AKA: ゆめりあ

Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy harem comedy

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each

Distributor: Currently licensed by Sentai Filmworks.

Content Rating: 13+ (fan service, mild violence)

Related Series: None

Also Recommended: Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo

Notes: None.

Rating:

Yumeria

Synopsis

Yet again, we follow an "average high school student", this time, named Mikuri. Despite being surrounded by really hot girls he bemoans his continuing bad luck in romance. Then he has an incredibly realistic dream in which a very young-looking girl in tight spandex is fighting an aerial machine of some sort.

Blasted back into the real world, he wakes up ... with the girl from his dream lying next to him in bed. It turns out he is the power source for the girls of the dream world (and some Earth girls, too!) to fight off the beings known as Faydoom.

Review

(to the tune of "Santeria" by Sublime)

I don't practice Yumeria
I ain't got those dreams at all
If I met a dozen girls like that, I, I'd smack them all

Welcome to Yumeria, also known as Anime Girls Are Easy. Where lecherous schoolboys run free, and ...

Okay, that's enough.

I am sick and tired of these trashy goddamn harem shows. Yumeria is the latest in a long line of sordid anime that appeals to the basest instincts of the Japanese otaku, attracting them like flies to honey with its barrage of vapid, cute girls and the occasional "awkward situation" that ends up with Mikuri copping a feel on someone. Usually a very underage someone.

Settle down, Beavis.

This is seriously substandard material, folks. Yumeria features some stunningly stereotyped characterization, and worst of all, features Mone, who, like Chii in Chobits and Nyuu in Elfen Lied, can only speak her own name in an infantile manner, like a Pokemon in the body of a 12-year-old girl.

Except that Chii and Nyuu have alternate personalities, and the portrayal of Mone is so irritating, I may never get the chance to see if she learns to articulate beyond the level of a toddler before destroying my television in sheer frustration.

So what do we really have here? We've got Mikuri leering and groping at schoolgirls in technicolor leotards, half of whom are seriously underage, and the other half who are quite possibly blood related (EW?), and when he's in the "real world" he's leering and groping and he's not the only one because there's a teacher who's rather open about his Lolita complex.

Sure, the Faydoom are threatening to kill the whole cast and destroy their world, and frankly, I wish they'd succeed. There is no depth at all to the drama, and even the action scenes are overshadowed by lame physical "ecchi" comedy. You get the feeling throughout this show that you're really watching a bootleg of Tenchi Muyo ... it's just THAT bad. Sadly the Faydoom are little more than an excuse to get all those "hot girls" in tight outfits, and it just feels unnecessary, contrived, and embarrassing.

What's sad is that the action scenes are actually fairly decent, but y'know, with all the thigh shots, ass shots, skirt shots, panty shots, I can't call Yumeria's content as being remotely decent at all. It doesn't help that the sound is about as loud as this show's color palette -- Yumeria is a veritable assault on the senses.

With its infantile humor and generally low standards, this is a nightmarishly stupid series. Sure, I like pretty girls and pretty colors, but Yumeria is pretty awful.

The harem girl genre continues its downward spiral. Can we move on from this trend and start selling real anime again? Please?!? — Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: Lots of questionable fan service here. Okay for teens and above, but I hesitate to recommend this to anyone.