100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters

There’s a definite trend in some stories to strive against making anyone a real villain and providing them essentially get out of jail free cards for being a jerk. Three episodes in and 100 Sleeping Princes definitely seems to be taking this path.

Apparently this anime is absolutely against the idea of anyone actually being responsible for doing bad things. The Queen isn’t spending the kingdom’s money and starving the people because she’s a selfish-cow, she’s possessed by a dream-eater. She wouldn’t actually curse the older prince so that her son could become the ruler or try to kill him, she’s just possessed. So while the dream eaters are apparently evil without a single redeeming feature, they just need to get cut down, all the humans are apparently inherently good and all evil is caused by possession.

I’d mock this show more for it accept that this is something I’ve come to expect from a range of anime over the years. I wouldn’t mind this particular trait so much accept that it is either all or nothing. They never let some characters just be horrible people who whether they were possessed or not are going to do bad things. As a result, there’s very little tension because we’ve already got a formula. Bad things happen, identify who is possessed by a dream eater, princes run around waving shiny sticks (okay, swords) and then the princess does her little prayer and the dream eater emerges to be instantly cut down by the princes.

Maybe this anime will be the one to shake things up and won’t go down this strictly formulaic path, but right now I’m thinking this is about all it has on offer. There’s certainly a minor plot line being clumsily laid out in final scenes involving one of the party members, but I’m not all that inclined to be interested. Still, the fairy tale feel and the general lack of stress watching this causes might see it through the season so I probably won’t be dropping this one but nor would I recommend it from its first three episodes.

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