Yume Nikki

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So when reading many complaints people have against this manga, it's important to understand that all versions of Yume Nikki are different stories. The same dream worlds are contextualized completely differently between versions, resulting in very different subtext. Given both the games rely almost entirely on subtext to tell their stories, that alone should indicate that they are separate stories, even without them having wildly different endings.

More importantly than trying to convince you whether the manga is good or bad, I would like the take-away to be that it's not beholden to the original work other than its use of the basic setting and characters. ... The manga definitely stands out by having an explicit story rather than a largely implied one, but there's nothing particularly wrong with that. It's just a different decision for a different story.

It was 2014 when I got to know about indie games, "Anonymous people that make games that are not financed by any company" or more or less that way I understand the concept. Some time later, spending the internet of my cell phone for watching bored Tops, I found one that listed the indies games: And that's when I met Yume Nikki: "A hikikomori girl who travels to the world of dreams when she goes to sleep ". The curious thing is that his genre was "LSD" that, as far as I know, was an older videogame that I will not talk about because that ... is not the case. When we enter the world of dreams, we realize that there is no objective in the game; and the closest thing to that was finding some powers called "Effects." Most of them were useless.

In each world we enter, inside the mind of the protagonist, we will meet unique characters and some will take us events, from the strange to the terrifying. By the way, some effects play a role in that. This game, that when I met him did not know it was a very popular game among indie games, sadly it has not had an update for eight years, leaving us with an ending that has led to many interpretations by the people who came to play.

Now, this manga version, which is said to have been authorized and supervised by the original creator, shows us a very summarized and generic perspective of what happens in the game; with characters whose personality in the game does not seem to fit into what we thought they were in their original work.

In the first place, although the plot of the story is not bad at all, the development itself is the problem: Madotsuki, a girl of indefinite age, owns a diary of dreams where she writes all the anomalies that arise in her mind when she enters the bed. One day, she discovers the Nexus, an area that appears after leaving the door of her room, in the world of dreams, where there are a total of 12 doors where she sends you to each world with a different ambience and aesthetic. It is there where our protagonist asks: Why do I have the same dream?

So far we can leave the plot of Yume Nikki, since Madotsuki enters the World of the Forest, everything is thrown back by turning this game of suspense and dark into a cheap shounen manga, where our protagonist, instead of giving us that air of anxiety and curiosity, they place us practically a child character that does not identify at all with what happens in the World of Dreams. However, the problem is not that our protagonist does not identify with what she dreams, the problem is the enigmas that we want to implement:

1 - Why does Madotsuki have those dreams?

2 - What secrets does the World of Dreams keep us?

3 - What does Madotsuki live is real or false? Or is it an experiment?

The first arose from always, before starting to play it until you read its derivatives (Manga and Novel), we have asked what is happening in the mind of our protagonist, the lack of text in the game makes us use our mind to try to predict some key points that can guide us to the past of our protagonist. This is one reason why this simple video game has a lot of theories for a short and simple plot with an abstract ending. (It has even been thought that it is an apocalyptic world).

The second question is almost unnoticed inside in the first question. The difference is that it only involves the World of Dreams, and not exclusively the protagonist. There are worlds that can not be entered directly through the gates of the Nexus, and that only we will achieve by generating specific actions through a probability inculcated in the game. These worlds, called "Events", are so strange and sometimes unable to make sense, and it is our way of thinking that can only say why it is there.

And the third ... it's just something that one of the characters knows. After Madotsuki loses control after being hit by Uboa, this character emerges, not within the Dream World, but inside Madotsuki's room asleep! This character calls himself Masada-sensei, another popular character whose main characteristic is a gigantic white piano that always plays him, and whose role in the manga is to find the anomaly that arises in the Nexus after Madotsuki wishes Uboa to death.

In an unexpected moment, Masada-sensei is interrupted by Poniko (who had previously met Madotsuki, and had upset the effect "Umbrella" to banish her to a world if exit), while she cuts off his whole body leaving him alive with a head and part of the shoulders. Madotsuki's madness alerts Mars, apparently the creator of the Dream World, and reluctantly offers to Poniko the opportunity to kill Madotsuki, called by Mars as "The Sixth", in exchange for which she could return to real world. "The First", a nickname that apparently from Poniko, enters Madotsuki's room. Poniko, now merged with Masada-sensei thanks to Mars, lowers the priority of killing the protagonist and decides to destroy her Diary of Dreams, so that Madotsuki is corrupted and turned into an ugly creature.

Opening the door of the room, Poniko witnesses Madotsuki turned into that gigantic creature while she decides to separate from Masada-sensei and "sacrificing herself" until Madotsuki absorbs her. When Masada-sensei notices that Madotsuki remembers Poniko, turned into Uboa, when he hit her several times with the effect "Umbrella", and takes the effects that Poniko threw before dying to throw them to Madotsuki. She absorbs the effects and that's when she remembers the way she can wake up: Just pinching her cheek. Madotsuki gets up from her bed, and that's when she meets Masada-sensei, who hastens to tell her how to get out of her dreams. She goes out on the balcony, climbs the stairs and ...

Why did not I like it?

What I said above, for those who decided to spoil without seeing, seems to be just a summary of what happens in the whole manga. But no, it's everything that happens in the manga; and the description of MAL is in my favor when they read in the "Chap. Read" section that the manga has only 9 chapters, and each chapter contains 20 pages. The main plot is not bad, the problem is that its development was so simple and fast that they did not even give importance to 1/4 of the things that happen inside Yume Nikki. Madotsuki hardly travels to 3 of the 12 gates of the Nexus, and does not get half a dozen of the effects that are distributed throughout the Nexus. This is explained later with Poniko and Masada-sensei, who possessed the rest of the effects. But if so, they must have given importance to these characters and the remaining four that would be Monoko (Second), Monoe (Third), Kamakurako (Fourth), and Mafurako (Fifth), which are the other girls who belonged to this weird "Experiment" as described by Poniko in her small talk with Masada-sensei: Where happiness is sought by separating the traumas suffered from good memories. Then, they will say to me "And that does not imply that what happens in World of Dreams has some influence on Madotsuki's personality?" It could be, but it is not the same to have an eccentric protagonist of whom we can not know exactly who she is, to tell us that her personality is thanks to an experiment which does not explain where it comes from, even if it is a dream, apparently.

Although what I have read makes me interpret that in the end Madotsuki if he was dreaming all the time, still leaves us with a sour taste in the mouth of why she was dreaming all the time. That is, what was the meaning of Madotsuki being involved in something called "Experiment"? It would be different if they had left it with "It's just a dream," but when they named "Experimento", that's when the other Yume Nikki girls had to give their contribution as well as the purpose of its creation. Was it just making them happy? And if so, why did each girl they experienced end up becoming Uboa as happened to Poniko and Madotsuki, at the time?

What saves Yume Nikki (Manga) from ending up being very bad, is the art itself: The scenarios are simple, but well done and almost well interpreted from the video game. If I were in those places, I would grab my camera and be photographing every figure and statue there was. But it's not enough, because the characters, despite having a modest design, what ruins them is the fact that, Madotsuki and Poniko, had no mouth. Also, at the beginning of the manga, the way Madotsuki moved was literally how he moved in the game. Will you know how much I laughed when I saw Madotsuki being chased by a Toriningen in the Forest World? Not to mention that there were scenes that seemed unnecessary and that only wanted to fill something, in the absence of a good development for a good main plot. Another thing that ruins art is the text, there are times when it fills almost the volume, or that there are moments when what they say becomes unintelligible. I was for a long time deciphering who spoke first between Poniko and Masada-sensei, although it was very easy to guess.

One hint I made was the small variety of characters, I only got to talk about Madotsuki, Poniko, Masada-sensei and a little Mars. But what about the other characters, those who are distributed in the twelve worlds of the Nexus? They are not present. Not at all! And if they are, they just put it in a convenient moment for the story, but that's it. As I said, lack of development hinders the way in which the characters develop. Among all the characters, the closest I can applaud his performance would be Masada-sensei, because this person had a great contribution (Very fast, at the speed of the link) on the secrets of the Dream World, and of that "Experiment" which involved Poniko (First) and Madotsuki (Sixth). But it is the "closest" to whom I can thank, it does not mean that I liked his development as a character in the manga. Madotsuki was a child from the beginning to the end, and Poniko gave it importance before she sacrificed herself in a stupid way.

Conclusion

The game will be remembered as one of the most bizarre and strange in the world of PC games, its effect on our mind would never be imitated by the best famous fangames like "Yume 2kki" or ".flow" (PS: I did not come here to disregard the community, however, I appreciate the effort they make to want to make a legacy towards Yume Nikki). Until today, apart from this manga, a novel was launched the same year and they can also consult it in MAL. Additionally, in February 2018 a remake called Yume Nikki was launched: Dream Diary developed by Steam, and apparently confirms that Kikiyama is behind the development of this "Sequel"; Not to mention that they are now making updates. I have not tried it, but I've seen trailers and I've loved the improved music as well as some scenarios that you would never have imagined if you were in 3D. What some question is its playability, but otherwise seems to have a future.

Regarding Manga, one of the strengths that wasted is that the video game, not having a plot in itself, gave him the freedom to do what he wanted with the story and with the characters. Although the three questions seem to have been answered here, there are more doubts that generate me about this strange world that Kikiyama has wanted to present to us for more than 10 years. I have read very short manga in a number of chapters, but I can assure you that the amount of surpasses four times that of Yume Nikki. The main plot was not bad, but if you really had given importance to its development, as well as the rest of the characters that did not appear in the manga, as well as the rest of the worlds that were not explored, as a fan of this videogame, I would have given my 8 points of thanks. But that's what they get from a cheap work that is summarized and poorly written.

I didn't expect to enjoy this.

I was already aware of the negative press towards this manga, and decided to read it to see what it was truly like.


I love the original game. Yume Nikki is so visually stimulating. As an artist, I just find that alone to be incredibly intriguing. Besides that, I enjoy the simplicity of actual game play. Exploring the worlds behind each door without story constraints is a calming, but fun experience. I also enjoy that since Yume Nikki lacks a story, it leaves so much for interpretation.

Moving it into the medium of manga takes away all these parts of the "Yume ... Nikki experience". With the lack of interactability, I no longer have an interest in it. The interactability of the game is what makes Yume Nikki "Yume Nikki". Taking that away strips it of its original intent.


The "story" makes almost no sense. It's so difficult to follow that I can't even write spoilers if I wanted to. Maybe that's caused by the writing itself, maybe the art and lack of mouths for characters, maybe the fast pacing in an attempt to put a full story into a volume's worth of pages, or maybe a combination of all 3 (three). But, nonetheless, I can't say I was able to enjoy what story elements were there. I could barely decipher what was happening. The fast pacing also caused it to be incredibly rushed. I don't think more chapters would redeem this manga, but I do think it could help to an extent.
Alongside the rushed story were rushed characters. You (reader) have no time to know the characters, even to the most basic levels. They just seem to appear out of thin air and act as if we have *known* them for years. There's nothing of substance to these characters of their "developement" throughout the story. I can see where it was attempted, but (perhaps due to the short nature of the manga) it didn't pan out properly.
This could be considered a personal nitpick of mine, but I feel like the addition of Madotsuki speaking ruins some of the immersion. The original lacking dialogue was a nice change of pace compared to the many other games I personally play. It works in that sort of 'basic protagonist" way so that you (player) can feel more immersed in the dream world. Madotsuki speaking could've works to an extent if her lines had any sort of substance, but her lines felt more or less shoehorned in and an unnecessary addition.


The art is okay. There's nothing remarkable to say here. I've seen many people make comments on the art itself, but I don't think it's too bad. However, one criticism I do agree with is the 'no mouths'. The lack of a mouth on a single character could've worked (Madotsuki would make sense), but on every important character makes it confusing. While reading, it took me some time to realise the text boxes were different depending on the characters. For the most part, I have no idea who was saying what and just had to give it my best guess.
The panels were confusing to navigate. Yume Nikki is known for it's cluttered visuals, but when putting that into a medium of black and white, it's more work to try and make things stand out. I also think that the framing of shots contributed to this in some way. The general spatial setting and placement of things felt confusing.


Overall, I wouldn't recommend it. This manga doesn't seem to understand what makes Yume Nikki enjoyable. It's poorly paced/rushed, has confusing artwork, and a boring story.

Play the game.