Forum - View topicREVIEW: The Dreaming Boy is a Realist Anime Series Review
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Glordit
 Posts: 658 |
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The main plot point of Wataru ditching Aika because he realizes he's a pest and then Aika then wanting him back because she secretly liked all the attention, was unimaginative.
The rest of the show was a slog for me, it went in multiple directions all at once and could not decide where it wanted to be. I have been told that major parts of the LN were left out in the anime. Whether it's true or not, I would not know since this didn't put me in a mood to want to read them. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I blogged about this one when it ended, and my summative evaluation (including how I'd break down the grading) is very similar to Richard's. The production values just aren't there, and while there are some interesting things going on, it's just not put together in an interesting enough way. Frankly, I felt the story struggled whenever at least two of Wataru, Aika, and Aika's best friend Kei (who's great at supporting the story by poking and teasing everyone) weren't on the screen.
Not a waste of time, but not something I'd go around recommending, either. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 13918 |
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I wanted to like this one but the lack of a firm direction other than Wataru dealing with other girls' problems after "waking up" and Aika being weird around him just didn't do much for me and the production values weren't that appealing either. It just felt like discount Oregairu.
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 642 Location: USA |
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I think the dub helped this show a lot by making the dialogue a bit more natural sounding. It’s still not a masterpiece but it is a more fun watch.
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rudhy
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Haven't watched this yet so I am going to ask this question: is Wataru at any point ever treated like a guy who inflicted years of harassment on Aika? If he isn't, does the show at any point explain why his behavior isn't harassment? |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18462 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Most of their classmates found Wataru's attempts to woo Aika to be entertaining, and they are actually disappointed when it stops. Though Aika was always outwardly annoyed by Wataru's attention, she gradually realizes after it stops that she actually didn't mind it that much. Her much more canny best friend is aware of this all along and additionally seems to recognize that Aika, ironically, benefited from the attention. spoiler[Later in the series we see that she was becoming socially isolated in middle school because of her home situation, and Wataru's constant treaties reversed that.] Yeah, I'd definitely agree that the story lets Wataru off too easy, and that's the one somewhat edgy aspect to the whole thing that may not set well with some audiences. It does undercut a bit the positive of Wataru realizing on his own that he's being too stalkerish. |
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rudhy
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I actually like the shows with the edgy protagonists, so long as the reason for the edginess isn't "poor me, the culture is persecuting me because I am an otaku with weird hobbies and creepy social behavior" like Arifuta. (For me the sole good thing about Jobless Reincarnation is how it does the exact opposite with Rudeus.) And I am actually an old fashioned type who believes that boys should be afforded some space to "woo and pursue" girls. Although in retrospect I now find a lot of the media that I watched depicting "woo and pursue", say 1970s and 1980s romcoms and sitcoms with the pick up artists and such, makes me so uncomfortable that I can't watch them anymore. And when I recall how many guys not only watched that same media but emulated its treatment of women in real life, it goes from "uncomfortable" to the stuff of nightmares. It is complicated I guess. But what isn't complicated is a guy refusing to take no for an answer for years. At a school. Where the girl is trapped and can't get away from him. As for the explanation why she liked it ... talk about a reach. Instead kids in situations like that are WAY more likely to see school as a refuge, so getting pestered at school like that would have made a bad situation worse. I have read plenty of stories about guys who dropped out of school because they were being pulverized by bullies and even after the bullying was over had PTSD. How many preteen and teen girls have done the same because of harassment? And the other kids who found his antics "entertaining." The teachers and school administrators who saw this going on and did nothing. Were they all harassers too? I was interested in this show because of the hilarious clips I saw of it on YouTube. But now I am going to drop it from my HiDive queue. Thanks for the info! |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4159 |
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An overall rating of B- is far too kind for this but the discussion of the show in this thread is far too harsh on the main character.
Wataru and Aika met in middle school and he was still trying to win her over in high school. Kei, the mutual friend of the two, a girl the two met in high school, tells Wataru that his closeness caused other girls to stay away. Not Kei, per se, just "other girls". Huh, what about you, ei? That doesn't make sense. And then it gets worse when Kei starts playing matchmaker. I can list rom coms, shounen and shoujo, that have excellent relationship dynamics. And now I have one I can point at and say, "that's just awful writing". Yes, the dialogue is bad but I think this work just copied other stories for its present relationships without considering how the characters got there. And the show just gets worse as more and more cliche characters get added with little impact on the story. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2380 |
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pip25
Posts: 182 |
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That's... completely untrue. 
This review actually got me interested in watching this series, but what I'm seeing is just a romantic comedy where the tsundere female lead only realizes that she can't keep being tsundere anymore when the male lead gives up on her. Where are my hard truths about love...? 
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