Forum - View topicYumeria--"Great parody!"
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ironwarrior
 Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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"MONE-MONE!!"
Ahh, nothing like a cute anime character that only speaks her name over and over. Makes me swoon. The Yumeria characters have made it to my desktop background. I was looking for an anime series to finish off my Top Ten list and this fits the bill masterfully. While I prefer the action themed anime with excessive violence, this series caught my attention from the opening credit scene with a bouncy, pop jingle and had me in tears of laughter as the creators pulled out all stops to parody as many anime themes as possible. The underlying theme is the "boy with harem," but it quickly diverges to include magic girls, armored characters, and as many Japanese WTF-perversions as possible, both implied and implicit. The creators definitely had a fun time ridiculing both the pro and anti-lolicon crowd. Several "lolicon-esque" lines from the perverted teacher had me in stiches. To be honest, I think the creation of this anime probably went like this: Head Guy: "We need a series now! I want the writers and storyboard artists to work all weekend." (Head Guy leaves) Storyboard Artist: "Dammit! I didn't want to work." Writer: "I know! Let's get drunk!" (at this point, all working on this proposed anime proceed to get hammered) Writer: (slurred speech) "Let's mess with the anime freaks." Storyboard Artist: "Ha-ha! Yeah...watch this.." (proceeds to make characters look very young) (sometime Sunday evening they sober up a bit) Writer: "Oh, man! We need to make this a little serious towards the end at least." Storyboard Artist: "I'm too drunk to draw. I'm cutting and pasting a few transformation scenes." (after a bit, someone from the animation office comes over, stumbles through the bottles and grabs everything) ----------------- I admit to watching a fan-sub of this which was helpful, since they had notes at the top of the screen for many Japanese cultural references and terms that didn't translate well. Regardless, I'm adding the DVD's to my collection since I truly enjoyed this and also want to see a portion of a scene that was censored. I highly recommend this anime if you don't take yourself seriously and can laugh when your fandom is ridiculed and parodied. ----------------- A couple questions for the guru's: 1) In the opening sequence, the characters repeatedly do the "index finger out/thumb up" gesture (the handgun mime). I see this all the time and was wondering if there is a particular cultural significance for this. I've always thought of it as a reference to the "Wild West." 2) How exactly is the romanized "u" used in Japanese? One character is named "Mizuka" but it seems to be pronounced "Miz-ka." Based on linguistic context, is the "u" sometimes soft and barely spoken or at times silent? 3) I've always wondered why the standard male-female relational interaction is portrayed as prudish, but conversely, the Japanese pull out all stops on behaviors and interactions that would be considered illegal and socially unacceptable in many Western cultures. I like the juxtaposition but am curious (perhaps I need to research this). PS: I drove my wife nuts saying, "Mone-Mone!" for about an hour while responding to anything she said. She finally threatened to punch me in the head (ha-ha). And that's "Mone" in my current avatar. [EDIT: Combined your other post in to the first one. And please try not to double post after yourself, that's what editing is for. Thanks. -TK] |
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selenta
 Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Heh, I watched a few episodes of this when it first came out in Japan, and I'm not really sure why I ever stopped
 It was a surprisingly hilarious and amusing show for me, as I expected it to be really really bad. You're right though, the intro song and video are absolutely spellbinding they're so catchy. I couldn't stop singing the song for about a week.
Yes. Just take 'suki' for example, if they pronounce it in normal everyday speech, it comes out as 'ski'; but if they pronounce it slowly emphasizing each syllable, it comes out 'Sue-key'. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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"u" tends to be whispered between unvoiced consonants (k,s,t,p) and at the end of words, like desu or ~masu verb endings. Haven't seen Yumeria, so can't help there.
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ironwarrior
Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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Thanks for the information regarding the long "u" sound. I'm beginning to recognize some sounds, but this one has perplexed me a bit. I initially adjusted the volume several times while watching, thinking I wasn't hearing something.
I assume vowel placement also affects whether it is "u" as in "you" or "u" as in "ugh"? |
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biliano
Posts: 956 Location: Cleveland, OH |
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Also don't forget that Yumeria is based on the 2003 PS2 dating sim/adventure game of the same name from Namco. Some of the cultural references contained in Yumeria were based on old Namco games such as Taiko Drum Master and Bravoman. There are also references to Lupin, Sister Princess, etc. As for what I think about Yumeria, I think it a fun series to watch, but like most dating sim/harem anime, it suffers from poor writing. Still, the characters are very energetic (and so was the voice acting, in both Japanese and English) and the loli references were done in good taste IMO. However despite the weakness of the writing in the initial volume, the story does get more interesting by around the sixth episode, and near the end of the series the true purpose of why Mone showed up will be revealed. |
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ironwarrior
Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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Ahh...Now, I see why the fansub I had made reference to those in their notes portion. To be honest, I'm way out of the loop when it comes to console games having not played any regularly since the early 80's. The last computer game I played was Neverwinter Nights several years ago. Thanks for the trivia. When I get the DVD's, I plan on watching it again, and the extra info will add to the viewing experience. MONE! 
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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Another series that still hasn't come out in the UK. I remember seeing the first ep on a Newtype DVD a while back but a lot of stuff is rather hazy now, however I do remember being quite fond of it at one point, enough to make a shedload of avatars.
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Hoshigami68
 Posts: 12 Location: Ambler, Pennsylvania |
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I saw Yumeria (American version), and I agree with what 'biliano' said. The story wasn't much and if they had relied on that alone, this series would have bombed out big time. Fortunately the characters and music made this series worthwhile. Mone was definitely a cute character, and I got a kick out of her happy go lucky attitude. It was definitely a fun ride if not the most inventive series on the market.
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7983 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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I picked up the series in ADV's Labor Day sale as a cheap bundle deal and ended up being quite impressed with it as well. Great characters, not too bad of a story, and it was also quite humorous.
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Mint Mania IIDX
 Posts: 77 Location: Central |
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Yumeria was one of the most boring anime I'd ever seen since Silent Mobius.
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ironwarrior
Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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I just logged on and saw this bumped back up. I was also happy to see Yumeria in the Labor Day Sale. My fansub had a slight piece of censorship in one of the episodes. What was nice about the fansub was the top notes that further explained some satirization of some Japanese cultural and pop references. It is funny--uproarious, in fact. I LOVE when something I'm obsessed with is parodied as I don't take myself too seriously, even though I have a homemade poster that says "Anime is Life!" This is definitely a "sit back, relax, and roll with the punches" anime It made me chuckle at some the self-righteous, indignant people who read faaar too much into entertainment.
-------- Mint Mania IIDX, I understand. This was the second time I watched it. My first time, I tried watching after Texhnolyze--bad move. A parody after a dark, distopic anime masterpiece just doesn't blend well. Try is again sometime when you have some time to kill, and just put the brain in veggie mode. It will be well worth it. |
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