Hello guys! My name is Sherly and today,
in this new series, we are going to clue
for looks
"he's... he's clueing for looks"
In Yume Nikki!
I'm going to talk about theories,
possible explanations, symbolism, cultural references
and many other things.
We're going to try to understand what Yume Nikki
could be - since we have no idea what it really is
and we will never know...
But first of all I have to make some
warnings and disclaimers so bear with me...
Warning number one (not really a warning tho): please excuse my English.
I am NOT a native speaker
So if I make some grammar or pronounciation mistakes
just let me know in the comments
but keep in mind that English is not my first language
so also excuse my accent, obviously
If in the middle of the video you'll find yourself thinking:
"what is this crazy bitch blabbing about"
I am extremely sorry, I'll try to make
English subtitles for every single video
but since it's really time-consuming I
can't promise anything.
And excuse my cursing too, I am only a human
you may hear a couple of "fucks" in this series.
And the last thing about languages:
There is a lot of Japanese terms and names
mentioned in the universe of Yume Nikki
and my knowledge of Japanese language is
very limited...
In fact only two words are know are...
...probably sushi and tsunami
so I will most likely slaughter all the names.
feel free to correct all my mistakes in the comments
If you speak Japanese.
Warning number two:
I'm going to talk about things that might be triggering
or just unpleasant for some people
so if you feel like you can't handle mentions of:
rape, domestic violence, self-harm
suicide, dysphoria, trauma, etc
you might want to close this video now.
If you stay, just keep in mind that Yume Nikki
is a really disturbing game
and this series is not meant for people under 18.
And the last thing! Very important!
I'll try to put a name of the creator somewhere on the screen
every time I'll be covering some sort of theory
regarding Yume Niiki
However, some of them are so popular
that it would be impossible to actually find out
who came up with them first.
Also, I have several explanations stuck in my head
but can't find a name of the author now
so I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Author...
Or Mrs.
The point is, most of the theories I'm going to tell you about
in this video were not made by me - I just want that to be clear.
Same goes for all sorts of fanarts
including manga, light novel and fan-made animes.
All the source links will be in the description
So let's get started by simply explaining
what Yume Nikki is!
It is a freeware, surreal game
Made by Japanese developer KIKIYAMA
released in 2004, with the last update in 2007
It was created using RPGMaker 2003 but it has very few RPG elements
It is actually considered
to be one of the most original games
ever created an RPG maker
and it has a huge fanbase.
it is mostly famous for it's disturbing, somber atmosphere,
symbolism and incredible amount of fan theories
that explain the mysterious plot of the game.
Yume Nikki literally means "dream diary"
and it follows a young girl called Matotsuki
or more precisely: her dreams.
Our main goal is to gather 24 so-called "effects"
scattered around Madotsuki's dreamworld.
For some reason
Madotsuki doesn't leave her room
and her activities are quite limited.
She has a Famicom console, with only one game,
TV with no signal,
some books
(but you can't interact with the bookshelf),
mentioned dream diary,
and a bed.
The only way player can gather all the effects
and get "The Ending" event
is to go to sleep and explore Madotsuki's dreamworld.
There is no other plot than that,
There is no dialogue
all we have to do is find the effects.
The creator himself stated that Yume Nikki
is "simply an exploring game"
and that is has no other purpose or plot
so every single theory I'll cover in this series is fanmade.
There is no "right" or "original" interpretation,
There is no canon established:
everything is made by fans, for fans.
The game is not expected to be updated:
there is no contact with KIKIYAMA since 2008.
They are not responding to e-mails
and have not updated their website ever since.
Before they disappeared,
they gave their permission to Project Yume Nikki
who created merchandise a light novel and web manga.
however both light novel and manga are
just artists and writers interpretations
and they might be different from KIKIYAMA's
original idea about the game.
But let's talk about things that might have inspired KIKIYAMA
to create such a bizarre, unique game.
There is a book i will call "gamification" for short
because it has a really long, smart title
that you can find somewhere in the description.
It has a whole chapter about Yume Nikki
and the author of that chapter implies
that dream journal (I mean the game) or the title
"Yume Nikki" might have been inspired by
"Ten nights of dreams" - series of Japanese short novels.
It seems kind of far-fetched to me
since the only thing connecting Yume Nikki to Ten Nights
is a dream theme and there are no other similarities
(not that I know of)
Obviously they were both made in Japan but that's it.
These novels are definitely worth
checking out but I'm not really sure if
they were such a huge inspiration?
I might be an ignorant doofus right now
sorry
The other title "gamification" mentions
is LSD dream emulator and this one is so
much more believable to me.
LSD is also a Japanese exploration game
and it was based on a real dream diary.
Yume Nikki has a little different vibe to it,
but those two games have a lot in common:
both are about exploring the dreamworld,
both are really unsetteling, eerie and unique.
There are also some similarities in world design
- or at least I see them -
but I think I'll cover them later on.
Finally, while doing research for this episode
couple of months ago
I stumbled upon a theory on wikipedia
that mentioned Japanese TV show
about a man called Nasubi.
Encouraged by the article I've watched the whole show
hoping to find some more similarities (I didn't)
let me tell you what the show is about very quickly:
a man called Nasubi (it literally means "eggplant")
was challenged to stay alone in the room.
All of his personal belongings were taken away from him
including his clothes.
His goal was to win 1 million yen in prizes.
He was given postcards, pens,
magazines and radio so that he could enter contests.
The only thing he was allowed to possess
were things that he won.
He remained alone, naked,
in front of the camera for 15 months
opening his door only to receive mails and packages
Now, you can watch the show yourself or
check out the theory on Wikipedia
Yume Nikki and "A life out of prizes"
share a lot of similarities.
The most obvious one is isolation.
Madotsuki is locked up in her room just like Nasubi.
She either refuses to leave the apartment
or is locked inside of it
so just as someone pointed out on Wikipedia,
maybe Madotsuki is forced to stay in her room,
because she's a part of some sort of experiment.
maybe someone locked her up?
You can't really tell
because when you try to leave,
she shakes her head.
We do not know if she does that
because she's simply trying to tell that
she doesn't want to leave or if she
can't physically open the door, like it
was portrayed in manga.
Well, there is a lot of theories
regarding her isolation.
The most popular one is that Madotsuki is in fact Hikikomori
It is a Japanese term for social withdrawal
you can probably read the Wikipedia definition right now
and I'll put a video about Hikikomori phenomenon
in the description.
Basically, this theory says that Madotsuki chose
- more or less - to stay in her room.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say
that social anxiety or withdrawal
are something we choose - I am just trying
to emphasize that - according to that theory -
she was not kidnapped
and she's not being held in her room against her will by someone.
"Gamification" suggests that
KIKIYAMA was a hikikomori
and by sharing Yume Nikki with the world
they invited us to explore the world of
the Japanese recluse.
It also pointed out that we know absolutely nothing
about KIKIYAMA, that's why I keep referring to this
mysterious developer as "them", because we
don't even know what gender they are.
This theory seems solid and reasonable
so I personally think it's one of the
most probable explanations.
One more thing needs to be said about Madotsuki's isolation.
Notice that there is no kitchen or loo in her apartment.
This led some people to believe,
that Madotsuki is never in fact awake.
Her eyes seem to be closed in real world too
and the money she can gather in dreamworld
do not disappear when she wakes up.
I just wanted to point these things out
but we are going to look into this particular theory
a little bit later.
Alright, let's talk about Madotsuki herself
and let me call her Mado from now on
because her full name is painful to pronounce, sorry.
Again, I want you to remember
she might not be a hikikomori
- a lot ofwebsites mention it as a fact but it is not.
It is probable, it is a solid theory,
but it was not confirmed.
We don't know anything for sure
and I want to make that as clear as possible
Just as KIKIYAMA, Mado is an extremely mysterious person:
She is a girl
- whether she was born female or she's transgender:
we are going to discuss that too.
We don't even know her age,
she might be child or a grown up woman,
most people assume she's a teenager but really... we'll never know.
"Madotsuki" literally means "windowed"
and it is not used in Japan as a name
so it's probably just a nickname
or a symbol: as Yume Nikki wikipedia says,
"it could be thought of as being a
metaphor: more a description of a
character as the player's window into
the dream world rather than a literal name."
Mado never talks in the game and
of course we don't know what's the reason.
maybe she socially withdrawn
and can't communicate with people properly
maybe she's mute, maybe she can't talk to
the creatures she encounters because they
are not human - possibilities are endless.
There is no official artwork of Mado
so we don't really know what she looks like.
Of course we can see her sprite... obviously....
we can see her pink blouse and red shoes
but that's all, we have no details.
Also, she never opens her eyes
so we don't even know her eye colour.
An image of a female figure
resembling Mado was discovered
on an ancient poncho.
I have no idea where or when it was made,
but it is possible that KIKIYAMA was inspired
by that particular image.
Okay! I think we're done with explanations for now! (not really)
We can finally enter the magnificent world of Yume Nikki.
Menu is very simple: "load" button
is replaced by "diary" because we save our game
by writing in our dream diary obviously...
The introduction is showing us
basics of the gameplay: we are in our room,
we have to get in bed, dream,
and - if necessary - wake up by pressing 9 key.
Effects can be gathered by interacting
with different characters and each one
will give us new unique abilities.
After we get all of them we have to
drop them in the Door Room
or as we are going to call it in this series -
the Nexus.
We cansave our game at our desk when we wake up.
As you can see the game starts in Madotsuki's room
there is our Famicom there to the left
it wouldn't be there if we were in the dream world.
When try to leave the room Mado shakes her head.
We can't leave yet, we have to go to sleep first.
But before we go let me show you how Nasu works.
Nasu is the only game
Mado can play on her Famicom and it is about...
...catching eggplants (Nasubi reference?)
In Nasu we can control a little creature
that resembles a bird - keep that in mind
because we're going to encounter more bird-like characters.
It is surprisingly called "Nasu" by fans
and it's the only character we can control, apart from Mado.
:<
As you can see we can do nothing about this bookshelf
We can save our game here
by sitting on this chair...
Excuse all my saves, I forgot to delete them...
That was kind of pointless but okay.
We can't do a lot here...
we can see what's going on on the balcony but...
...not much... not much is going on... just sky
just regular... stuff...
our TV has no signal just as I said
nothing interesting on telly tonight, sorry!
nothing more we can do,
let's just go to sleep.
We get teleported to our balcony
every time we enter the dream world...
I don't know if there's a reason for that...
You can see the sky is different,
it looks kind of extraterrestrial
and our Famicom is gone as I said.
Now we can leave!
We are in the Nexus now or the Door Room
as some people call it.
Nexus is a main room of some sort
we can enter all 12 Original Locations from here
and that doesn't mean that there are only 12 locations in Yume Nikki,
there are also Deeper Locations,
they are just a little harder to get into.
Actually this is how Mado's dreamworld looks like
more or less
so...yeah, that's... that's a lot of worlds
Let's get back to the Nexus: from here we can enter 12 worlds.
All of them contain doors and portals
that can be used to reach Deeper Locations.
Here our journey begins
and unfortunately we'll enter one of
these doors in the next episode so it
kind of ends too... :(
I hope you enjoyed this little introduction
and I hope you've learned some basic stuff about Yume Nikki.
Stay safe guys and have a nice day! <3
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