AKA: 夢で逢えたら (Yume de Aetara)

Genre: lovu-lovu drama

Length: OAV series, 3 episodes, 29 minutes each

Distributor: R1 DVD from Media Blasters / Anime Works out of print

Content Rating: 10+ (mild sexual innuendo)

Related Series: If I See You In My Dreams: The TV Series

Also Recommended: Love Hina, Maison Ikkoku ... most any romantic comedy

Notes: Based on the manga by Yamahana Noriyuki, which ran in Business Jump. Though normally we prefer the unambiguous term "OAV" (original animation video), we use OVA (original video animation) here to coincide with the labeling on the North American release.

Rating:

If I See You In My Dreams: The OVA Series

Synopsis

Boy meets girl. Well, our boy isn't so much a boy anymore. Fuguno Masuo hasn't even held a girl's hand before, let alone has a girlfriend. A pretty sad fate looks to befall our 24-year-old virgin salary man until Shiozaki Nagisa coincidentally enters his life one day. This is your basic getting a couple together anime.

Review

Wow, I've never seen this plot before ... who'd ever imagine a cute girl would fall for a geeky guy and their relationship would form awkwardly? While If I See You in My Dreams does predate Love Hina, there's certainly been plenty of titles before it to use the same rehashed story.

But this series lacks some of the charm of tales like Maison Ikkoku. For one, the characters are amazingly bland. Sure, Nagisa might look cooler than Naru or Kyoko but she doesn't show an ounce of personality. Even amongst the side characters there's nothing of note, unless you count perhaps the only attempt of humor in the hour and half: a midget with giant earlobes who tries to woo Nagisa alongside Fuguno's actual rival, Funakoshi.

You can expect every romantic drama stereotype to be used here. Oh no, the girl fell ... but the guy caught her! Are his hands accidentally going to end up on her breasts? Yes, yes they are. Is the girl going to get mad at the male lead for things beyond his control? Yes she is. Is this show worth your time? Probably not.

Not that it's all bad. The character designs are pretty nice, and if you're looking for mindless fluff with a bit of fanservice on the side this is probably right up your alley. But for a dramatic romance title there's really ... not a lot of drama here.

If a Yotsuya-san or Kitsune had shown up I might've pushed it up to three stars, but alas ... — Hannah Stanton

Recommended Audience: The girls are never seen in anything less than bikinis and even the slaps aren't shown on screen. The porno magazine even has the girls clothed in it. There's enough blushing going on for youngins to get confused though.