Yume de Aetara
I recently watched an anime called If I See You in My Dreams. The OVA was passable, the TV series that followed it was terrible. I had bought them for a really low price, and it was a case of getting what I had paid for.
Animation wasn’t up to much, not even on the OVA, and it felt very repetitive. The humour always followed the same format: leading man Masuo commits an accidental faux pas and is spotted by leading lady Nagisa, whom he must then convince that it really was all an accident. Worse still, as the show progressed the comedy became the top component, to the detriment of any plot progression. Worst of all was the ending. Seriously, was that it? That didn’t resolve anything!
After that final episode I got to thinking that this couldn’t have been the full story, a suspicion made fact by a visit to Wikipedia. Indeed, it confirmed, what you saw was in fact only the first few volumes’ worth of material from a manga named Yume de Aetara. The first seven, in fact, of a seventeen volume manga.
Unfortunately this title had not been licensed outside of Japan, and I didn’t see that happening in a hurry. Alas, the rule now seems to be that romcoms need to be set in high school to be marketable; who wants to bother with the travails of a pair of fossils in their early- to mid-twenties anyway? Well I did, because as bad as the anime was I just had to see where it would go and how it would end. And with that, allow me to declare that the manga is leaps and bounds ahead of the anime.
Yes the setup is still the same, with much of the humour based on unhappy coincidences. But here those unhappy coincidences also form the bases for much of the drama as well where the two leads are forced to question the nature and strength of their ever-burgeoning relationship, whether or not it is strong enough to survive all the obstacles thrown their way.
Characters too are better realised and also mature and develop over as the story progresses. Even minor characters make the most of their time in the spotlight. For example, a character named Shougo Shiotani is introduced in a small but significant role in Volume 12, in which he appears in only three chapters before making a cameo in the final chapter. And yet it’s enough for the reader to see just what kind of person he is, and also to be happy for him in his appearance at the end.
Then there’s the real reason why the manga trounces the anime: the artwork. Just….wow. The primary female cast is portrayed so that their beauty is emphasised without sexualising them, not even if they are shown in the nude. For the most part the men are the rubber-faced caricatures, especially when it highlights the depths of stupidity they are willing to plumb in their quest for love. Also, YDA shows these rubbery wild takes as real life occurrences, instead of visual metaphors for a character’s prevailing mental state. So if Masuos’s latest rejection from Nagisa has left him feeling like a shapeless blob, then that’s how he appears to the people around him as he oozes down the pavement and down the drain before having to be rescued out of the sewers. In another bit of surrealism, Volume 8 introduces a cute little Nagisa doll made for Masuo by Nagisa. To the world, including Nagisa, she is an inanimate object. To Masuo she’s his conscience who will react with shock at a strange woman forcing herself into his life, beat him up if his eyes roam somewhere they shouldn’t (drawing blood in the process!), or want nothing to do with him if her dignity comes under attack.
So, to sum it up. I found Yume de Aetara to be simply superb. When it’s funny it’s a riot. When it gets dramatic, its grip on you can be likened to that of the best soap operas. Volumes 8 to 12 serve as prime examples, with the sort of tension and uncertainty usually found in high-octane action thrillers. Another title I happened to stumble over, and for which I am eternally glad I did.
I recently watched an anime called If I See You in My Dreams. The OVA was passable, the TV series that followed it was terrible. I had bought them for a really low price, and it was a case of getting what I had paid for.
Animation wasn’t up to much, not even on the OVA, and it felt very repetitive. The humour always followed the same format: leading man Masuo commits an accidental faux pas and is spotted by leading lady Nagisa, whom he must then convince that it really was all an accident. Worse still, as the show progressed the comedy became the top component, to the detriment of any plot progression. Worst of all was the ending. Seriously, was that it? That didn’t resolve anything!
After that final episode I got to thinking that this couldn’t have been the full story, a suspicion made fact by a visit to Wikipedia. Indeed, it confirmed, what you saw was in fact only the first few volumes’ worth of material from a manga named Yume de Aetara. The first seven, in fact, of a seventeen volume manga.
Unfortunately this title had not been licensed outside of Japan, and I didn’t see that happening in a hurry. Alas, the rule now seems to be that romcoms need to be set in high school to be marketable; who wants to bother with the travails of a pair of fossils in their early- to mid-twenties anyway? Well I did, because as bad as the anime was I just had to see where it would go and how it would end. And with that, allow me to declare that the manga is leaps and bounds ahead of the anime.
Yes the setup is still the same, with much of the humour based on unhappy coincidences. But here those unhappy coincidences also form the bases for much of the drama as well where the two leads are forced to question the nature and strength of their ever-burgeoning relationship, whether or not it is strong enough to survive all the obstacles thrown their way.
Characters too are better realised and also mature and develop over as the story progresses. Even minor characters make the most of their time in the spotlight. For example, a character named Shougo Shiotani is introduced in a small but significant role in Volume 12, in which he appears in only three chapters before making a cameo in the final chapter. And yet it’s enough for the reader to see just what kind of person he is, and also to be happy for him in his appearance at the end.
Then there’s the real reason why the manga trounces the anime: the artwork. Just….wow. The primary female cast is portrayed so that their beauty is emphasised without sexualising them, not even if they are shown in the nude. For the most part the men are the rubber-faced caricatures, especially when it highlights the depths of stupidity they are willing to plumb in their quest for love. Also, YDA shows these rubbery wild takes as real life occurrences, instead of visual metaphors for a character’s prevailing mental state. So if Masuos’s latest rejection from Nagisa has left him feeling like a shapeless blob, then that’s how he appears to the people around him as he oozes down the pavement and down the drain before having to be rescued out of the sewers. In another bit of surrealism, Volume 8 introduces a cute little Nagisa doll made for Masuo by Nagisa. To the world, including Nagisa, she is an inanimate object. To Masuo she’s his conscience who will react with shock at a strange woman forcing herself into his life, beat him up if his eyes roam somewhere they shouldn’t (drawing blood in the process!), or want nothing to do with him if her dignity comes under attack.
So, to sum it up. I found Yume de Aetara to be simply superb. When it’s funny it’s a riot. When it gets dramatic, its grip on you can be likened to that of the best soap operas. Volumes 8 to 12 serve as prime examples, with the sort of tension and uncertainty usually found in high-octane action thrillers. Another title I happened to stumble over, and for which I am eternally glad I did.
