Review by Josh

Alright, I’ll admit it. I was drawn to this DVD by the cover. Purely out of curiosity of course. When I read a very generous overview of the series, my interest was sparked - Wouldn’t it be different for an anime to not only involve S&M bondage, but a detailed mysterious story of ghostly characters unable to pass over, clinging to life and the people around them? A dominatrix that has a angelic side to ease these weary wanderers? I needed to know if a 4 episode OVA could be so good!

Alas, I was let down again. I’ve had extremely bad luck with anime lately. Nothing I view seems to be good enough, and it’s not me; Ghost Talker’s Daydream was little more than horse crap. I’ve never even taken a glance at its manga counterpart, so maybe I’m just being overly critical, maybe the manga is extravagant and this was just some cheap OVA to bring in more money. Well ok, that’s what OVAs are for, but this was just raunchy.

Whoever came up with the idea of making this OVA needs to be slapped in the face. They may possibly be a brilliant idealist, but this anime simply went for too much. There are two sides to Ghost Talker’s Daydream - a supernatural/mysterious side, and a comedy side. Both of which are so underdeveloped that they fail in nearly all scenes. We see glimpses of Saiki Misaki’s past, but not enough to pull together how she grew up to be dominatrix and spirit medium. The comedy part of this series is so incredibly corny that I had to pause the DVD and walk away for minutes at a time because I was so embarrassed by the appalling attempts to cause laughter.

In an attempt to remedy this problem, quite a bit of fanservice is added. Yet there isn’t enough to keep lecherous guys glued to the screen. I had a hard time deciding whether or not to add “ecchi” to the genre list on the main information page, and only decided to because I figured the comedic dialogue could be considered lewd as well. Although I must say, Misaki does look hot when battling a troubled ghost.

This Ghost Talker’s Daydream DVD features 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio in both Japanese and English; other than a few core scenes, this adds little more than a bit of ambience. Both the music and sound effects are hard/flat and do not flow well from scene to scene. During those godawful comedy scenes, I honestly thought I was playing Maple Story again. And not when I first started playing and loved it, after a few months when it got so repetitive that I couldn’t be in the same room as someone playing it. This alone strikes out any possible ambience the 5.1 audio would bring to me.

I do believe this story has the potential to make a great full-length anime series; there was just too much needed to be packed into this short OVA. If you are into fanservice or are extremely bored, go ahead and rent this DVD. It’s good for a one time viewing, but I would never suggest buying it. The DVD has minimal extras: clean opening and endings, and the DVD-ROM provides us with printable posters and a couple desktop wallpapers, which I think more anime DVDs should have.

Negatives: Too simple. Not long enough to get interested in. Fails at both comedy and supernatural sides.
Positives: Sharp video and art.