I don't really have beef with J.C Staff because I still have a pretty good impression on many of their works, like Nodame, Railgun, Kimikiss, Toradora, Asatte no Houkou, etc. There's also plenty of positive reviews on Milky Holmes, although I have not seen that yet. What J.C Staff's good at is presentation, even when the animation's not up to par. Currently airing Hidan no Aria has a good mix of ecchi and action on first impression. I really like how they bring out character's charm in Ookami-san and Hatsukoi. Stuff like Index and Yumekui Merry has an impressive setting and concept on the get-go.
But they fail terribad at story execution, particularly when the story reaches the conclusive arc. To be precise: they just tend to fuck up the conclusion of the show (not exactly ending of the story) with a terrible direction. I'm talking about Otome Youkai Zakuro, Kaichou wa Maid-sama and yes, Yumekui Merry.
Go read the manga. You'll see how every characters plays a role in the story, how they actually relates to each other on the deeper scale, some explanations on their backgounds. There's much better character development on Chaser John Doe and Threepiece Engi too.
Now I won't exactly say no to anime original characters like Mistletein or Leon (Lestion), or even an anime original ending for that matter. But this is what J.C Staff did; they took the primary characters and the beginning arcs from the original work, created their own characters and story and practically created their own anime. Now that won't be a problem if the characters and story doesn't plainly suck, but they are. Mistletein and Iijima are painfully underdeveloped characters with absolutely zero depth, Chizuru and Leon served absolutely NO PURPOSE in the show, and the ending is a if-I-believe-I-can-do-it-I-will-gain-immeasurable-power wankfest.
I've written a post complimenting the characters in the show, too. It's too bad the anime as a whole doesn't justify the characters' potential.
The animation was average, but I like the character designs... as far as the characters from the original work goes. Daydream Syndrome was apparantly pretty popular, but it never caught my attention... since I like the ED "Yume to Kibou to Ashita no Atashi" better, after all. (It was the previous featured OP/ED).
The anime as a whole wasn't horrible, but the only reason you ought to be watching it is if there's a good sequel (which is highly unlikely, judging from the reception).
Plot/Concept: Very good, until it screws up in the end.
Story Style: Fairly good
Audio/Visual: Good
Value: 5
