Yume Oukoku to Nemureru 100 Nin no Ouji-sama

Last week I said the only way this could be resolved in a way that would make sense would be the characters waking up from a dream. Well the characters didn’t wake up and this ending does not make sense other than the power of friendship, prayers and dreams. Now why on earth did I expect anything more?

As the final episode rushes to a conclusion we kind of know that Setiq wants to bring Yuan back though why he believes stealing dreams is the way to achieve this, or why Kihel’s dream in particular would work, is never adequately explained. Nor is the butterfly guy ever anything more than a cackling annoyance who once it becomes clear Setiq’s plan is a bust simply starts breaking the place apart until the Princess’ prayer illuminates him out of existence.

Why Kihel isn’t put to sleep by Setiq’s attempt to steal his dream, or why the other townspeople just wake up at the end of the episode is all just kind of plot convenience and explained away by saying it was the prayer, but they’ve never explained how that works either so you might as well tell me it is because we ran out of episodes. And really that’s the problem underlying this entire series. We still don’t know anything about anything. Who the Princess was before she was summoned, what the dream eaters actually are, how any of their powers work, and why despite them reminding us this episode that the Princess is supposed to be waking up sleeping princes the only prince who was asleep was Avi in episode 1. Every other prince is just kind of emotionally stunted rather than sleeping.

Still, if you just want a ramble with a range of guys and the occasional confrontation that is solved through the power of love and prayer than there is a chance you’ll really enjoy this. It works for what it is but there’s so much more it could have been. It is at best sitting on average and most of the time slightly below in terms of story, characters, or anything else.

I will get to a full review of this anime soon but in the meantime I’d love to know your thoughts.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?
• Episode 6: From The Ocean to the Snow
• Episode 7: This Was Not A Well Thought Out Plan
• Episode 8: It’s All About Kihel
• Episode 9: What If Wonderland Were A Modern City?
• Episode 10: The Cat and Kihel
• Episode 11: Confusing Villain Motivations – Check

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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I’m almost hoping that this series ends with the characters waking up and realising the whole thing was all just a dream because that’s about the only way this is going to make actual sense. Then again, I guess I wasn’t expecting all that much from a villain who sits around for 90% of the series doing nothing but watching because to be honest you have to really question how motivated they are to do anything at all.

Any compelling story line that may have existed as Kihel went to find Setiq to figure out what happened in the past and maybe save his kingdom more or less got shot in the foot when Setiq just decides its time, for reasons unknown, and essentially sends the road straight to our group of travellers bringing them to Kihel’s forgotten Kingdom. It isn’t exactly a satisfying or particularly interesting way for a quest destination to be reached given it just kind of happens with no real triggering event to justify it, but this is more or less par for the course in 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Switched Off Audiences.

With one episode to go, it is abundantly clear that the majority of characters we’ve met will get no further anything. Also clear that by the time this story wraps up Kihel’s plot and we figure out what is happening in Atlas, that will be it. The unnamed Princess is unlikely to suddenly get some kind of backstory or point and has essentially been a spectator and Avi is entirely superfluous to anything at this point in time given his Kingdom has never come into sight at all.

I’m actually interested in Setiq’s deal, I’m just not convinced that I’ll be overly impressed with how this anime chooses to execute it. It is all kind of a shame because the initial premise was actually kind of promising and mostly this show has meandered along and now we’re finally at the end but I don’t really feel like we’ve gotten anywhere. Oh well.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?
• Episode 6: From The Ocean to the Snow
• Episode 7: This Was Not A Well Thought Out Plan
• Episode 8: It’s All About Kihel
• Episode 9: What If Wonderland Were A Modern City?
• Episode 10: The Cat and Kihel

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

Consider supporting the blog by:

Or use one of my affiliate product links:

The concept is raised as the Princess and the two Princes find their way into a modern city-scape but we very quickly abandon this line of questioning as the characters find themselves onto a rooftop garden and from there it is all pretty standard antics for an episode focusing on Alice in Wonderland style tropes.

I’ve mentioned before that episodes and stories based on Alice in Wonderland are very hit and miss, and a lot of the issue is they rely on you just accepting weird stuff is going to happen because ‘wonderland’. This episode of 100 Sleeping Princes isn’t an exception. While the idea of a wonderland in a world of mostly pre-industrialised countries being a city full of skyscrapers most definitely could have potentially been interesting, nothing was done with this in the end and other than Avi getting some coughs and the momentary fun of watching him freak out in the elevator, this somewhat unique setting was horrendously underutilised before it got scrapped by a time reversing watch reverted the city to a forest.

Similarly, the characters we meet in this place are all caricatures of Alice in Wonderland characters and in the brief screen time they get they don’t do much to break the mould or make themselves in any way memorable. About the only point of interest is the black butterfly is in wonderland and joins that party for tea dropping a few hints about Setiq before disappearing again.

And that’s where this feels like filler. We’ve more or less established that Kihel’s story is the only one this anime actually cares about. We’ve never addressed who the Princess is or what she was doing before she appeared in this world. She doesn’t even ask if there’s a way to go back. She’s just kind of existing for us to follow along with. Avi, despite initially suggesting he was going to return to his kingdom, has just strapped in for the ride. He has no actual story of his own that we’re aware of (and barely any personality). So Kihel’s story and finding Setiq has more or less become the only goal and other than a few minor titbits, this episode contributes nothing toward that.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?
• Episode 6: From The Ocean to the Snow
• Episode 7: This Was Not A Well Thought Out Plan
• Episode 8: It’s All About Kihel

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

Consider supporting the blog by:

We seem to be closing in on the mysteries around Kihel’s missing memories. What I can’t figure out is whether this is going to be resolved next week or whether this is actually going to be an arc that takes us to the end of the series. Either way, it doesn’t seem like the anime is interested in dealing with its premise with the Princess appearing from another world as she doesn’t seem even vaguely concerned about that.

As an episode, this one was pretty dull with the main characters spending the entirety sitting beside a lake and talking or sleeping. However it did fill in a substantial amount about Kihel’s background and set up a fairly compelling oncoming confrontation and we finally got a bit more insight into Setiq so it isn’t as though this time was wasted. They could have found a better way to integrate this into some kind of story, but I guess 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams has long since proven it isn’t really all that sophisticated in how it rolls out its plot.

This episode does its job in that it leaves the audience feeling like they are getting closer to something while leaving us with a huge number of questions which will make us watch on. What it doesn’t really do is deliver any of this in an engaging way, unless talking and flash backs are your thing. And that’s literally all there is to this episode so I’ll just leave it here.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?
• Episode 6: From The Ocean to the Snow
• Episode 7: This Was Not A Well Thought Out Plan

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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If we forget for a moment that other than Avi none of these princes are sleeping and that the dream eaters no seem to be some sort of controlled minions, I still have to ask what the villain actually thought was going to happen this week. That was one terribly planned out kidnapping.

While the general fairy tale nature of this story continues to be one of its more positive traits, everything else is kind of just doing what it does. The butterfly finally took form this week mostly to taunt the characters but giving the villain a voice in the action actually made it worse. Whether he was mocking the Princess or teasing the Princes, he came off like a silly child and as soon as Frost showed up he bailed. About the only noteworthy part of this character’s appearance is that he was clearly controlling the dream eaters which just makes you wonder what they actually are anyway.

This part two does quite a reasonable job of dealing with the three brothers and we see Frost and Graysia kind of come to an understanding of sorts, but it is at the expense of anything of note happening to our main cast. you could argue that Graysia was only kidnapped because of the Princess, but if we just remove the Princess, Avi and Kihel from the story, we could more or less run the same plot with Graysia getting trapped and Frost having to search for him and ultimately save him. It is never a good sign when the main cast can be utterly removed from events without altering them in any way of note.

However, this story came to a close and the trio have headed off again so I guess we’ll meet yet another kingdom and Prince next week.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?
• Episode 6: From The Ocean to the Snow

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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Leaving the pirates and other Princes behind, we are now travelling through the snow. I’m glad the characters reminded us they were travelling to defeat Dream Eaters because I’d almost forgotten the main plot point from episode 1.

This anime has kind of meandered about and while each episode is still kind of okay to watch, I’ve more of less given up on the overall ‘plot’ given the show itself doesn’t seem interested in addressing it. This week we are introduced to three new princes in a frozen kingdom who are having some social issues (rather there seems to be some middle child syndrome going on). The oldest prince tells the Princess and her companions  that there are no dream eaters in the kingdom but then invites them to the castle anyway to given them information, before he offloads them onto the youngest prince to find the middle prince. No information given. It’s all just this happens and then this happens with little reason to care about anything going on as you kind of suspect it will all sort itself out anyway.

And even though the plot is wholly unsatisfying, the characters themselves remain bearable though not remarkable. The new princes introduced this week are perfectly fine even if their issues aren’t really particularly interesting, and overall I’m still kind of curious about Kihel’s past and the Princess and a few other points that the show just doesn’t seem to want to get to anytime soon.

So yes, watchable but there’s not a whole lot of point at this stage.

Previous Reviews:

• Episodes 1 + 2: Fairy Tale Logic At Work
• Episode 3: No One Is Really Bad, Just Possessed By Dream Eaters
• Episode 4: Not All Dreams Are Good Ones
• Episode 5: A Ghost Ship with Friendly Ghosts?

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

Consider supporting the blog by: