Dream Hunter Rem is a series of Magical Girl Original Video Animations by Anime R from 1985 about a green-haired supernatural detective who enters other people's dreams and fights the demons who cause nightmares. It started out as a hentai one-shot, but when the producers realized that audiences actually enjoyed the plot, they re-released the first episode with the porn scenes cut out and continued the series with two more episodes. There was also a second series called New Dream Hunter Rem released in 1990.
This page is for the non-hentai series only.
Surprisingly, Rem's brought back for a crossover game called Super Heroine Chronicle.
The series bears no relation to and should not be confused with the band R.E.M. or the 1989 direct-to-video children's film Creating Rem Lezar.
This series provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Rem kicks butt for a living with a sword and gun.
- Ambiguously Gay: Rem kisses the girl from the first episode in a casual sexy gesture.
- Cool Car: Rem owns a blue customized Honda Today with missile launchers, although it is destroyed in episode 3.
- Delinquents: Rem runs afoul of a gang of female delinquents in episode 2. Unusually, one of them wields a knife.
- Gorn: Holy shit. Beheadings, slit throats, stabbings, that one time Rem graphically melts down to a skeleton — for a series with cute girls and Fanservice, it can quickly flip straight into Fan Disservice when a villain goes on a murder spree or Rem herself gets seriously injured.
- Love Triangle: Kidou the parapsychology student and Enkou the Buddhist monk both compete for Rem's attentions. Though technically it can be counted as a love square since Elizabeth is also vying for her affections.
- Magical Girl: A very early example of the Magical Girl Warrior sub-genre.
- Meaningful Name: REM refers to Rapid Eye Movement, which people exhibit when they dream.
- Mysterious Past: Rem's. All it is shown is that she descends from an ancient clan of Dream Guardians and she lost her mother and her ability to dream by herself.
- Naughty Tentacles: The demon from the first episode uses them to restrain his female prey. Played much straighter in the original version, as anybody can imagine.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Rem's cat and dog sidekicks, Alpha and Beta, who help her out during fights.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Whenever somebody's getting possessed by a demon, their eyes turn red.
- Self-Censored Release: It started out as hentai, but was retooled into ecchi after the first episode. Averted in the manga series Dream Hunter Rem XX.
- Serial Killer: Professor Shinigami has the same powers as Rem, but he uses them to kill people.
- Stripperiffic: Rem's warrior outfit in the dream world is a Chainmail Bikini made of Sensual Spandex.
- Swallowed Whole: When Rem sees that a dream monster is about to devour her, she purposefully dives into its mouth, avoiding its rows of sharp teeth, and slices it apart from inside its throat.
- Vague Age: Rem. She's old enough to drive and own a car, but at the same time she can convincingly disguise herself as a highschool student, and she notes to Sakaki that she is pretty much one, though without stating her exact age.
