Dream Eater Merry is… actually hard to put in a nutshell. It came out in 2011, based on a manga that ran from 2008 all the way to 2020 (so naturally the one season we have will not be covering the whole thing). Its style and aesthetic feels as though it’s in a transitional phase between the heavier shadows of the early 2000’s and the bright colors and high white saturation you’d tend to see later in the 2010’s.
As to its concept, like many good concepts it’s at once wildly original and done to death overdone. On one side, we get the “monster who fights monsters”, and to extent the backbone of the masquerade supernatural battler, the sort of thing that was around long before Shakugan no Shana but that Shana made really popular. On the other hand, dealing with exiles from the world of dreams as they intrude upon, practically invade the physical world, overtaking humans as they do? I have to admit, I haven’t heard that exact pitch before.
Which is kind of interesting. Dreams are a funny thing – though we can put high confidence on the idea that they’re just processions of junk data before the mind’s eye, we can’t really prove or in fact explain much about them, and not for lack of trying. The idea that the sleeping mind connects to something real and beyond common human experience, as well as a mystical significance to dreams, is as old as dirt. The idea of something from the other side bodily crossing over to cause trouble isn’t exactly novel either, but making that the backbone of an action-adventure story? It’s a different sort of action-adventure story.
Let’s not waste any more time, and dig in to Dream Eater Merry.
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