Senri was discovered when he was five, surrounded by his parents and their spilled blood and the body of his twin brother Kazuto missing and never found. He had an emotional connection to his brother that bordered on the magical, allowing them to feel each other’s strongest emotions and shortly after the murders Senri experiences the death of Kazuto as well. Senri hated his parents but Kazuto was his entire world and in the 13 years since this unprovoked event he has never given up on searching for the murderer.
Through entirely unrelated circumstances, it seems like Senri may have found his first-ever lead and that this seemingly random act of violence may go deeper than anyone ever realized.
Erased, Kei Sanbe’s previous work licensed in English, had a simple premise (I need to prevent a series of murders 20 years ago) and a clean hook (I’ve been thrown back in time to make this happen) — For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams is much messier all around. We have a high school boy with a murdered brother, a psychic connection to said brother, a bad home life AND a mysterious multi-person murder, leaving him an orphan (presumably committed by a third-party). Now he’s realizing that there may be some even deeper plots afoot.
Honestly it’s a lot at once and I wish Sanbe had simplified these establishing elements before starting the story; while Erased’s mystery was an intriguing one, what really drew readers and viewers in was the character development and the relationships between Satoru and his friends both past and present. Kid in My Dreams is much less focused on the characters so far and feels messier for it; Senri is obsessed with revenge (as many manga protagonists are) but that’s his sole, defining characteristic so far and that’s more than almost any other character has going for them. Senri’s childhood friend from the orphanage he was sent to, Enan, has her own traumas to deal with but no real goals so far, she’s just around to try and keep Senri from getting himself killed.
Even though I’m familiar with Sanbe’s artstyle, it’s still jarring to pick up one of his stories and see just how ugly it is in some ways. Character designs are crude and similar, scenes are conveyed almost entirely in white, black, and a single shade of mid-tone gray, and while there is some ambition in the paneling and way that Sanbe portrays action, frankly the rest of the art feels more like an amateur’s than someone who has spent 20 years making manga. Enan’s design in particular looks a lot like a young version of the mother from Erased, so varied character design is clearly not one of Sanbe’s strengths but he does seem to struggle with it more here than he did in Erased (it’s also a little baffling to learn that most of Sanbe’s works have been “adult” in nature since I cannot imagine getting those kinds of emotions from this artwork).
After finishing Erased, and the satisfaction from finding that the manga had a much stronger ending than the anime, For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams is a bit of a letdown. I’m willing to give this on-going series another volume or two to see if it kicks itself into a higher gear but at the same time I’m not expecting much from it now.