes a chore.
  • "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny: Yume Nikki gets hit with it pretty hard, especially because of how little there actually is to the game compared to even its own fangames.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: If you don't ship Masada/Madotsuki, be prepared for a virtual shove-in-a-puddle. And the people who don't ship them are usually too busy shipping him with Shitai.
    • It's difficult to find femslash shippers in Yume Nikki, but there's a few people who enjoy Madotsuki/Poniko or Monoe/Madotsuki.
    • The Dream VS Dream April Fool's is a mock dating-sim so everyone's ship needs get catered, hilariously so.
    • Fan-Preferred Couple: In addition, the Masada/Madotsuki ship tends to be pretty popular with fans despite the fact that the game has no dialogue.
  • Stuck in Their Shadow: Poniko, Uboa and the Bloody Touching Monster can all be found during the same general event. Take a guess which one of these three is often left out (or straight up ignored) in most fan works.
  • Sweet Dreams Fuel: Certain places, like the sky garden are strangely relaxing.
  • That One Level:
    • The very big Hell maze.
    • The teleporter maze as well. While it lacks in size, it makes up for with a confusing network of Teleporters and Transporters.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The release date on Steam (January 9th, 2018) has led many to think Yume Nikki is a blatant copy of Undertale, which is untrue.
  • True Art Is Angsty: The reaction to the unofficial Alternate Ending here. The general response is that it not only undermines the themes of the game, but also the ambiguity of its reality.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: A lack of dialogue or plot forces you to come up with your own meaning.
  • Ugly Cute:
    • Monoko is what you get when you combine Body Horror with Moe.
    • Uboa, of all things, tends to get this treatment in fanart. It does have a big wide smile and eyes that suggests it's quite happy.
  • Uncanny Valley: Madotsuki from Yume Nikki looks kind of out of place with her realistically styled face compared to the majority of other characters.
  • Win Back the Crowd: After the launch trailer was uploaded on Youtube, some criticism regarding Yume Nikki vanished, as the trailer managed to show more gameplay footage than the other two trailers released.
  • The Woobie:
    • Seccom Masada-sensei is often considered one as well, given where he resides: a spaceship in the middle of space, with no sentient company. If you take out your knife, he tries to get away from you. And then there is the table with two chairs, as if he would hope someone would come to him...
    • Mars-san, who's trapped alone in a cavern under Mars, looks as if it's crying, and its background music certainly doesn't help. It should be noted that it appears later on the same path as Secom Masada-sensei.
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