[SPOILERS] Dreaming Girl Thoughts

Why do I do this to myself? Listen guys, I *really* wanted to like Dreaming Girl. The PV made it look like it was gonna be the story I was hoping for from Bunny Girl Senpai. I even convinced myself at the end of the movie that I liked it, likely due to some form of cognitive dissonance. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this movie is just as bad as the TV series. I put it as a 6 on MAL last night, but I’m likely dropping it to a 5, maybe even a 4, later.

I wasn’t really timing it, but I think it was the first third of the movie that was just unbelievably boring. Shoko and Mai argue over who gets the dick. All the other girls make their nice little cameo appearance despite being mostly useless to the actual story. Most of the early plot twists were painfully obvious too, *especially* the plot twist about Sakuta’s heart being Shoko.

The car accident scene is where I finally believed that this story could be interesting, because it was something I wasn’t expecting this series to do. There were so many cool ways that the writer could have taken the story from there, but obviously they picked the most narratively boring of all of them.

I think I have 2 main problems with this movie, and it’s only because both of them exist that I find myself disappointed with not only the movie, but the franchise as a whole. Firstly, the movie doesn’t do anything particularly unique or interesting. Stories about having to make important painful choices, stories about dealing with death and loss, stories about desperately trying to save who you love; these have all been done both before and better.

Secondly, the story has always felt like it makes up its own rules to fit the story it wants to tell. The amount of pseudo-science in the TV series was dumb, but the film makes it honestly unbearable. It doesn’t feel like the rules are symbolic of anything to do with “puberty syndrome”, it just feels like they’ve make up rules to create drama and to solve drama.

If you liked the series, especially the relationship between Sakuta and Mai, I guess you’ll probably get something out of this. Or if you are a newer anime fan, I can see you enjoying this movie. As someone who has seen this shit over and over again, frankly I’m tired of it.