Bryce's Blog

I hope that everyone is having a good week, regardless of
whether it is being spent preparing for a day of feasting or it is just another
ordinary day.

Things have been going fairly well, as I can still do what I
like, especially now that some of my funds have be freed up a bit.

A while back, I had put in some preorders, expecting
December to be a month that was practically dead, but for reasons unknown, I
got notifications that the releases were pushed back, throwing things off a
bit.

Thankfully, things were not completely dead because at least
one title I expected to arrive this month recently arrived, so it is time to
get down to business.

Today, I will be reviewing that title, which is called For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams Volume 3
by Kei Sanbe.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier
post, I will not go over it again.

After years of not experiencing anything related to his twin
connection, Senri has suddenly started experiencing them again, thinking that
the brother he believed to be dead is alive, and decides to try and look for
him.

However, when he tries to go looking for his brother, by
visiting places he sees in his dreams, Senri finds himself getting even more
entangled with the underworld, as both the underworld and police are interested
in him.

While the first two volumes were not the greatest, thanks to
the fact that things did not really seem to get started until the second
volume, there is still time for this series to get its footing, so I decided to
see if the third installment can give me what I want.

And after reading this book, I have to say that I kind of enjoyed
it, though still not quite as much as I would have liked.

From the moment that I opened up this volume and started
reading the first few pages, I found myself so engrossed that I did not want to
stop reading for any reason.

As I have said many times before, one of the most important
things in a work of fiction is how things begin, as that it supposed to help
take the audience to a new world, thereby allowing them to get the temporary
escape that they desire.

While this necessary hook can be pulled off in many
different ways, depending on the genre and the medium used to present the work,
this was originally published in a serial publication, like most other manga,
so it has to pick up in some way that makes sense from where the last
installment left off.

In the previous volume, things ended with Senri waking up
from a dream that turned out to be shared a vision, saying that Kazuto was
alive, and the final piece of text said that it was the second time Enan saw Senri
smile, and in this volume, things pick right up from there with a flashback to
when she and Senri were kids and going back to the present moment.

Even though I am not particularly pleased with this kind of
beginning, because it reminds me of my experience reading volume
9 of The Ancient Magus Bride, it was still able to accomplish its
purpose and at least did a good job of reminding me of what had already occurred
in the series the moment the spotlight was back in the present, thereby making
it easy to get back into the story itself.

If Kei Sanbe had started off the first chapter of this
volume, like Kore Yamazaki started the first chapter of the aforementioned
volume I was reminded of, I would have decided to stop wasting my time with
this series because the first 3 volume must be able to flow well enough to keep
the reader invested and by making them feel confused in the third volume, as
opposed to the 9^th or later, that flow and cohesiveness would not
have been there at all.

Fortunately, Kei Sanbe remembered that this was Senri’s
story and the last chapter of the previous volume ended with Senri having some
hope in that his brother is alive, which makes me want to give him some
applause for having done a good job.

Hopefully, future volumes will be able to begin just as well
as this one did, because it will show that the series is going in the right
direction, but I probably will not find out any time soon.

The thing that I liked the most though was how mysteries
started cropping up.

While there were some mysteries that cropped up in previous
volumes, like what the man Senri is looking for is up to that even the
underworld is chasing after him, they felt like those small questions that
would only keep a few people interested, not something that could actually
serve as basis for a whole series.

Here, however, there are some things that do crop up, like
the identity of an assassin named Three Eyes, who is believed to be Kazuto and
what really happened in Senri’s past, as well as what the link Senri and Kazuto
really is.

Now, these kinds of things do not particular interest me too
much, because I feel like I want something more in a work like this, but it
shows that Kei Sanbe is trying to come up with something as intriguing as his
previous work, seeing as this series is considered by many to be a mystery
series, according to the series series page on
Baka-Updates Manga, though I still have my doubts.

If Kei Sanbe had not started to implement some real
questions, I would have been given even more reason to drop this series right
here and now, as it would show that Kei Sanbe really did only become popular
when he reached his peak, thereby giving me no reason to give this series a
second chance at a later time, like I did with Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi.

Thankfully, Kei Sanbe put in some questions that did come
up, in regard to some mystery that could possibly carry the series, which makes
me want to give him some praise, though not exactly as much as I would have
liked to give him.

Hopefully, the mystery element will improve from here and
show some promise, so that this series can be the best that it can be, but I am
not too confident that things will last much longer.

Sadly, those are the only things that I could really that
really stood out to me, outside of the obvious necessities in a work of
fiction.

Because my interest was captured quickly and held right up
to the end and there were signs that real questions were popping up, this was
an okay read.

Although there were things that I liked, there are some
issues.

However, aside from things that are too minor to talk about,
such as typos, only one thing seem to bother me, which is how boring this felt.

Just like any other person engaged in their hobbies, readers
want to read something because they want to be able to relax and enjoy
something, even after they have finished reading it, as that, along with how
the work ends, will have them coming back for more.

While I did feel intrigued by what I was reading in this
volume while I was reading it, I kept feeling like there was nothing there and
the only thing driving the series was Senri’s shared visions in the present
that drive the plot forward,

Now, some people will say that Senri’s shared visions are
actually now part of the plot, unlike Satoru Fujinuma’s revival, seeing as
Senri is only seeing what he believes Kazuto is seeing and he is the only one
of the twins experiencing this, as far as it has currently been revealed, but
that does not change the fact that something just conveniently happens that
gives Senri some troubles and intel.

For example, after Senri goes to see another location that
appeared to him in this volume, which occurred after Senri decided he wanted to
find his twin brother, he gets his friend to beat him up, to try and get Kazuto
to come to him, and some thugs show up intending to kill Senri, because they
think he is Three Eyes.

Yes, cases of mistaken identity does happen, whether it be
in arrests for targets for criminal activity, so it is somewhat believable, but
because a cop shows up and saves his skin, while showing a possibility that he
too may be involved in a way that is more than just a normal police detective
or officer investigating a crime.

If Kei Sanbe had the cop stay out of it, or at least not
show him convince Senri’s current threat to leave, things might have been more
interesting.

Unfortunately, because I did see the cop convince the thugs
to leave, and in a way that suggested he was a corrupt cop, it really killed my
enjoyment in the book, as well as killed any incentive I had to continue on
with this series.

Seriously! Is anybody proofreading and editing these
chapters before they are published?

Right now, I do not believe so, since the editors at
Kadokawa Shoten seem to be allowing Kei Sanbe to do whatever, thanks to his
previous series having been so well received, because the small hint of a vibe
of originality that this series had has disappeared once again.

Not only did things just conveniently happen, but another
thing that really made this feel dull was how things were not truly that
exciting for the wait I was made to suffer through.

While there have been cases before, where there were volumes
here and there that were not really that exciting because of when they were
released, things were not too bad because the series itself was interesting
overall and gave me some reason to wait it out.

Here, however, the way the events happen seem to only be the
most interesting when things are read all at once or within days, rather than
months.

Even though there were signs of this already, by how the
first volume ended and the second one began, I just chalked it up to something
that would not happen too often.

Sadly, this is the second time in a row in a series that is
currently only four volumes long, and that really takes out all of the
enjoyment I remember having when reading this volume.

If I had waited for this series to end, I could have
probably enjoyed myself more by being able to binge read through it, without
the troubles of waiting for volumes to be released, seeing as Yen Press does
have a tendency to change the release date a lot.

However, because I picked up the series at this point in
time, I do not feel like I can be as fair to it as I would like to be.

Hopefully, Yen Press learns to only release Kei Sanbe’s work
when it is complete, because this series seems like one that may only be
enjoyable reading by chapter or binging all the volumes at once, but seeing as
making fans wait tends to increase chances of piracy, I doubt they would do
that.

Thankfully, this was the only thing that really bothered me,
at least that was worth talking about, so there is room for Kei Sanbe and those
helping him to bring this series to the masses to make things better, though I
might not feel like checking this series out again.

While there was only one thing that kind of annoyed me, it
was something readers do not want to deal with, and at a point in which I expected
to get fully invested, it really hurt the chances of this series being any
good.

Despite the fact that there were a few things to like, the
fact that it felt boring overall made this a waste of time.

I recommend that everyone avoid this like the plague, though
you are free to read it if you are already a fan of For the Kid I saw in My
Dreams, as those will be the only ones that will truly appreciate the
volume.

If you liked this review and would like to see more, please
considering supporting me on either Patreon or SubscribeStar, so that I can
find more worthwhile reads for you guys to check out, and maybe a lot more
often than what changes next year should allow for.