Alternative title(s): Yumemiru Danshi wa Genjitsushugisha
Light Novel Adaptation by Studio Gokumi and AXsiZ
Streaming on HIDIVE

Premise

Self-proclaimed stalker-type Wataru Sajō is being creepy over his classmate, then a brush with a potential injury causes him to realise he’s wasting his time and to stop.

I swear this will make sense in a moment

Peter’s verdict: ‘n’ Shake

Here in the UK, our salted crisps (US English: potato chips) are called “Ready Salted”, not just “Salted”. This name came about because, in the 1920s, crisps came unsalted with a little sachet of salt included for you to salt to taste. These were called “Salt ‘n’ Shake” because you would add salt and then shake the bag to evenly distribute the salt. Then, when pre-salted crisps became available, these were called “Ready Salted” to distinguish from those you salted yourself. The name has stuck, and our salted crisps continue to be called “Ready Salted” to this day.

This anime is what happens if you get a pack of Salt ‘n’ Shake and drop your salt sachet down the drain, so you’re stuck eating flavourless crisps that don’t have any nutritional value or character, but you’ve already opened them so you have to finish them to not waste food, which is a chore.

Who the fuck calls themselves “the sort-of stalker guy on campus” in their opening monologue

A typical early-harem plot protagonist and self-described “stalker-type” is obsessing over the class idol and meithering her being a, well, stalker. Then following a near-miss of a football (US English: soccer ball) to the face under a minute into the episode, he becomes less of a stalker and everyone is finding him being more normal to be weird. He decides to not repeatedly attempt to go out with the girl that is rejecting him constantly and instead makes vague statements in the vein of wanting to “support her” instead of trying to make her his girlfriend.

First of all, a complaint about structure. You can’t establish this protagonist as a weird “stalker-type” and then there’s some divine intervention less than a minute into the first episode (literally 56 seconds) and then spend the rest of the episode having everyone be all “wow you’re weird now, is everything alright”? Even having the class teacher call him out on it, which is really fucking weird and shitty thing for a teacher to do by the way. Anyway, you need to spend at least a half to full episode establishing a character before doing a reversal like that, otherwise we have no comparison. We, as an audience, can’t experience what this guy was like pre-transformation, which means we can’t get any sense of difference when the change happens.

Almost like you’re not a character in a garbage light novel adaptation

If I may make a comparison for a moment, I remember the show “ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me?” where episode 1 we get a very generic harem anime intro, episode title “I’m Really Just an Ordinary High School Student” with the protagonist self introduction monologue, panty shot from the childhood friend, best friend is a sports guy, we meet the idol of the school, etc etc etc. Then, as this builds, we get to see more of the “real” protagonist until eventually, at the halfway point, the show starts again with the episode title being renamed “I’m Really Just an Ordinary Background Character” with the supposed protagonist letting his facade slip for the viewer and now we know what the show is about and how much of a different person (i.e. piece of shit asshole) this guy is from how he is on the outside. We spent 15 minutes with that build up to the real episode title and the lead’s true mindset being revealed.

ORESUKI showing more character in one frame than in the entirety of Dreaming Boy episode 1

The Dreaming Boy is a Realist gives you 56 seconds of pre-change buildup and the rest of the episode is their “realist” self I suppose. The problem is, I am not invested. There’s no “oh that’s an interesting change”. It’s just “this character is different from before and everyone else is saying so”. Yeah okay, my best mate keeps saying I look like I’ve lost weight, but I don’t weigh myself and I don’t look different to myself, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not, does it.

Anyway, plot-wise there’s not much here apart from a vague hook at the end where it’s pointed out that the protagonist being a creep in the year or so prior to the anime starting means any girls who may have hung out with protag’s stalkee have been pushed away and so him being less of a creep now means she’s now alone with no friends, and so this means the protag has to “support her” in some way, presumably encourage people to be her friend or something??????

In other news, this show looks *cheap*. Weird tweening, bad lip sync, minimal movement, even the opening sequence is largely still shots of the characters. It’s just generally not a pleasant watch.

Skip this one.