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Yume Nikki

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  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Many, many bizarre things happen at random in the game and are never referenced again. But then, it's a dream, and there's no dialogue; it's only to be expected.
  • Common Knowledge: Since the game has no story, dialogue, or narration, those who play it for the first time are usually inclined to go online to find and/or create explanations for the setting and nature of the game. As a result, some are a little too eager to believe the theories as canon or Word of God and spread them around as such, something that even the game's pages on this very website have been victim to. In reality, nothing is confirmed. The more common examples of this are:
    • The player character, Madotsuki, being mentally disturbed, and that stabbing random creatures in the dream world is the game's objective. This is an unintended consequence of the fact that almost all dream world NPCs react only to three effects: Stoplight, Cat, and Knife. Since the former two arent terribly interesting, and there's otherwise not much NPC interaction, most first-time players (including Let's Players) will resort to stabbing anything that moves in hopes that it'll cause something interesting to happen. This also isn't helped by the fact that Madotsuki's dreams in general are bizarre and contain frightening imagery.
    • Madotsuki being a hikikomori. This is because interacting with her real-world door causes her to nod "No", refusing to leave. In reality, there's no evidence which indicates this habit didn't simply start at the beginning of the game. If anything, the relatively clean state of her room is evidence against the idea.
    • Masada being lonely, due to the fact that the table in his spaceship has two chairs, while the sole passenger is himself.
    • KyuuKyuu-kun being intentionally designed to resemble a penis, and that he's expressing excitement when he rubs the handrail faster after you equip the knife effect.
    • Any given event and imagery within the dream world supposedly having a canon meaning to it. In reality, nothing is canon and it's all open to interpretation. The Toriningen Picnic gets this especially hard, supposedly being representative of Madotsuki's loneliness and symbolizing the feeling of exclusion.
  • Contested Sequel: On the Dream Diary Steam game. Is it a worthy successor in the Yume Nikki franchise, or is it a generic horror game with the Yume Nikki license slapped on? Reviews on Steam and Metacritic are mixed to this day. Really, the only thing that hasn't been contentious is the soundtrack.
  • Creepy Awesome: Uboa. Despite being terrifying, he's got a lot of fans and is one of the most memorable characters in the game. Madotsuki might qualify as this, too, since she's possibly a Hikikomori, has messed-up dreams, and can potentially run around killing innocent bystanders with a knife.
  • Discredited Meme: Vomit-chan — a reaction image of Madotsuki throwing up — is hated by fans, not only because it's propagated by those who are unfamiliar with either the character or the game, but also because such an event never even happens in the game.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Uboa only appears in a random-encounter event that one is unlikely to discover without a guide, yet is one of the most iconic characters in the game.
    • Masada due to the theories of him being lonely out in space. Again, the way to see him requires some obscure not-hinted-at steps.
  • Epileptic Trees: There are a lot of long and wild theories about the game, due to the fact that there is no plot or characterization at all.
  • Fan Nickname: All of the area names are unofficial, as are all the character names except for Madotsuki (who's named in the menus), although various characters' nicknames (such as Monoko and Monoe) are derived from their internal files.
  • Fanfic Fuel: The lack of context and background information for many areas and characters, including Madotsuki herself, leaves the game's canon very open to fan interpretation and expansion.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • According to post No. 1420 on this page, Kikiyama was surprised to know that Yume Nikki was a lot more popular in the West than they expected.
    • For an April Fool's event on reddit where redditors could draw on a big canvas, Madotsuki was initially drawn on a part of the canvas claimed by r/Sweden, who actually completely embraced her and even led to a drawing of Madotsuki holding hands with Pippi Longstocking, a famed Swedish character.
  • Goddamned Bats: Some of the Toriningen. Theyre the only type of enemy in the game, and they're all Mook Bouncers, but are bothersome nonetheless, as they'll send you to a secluded area that you can only escape by waking up or by using the Medamaude effect which takes you back to the hub.
  • Good Bad Bugs: There's a glitch involving the Bicycle effect that multiplies Madotsuki's movement speed by eight, which makes exploration a lot easier.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Although Masada is often noted as Looking Like Cesare, he arguably looks even more like Tommy Wiseau. One poster of The Room (2003) even depicts Wiseau with slightly crossed eyes!
  • The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: While there are many dark theories that try to make sense of Madotsuki's strange, surreal and gloomy life, there are just as many fanworks that portray the dream as a lighthearted and wacky world. Animator Gobou's material is probably one of the most popular examples of this.
  • It Was His Sled: How to make Uboa appear, as well as his very existence, which ruins a fair amount of the shock of discovering him. Then again, he has a 1 in 64 chance of appearing in a specific room through a specific procedure, meaning that most will never see Uboa anyway unless they either get very lucky or they explicitly try to find him. It can still be very shocking, however, when trying to find him, failing multiple times, doing it more just for the heck of it, and he suddenly appears.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you haven't played it yet and are planning to, better do it before the video playthroughs, Fan Art, and even official merchandise spoil it for you.
  • Memetic Mutation: Regarding how popular this game became, memetic moments were bound to crop up overtime. Some are more well-known than others.
    • Many of the named NPCs — specifically, Monoko and Poniko/Uboa — have become just as popular as Madotsuki herself on certain Image Boards. Uboa in particular is popular enough to become the subject of multiple memes listed below:
      • aaaaaAAAAAああああ Explanation (spoilers)
      • Little do you know that Uboa actually has a smooth, English voice and enjoys long walks on the beach, that is after he sends you to an alternate dimension.
      • One that we can take credit for is pointing out that Uboa looks an awful lot like Che Guevara.
      • Things that look like Uboa/Uboa is everywhere Explanation
      • Uboa photoshops Explanation
    • ah not tan neet are not tan neet centimeter Explanation
    • Within the fandom, "NASU IS VERY EXCITING!" note  and "Let's monochrome ourselves!" note 
    • A drawing of Madotsuki vomiting has circulated around the web and received many spin-offs. These drawings are often used as reaction images for disgusting things or as a "No. Just… No" Reaction.
    • In YouTube Poop and similar videos it is somewhat popular to play the infamous credits music when a character falls from a height.
    • A fair amount of Puella Magi Madoka Magica fans "adopted" Madotsuki and make fanart of her as a Puella Magi, due to an eerily plausible WMG which says that she was.
    • Regarding the sequel, Yume Nikki - Dream Diary: Kikiyama's Seminal Release. Explanation
    • The Aztec Rave Monkey has spawned numerous video tributes, such as this remix and this humorous edit.
    • Animator gobou's videos, which are sprite animations based on Yume Nikki, have become somewhat popular on the web. In fact, a lot of these videos may have introduced people to the game itself.
    • Due to its bizarre nature, the game has sometimes been associated with the Weirdcore aestheticnote . This connection has led to videos like this.
  • Nightmare Fuel: So much of it.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Uboa appears for all of one event that the player will likely have to go out of their way to trigger (due to relying on a 1/64 chance), and despite this or perhaps because of this it is easily the most memorable character in the game.
  • Periphery Demographic: Yume Nikki is popular among fans of "sleep mixes": YouTube playlists of Ambient music intended to help the listener fall asleep. These sleep mixes range from 10+ minute loops of Nikki's more melodic tracks to mixes of tunes from multiple games that flow into each other. Despite the soundtrack's reputation, many listeners haven't played the game itself.
  • Quicksand Box: Since there is absolutely no dialogue or anything vaguely resembling a hint, getting completely lost is a very real possibility. Fortunately, getting out of a dream is as simple as the single press of a key.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Uboa and (less often) the Bloody Touching Monster are often portrayed as villainous characters within the fandom, even though you can play through the entire game without even knowing either of them exist. Of course, if you're playing Yume Nikki you probably already knew about Uboa and how to get it to appear.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: In Dream Diary, once you enter a world, you cannot return to the Nexus. The only way to return to the Nexus is by waking up and go back to the Dream World. And since some of the available worlds are "blocked" until you collect an item or an effect to explore, this becomes a chore.
  • "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny: Yume Nikki was released in 2004, and was considered very novel for using RPG Maker to make a game completely devoid of combat. Nowadays, it gets hit with the feeling of not being innovative anymore pretty hard, especially because of how little there actually is to the game compared to the overall Explorer Horror genre it launched or even its own fangames.
  • Self-Fanservice: Many of the characters are portrayed in fan art as cuter and/or sexier than what their sprites would normally suggest. Masada gets the most of this, but special mention goes to Shitai-san, who's supposed to be a dead body.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat:
    • If you don't ship Masada/Madotsuki, be prepared for a virtual shove-in-a-puddle. And the people who don't ship them are usually too busy shipping him with Shitai.
    • It's difficult to find femslash shippers in Yume Nikki, but there's a few people who enjoy Madotsuki/Poniko, or Monoe/Madotsuki.
    • The Dream VS Dream April Fool's is a mock dating-sim so everyone's ship needs get catered, hilariously so.
  • Shocking Moments: Nothing was as unexpected as Yume Nikki not only getting an official release on Steam, but also having a reimagining supported by the Kadokawa Corporation.note 
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: In Dream Diary, NASU has been upgraded into Super NASU, with multiple lives, new mechanics and shmup-elements that essentially changes the futile game into Pang, making it genuinely quite addictive. After getting the dirty game cartridge, you can also play a super simplified arcade version of Ao Oni in the dream world.
  • Signature Scene: The infamous ending where Madotsuki commits suicide and Uboa's appearance are the scenes that are usually most known outside of the game's community.
  • Stuck in Their Shadow: Poniko, Uboa, and the Bloody Touching Monster can all be found during the same general event. The third one of these is often left out — or straight up ignored — in most fanmade material.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The song playing in Poniko's room when the lights are on somewhat resembles the infamous Lavender Town theme from Pokémon Red and Blue.
  • Sweet Dreams Fuel: Certain places, like the sky garden are strangely relaxing.
  • Tainted by the Preview: When the first screenshots and teaser trailer for Dream Diary were available to the public, some criticized the game for its ugly graphics, the change in gameplay (a horror platformer inspired by some indie games, like Little Nightmares) and the fact that the game doesn't resemble the original at all. People even assumed that Kikiyama being a supervisor was a hoax made by Kadokawa to make the game sell more copies on Steam.
  • Tear Jerker: Has its own page.
  • That One Level:
    • The very big Hell maze, which is difficult to navigate and features a few Torinignen enemies around.
    • The teleporter maze as well. While it lacks in size, it makes up for with a confusing Portal Network.
    • Street World in Dream Diary , a long and very janky series of CorridorCubbyholeRuns.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Dream Diary has been hit with this pretty hard. Many fans expected it to be Yume Nikki but 3D, but it is actually more of a 2½D puzzle/horror platformer.
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The release date on Steam (January 9th, 2018) has led many to think Yume Nikki is a blatant copy of Undertale, which is untrue.
  • Ugly Cute:
    • Monoko is what you get when you combine Body Horror with Moe.
    • Uboa, of all things, tends to get this treatment in fanart. It does have a big wide smile and eyes that suggests it's quite happy.
  • Unexpected Character: No one expected Ao Oni to show up in Dream Diary at all, let alone an 8-bit version of the game with Yume Nikki characters.
  • Win Back the Crowd: After the launch trailer was uploaded on Youtube, some criticism regarding Dream Diary vanished, as the trailer managed to show more gameplay footage than the other two trailers released.
  • The Woobie:
    • Seccom Masada-sensei is often considered one, given where he resides: a spaceship in the middle of space, with no sentient company. And then there is the table with two chairs, as if he would hope someone would come to him...
    • Mars-san, who's trapped alone in a cavern under Mars, looks as if it's crying, and has background music that sounds very sad. It should be noted that it appears later on the same path as Secom Masada-sensei.
    • Madotsuki is commonly represented as such, due to ever-popular Common Knowledge that she's a Hikikomori, and the lack of interaction with other characters in her dreams. Then there's the ending, where she is Driven to Suicide.

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