I Dream of Mimi Review

Hi guys! Well, it looks like I was able to put up a 2nd review this week after all. Granted, I’m posting this up a day early, but that’s because of my friend that came back from the Merchant Marines, as he and a bunch of other buddies of mine are hanging out tomorrow. With that said, let’s continue with the sleezy vibe that I started this Monday, and check out the charming yet sleazy I Dream of Mimi. Be sure to have a tissue or two by your side!

Story/Setup
Taken from the Anime News Network website:

“For three years Akira has been saving up for a computer. When a model 9821 goes on sale he runs to the store only to find it sold out in five minutes. Discouraged, walking home he discovers a man in an alley who happens to have the computer he was looking for. Excited he buys the computer and runs home only to find that he didn’t purchase a 9821 but a 2198, a super advanced biomechanical computer girl named Mimi.”

There’s actually more to this story that what I put down, but to tell you more would ruin this strange yet wonderful OVA. This might not be a deep story, but it’s easy to understand.

Setting
Like Hanappe Bazooka from this past Monday, I Dream of Mimi takes place in two worlds: the real world, and the computer world. The real world is filled with schools, houses, cities, etc. Unlike a lot of other shows that rely on these places, you kinda want to walk around these places, simply due to the characters within them (Look below to see why). It’s when the OVA travels to the computer world that things take a walk on the odd side. It’s very reminiscent of Reboot, a cartoon from the 90s that was entirely animated by computers, and dealt with similar subjects (Minus the sex). There’s an alien yet familiar feeling to the computer world in this ova, a feeling of the unknown, yet at the same time you feel like you know this world, as if you’ve seen it in a dream. Nice!

Characters
The cast of I Dream of Mimi is small, but enjoyable. Akira comes across as the standard nerd: friendly, knowledgeable, and geeky. The most surprising about him is that he’s quite reluctant in having sex with Mimi & the other girls, which is highly atypical among geeky guys in a hentai title. This all leads to Mimi herself....

You’d expect a girl with a name like that to be cute & ditzy, and to a certain extent you are correct. Mimi is indeed cute (I consider her to be more of a combination of cute & pretty), and she does have moments where she appears to act ditzy, but she’s actually quite clever, and has a bit of a mischievous side to her. Simply put, I find Mimi is the kind of girl I’d like to magically appear in my life, so to speak.

The rest of the cast is equally wonderful as well, although because everybody else is rather secondary, they don’t quite have as much of the spotlight pointed on them. They’re fun while they’re on screen, but once they have their moments, they’re done.

Animation
I Dream of Mimi has some of the best 90s animation I’ve ever seen. Although it was released in the late 90s (1997, to be specific), a period when computer usage was starting to gain a place (Whether good or bad is up to personal taste. For me, I’m right in the middle, but this debate is for another time), but I Dream of Mimi is a title that is hand-drawn only, or at the very least heavily looks like it was hand-drawn. The girls range from cute to sexy, while the guys range from humble to mildly handsome (A far-cry from this past Monday’s collection of male characters). The various backgrounds range from plain but nice, to surreal & trippy. Again, this OVA has some nice 90s animation.

Voice Acting
This voice acting in this is surprisingly good!

There might be a moment or two where a character’s voice might sound a little weak, but I enjoyed listening to this dub. There’s a lot of good energy coming from the voice actors, and they all seem like they want to be the roles they were given. To be a little more honest, I suggest watching this show with the dub on, as I find that the original Japanese audio doesn’t quite convey the humor & wackiness as well as the English voice did.

Episodes & Episode Length
I Dream of Mimi is a 3-episode OVA, each of which run for close to 30 minutes each. Watch this one at night, as it has some pretty risque material in it (More on this in a bit).

Availability & Pricing
Good lord was this one hard to find! Again, this is another one of those “Hard but not impossible to find” kind of shows, with an emphasis on the hard part of that last statement. I was able to locate a couple copies over on Amazon: there is currently only 1 new copy (Which is priced at almost 100 dollars!), and 17 used copies (Which start at close to 10 dollars in pricing). If you are absolutely in need of some softcore material (More on this in a bit), then buy the new copy. If you want to buy it on the cheap, then buy a used copy.

Extras/Other
Since I downloaded this, I don’t know what the extras are.

Before I end this review, I’d like to quickly talk about two things. For starters, the creator of I Dream of Mimi seems to have a pretty good grasp of computers. He knows about programming, the various brands of the time, and even goes into some detail about computing as a whole. Unfortunately, this really seems to be the only thing the creator knows about, and coupled with the amount of computer puns in this show, it’s clear he wanted to target young male geeks rather than anyone else.

Secondly, despite being a hentai title (and the 2nd in the genre to appear on this blog), the sexual content is rather light. Sure, there is oral sex & humping, but you never see anything sucked on or put in. Often at times, the sexual content is really used for laughs (Although there is a moment about half-way/three-fourths through where things become a little more intense). If you were expecting an intense sexual experience in I Dream of Mimi, then you’re going to be incredibly disappointed.

General Impression & Rating
I Dream of Mimi is fun! Damn fun!

It’s the kind of fun that will make you either giggle, smile, or laugh out loud. While there’s definitely series & OVAs released now that do have this kind of effect on people, they don’t seem to be as intense now in this regard. If you want a fun, funny, and sexy time, then I suggest you find this OVA, and give it a go! 

I Dream of Mimi gets a 8 out of 10.

See you all later this week. Until then, stay Otaku!



***
Oh, the intro to Origins (The last DLC zombie level for Black Ops 2) came out earlier this week. Give it a look, and enjoy the awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTytL0zsKmo