Dream Eater Merry #03 — The Silly Hat Alliance

January 20th, 2011

 

Why yes, I did try to pick the four most misleading screencaps.

I’ve decided to go with this over Magica because the latter reaches a far worse level of tedium for the lion’s share of this. Yes, I’m aware what happens this week in Magica too. Only because I got sick of the episode after 5 minutes and started skipping around to find the pair of one minute segments where something notable occurs. If you didn’t see that coming though, you’re long long overdue for a refresher course on monomyths. I can already imagine certain people getting moist in the panties at the thought of finally having a chance to use the word "sparagmos." That show has been sticking to Campbell’s formula to a T… albeit at a fairly glacial pace. Besides, it’s so much more fulfilling to damn something with gusto than to blandly note that another episode passed where 95% of it was used on padding out the episode yet again because they clearly ran out of the budget after a minute or two of animating the single hook of the week.

Impressions:

Anyway, on to Merry and its own fair share of bizarre happenings. Instead of dealing with the girl that got eaten by a nightmare or whatever the hell happened last week, we get some completely random stuff that furthers absolutely nothing. Merry befriends some kid who has no friends… except for some nightmare demon that pops out of nowhere and starts screaming about how it had been betrayed. Unfortunately, it spends all its time screaming and making faces and is just dragged around by its cheek before being slapped and sent back to magical nightmare land. They’re really putting their choice in a director that specializes in action to good use, eh? Dropping CG bowling pins takes a lot of talent.

It was a step up from last week though. While it reeked of wasted time, production was a little tighter and Minato is probably the third most likeable character on the show so far after Isana and the donut with sprinkles on it. Their eyes did have a curious way of being not quite centered, but I figure that there’s a lot of peyote involved in this project at some point. I still wanted to slap Yumeji when he called Merry a super hero and suggested calling her Dream Eater Merry. You are not a good enough show to try and be self-referential like that and get away with it, damn it.

Preview:

Shouldn’t we get back to the girl that was eaten? Or one of the three antagonists you’ve introduced?

Posted in Dream Eater Merry | 14 Comments »

14 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Pronas says:

    WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT BLOGGING MADOKA? SHIT JUST GOT FUCKING REAL THIS EPISODE.

    • Aroduc says:

      I’m pretty sure I covered that, and used ancient Greek in the process.

    • Aex says:

      At first I was shocked, but now I figure one (or both) of the girls will use their wish to undo it and things will continue on like before. Or she’s really gone and the OP is a lie.

  • Jack says:

    Off topic… but “wow!” about “Magica” … I didn’t see that coming, but I’m not the sharpest tool in the box either.

    On topic… [this space reserved]

  • Travis says:

    Nice. I’d enjoyed your TTGL post on Campbell, and looked it up when you mentioned this. I actually figure Campbell was wrong about the interchangability of myths in cultures, but in stories? Yeah, dead on.

    Anyway, this show is interesting. Not Yume Nikki interesting, but very little covers dreams in a way that feels dream-like. I’d appreciate if you keep covering it.

    • Nanaya says:

      Yeah, I wasn’t expecting a monomyth reference here. I can’t tell if sticking to it is bad or good writing, though.

  • In all actuality, Aroduc doesn’t even need to watch Madoka. I just spoil him on it every week while he watches Merry.

  • 2DT says:

    Fascinating! For all the times that “being torn limb from limb” happens in Greek mythology, I guess I should’ve figured that there would be a term for it… Which, ironically, makes you “that guy who used the term sparagmos in a blog post.” ;)

    So the show’s called Dream Eater Merry because it’s the name she takes on as a hero? You’re right, that does smack a bit of the old “geeks watching geek show” postmodernity.

  • Nanaya says:

    “Pepople,” the latest and greatest snack since Popplers!

    …Even I’m starting to get annoyed at my quasi-OCD spellchecking. How do you turn it off? I mean, GOD, I even noticed the extra space between ‘scene where’ and ‘I still.’

  • Mesousa says:

    You’re only blogging this show because of Merry’s stomach.

  • Joel says:

    Why do I get the feeling the Merry posts are going to get more Madoka-related comments than comments actually relevant to Merry?