Dreams and Reality

Dreams and Reality Episode 1

Dreams and Reality (夢と現実) Yume to Genjitsu

Moritaka Mashiro is a generic middle school student who simply wants to lead a normal life and do what is expected of him. However, classmate Akito Takagi has different ideas as he recognizes Moritaka's talent for art and has a plan: the two team up to make a manga. As hesitant as Moritaka is to the idea, things have a way of working out to push the young mangaka to fulfill this dream.

Plot Summary

Opening Theme

"Blue Bird" by Kobukuro

During a New Years party, young manga lover, Moritaka Mashiro, is greeted by his uncle Nobuhiro, creator of the popular manga and anime Super Hero Legend. Nobuhiro comes in to see Mashiro's latest prize for his artwork and mentions that Mashiro will become a great artist someday but he never mentioned that he could become a manga artist.

Flash forward to Mashiro in middle school, he laments on how normal life is and how he will simply do what is expected of him in life without really focusing on his own ambitions or dreams. He barely pays attention in class as he doodles a picture of Miho Azuki, the girl he likes, in his notebook. Even though he likes her, he knows that he is not the type of guy she would go for. He heads home to study but realizes he left his notebook at school. Not wanting anyone to find out about his crush on Azuki, he rushes back to get it.

Takagi agrees to give the notebook back on the condition that they work together.

Once Mashiro is back at his classroom, he instead finds Akito Takagi waiting for him with his notebook in hand. Takagi is the smartest guy in Mashiro's grade which makes him wonders what he might wants. After Takagi goes on about how he sits in the back of class and notices everything and mentioning that he knows about Mashiro's crush on Azuki he mentions that is seems like she likes him too. Wondering if Takagi likes Azuki as well, Mashiro gets an offer from Takagi. He promises to give Mashiro his notebook back and keep quiet about his crush with the condition that the two become manga artistst together. Takagi states with Mashiro's art skills and his literary skills he knows they would do a great job. Mashiro stops him there and explains that creating a manga is gamble to achieve success. Mashiro''s explanation includes a lot of facts and stats on manga so he explains to Takagi that he knows a lot because his uncle was a mangaka under the pen name Taro Kawaguchi. Takagi continues to berates him until Mashiro finally relents and tells him that he'll think about it.

When he gets home though, Mashiro instead plays video games as he remembers how his uncle told him a story about a girl he liked and how he missed his opportunity to go out with her since he never had the courage to talk to her. After graduation they never saw each other but continued to talk through letters. Mashiro's uncle decided to wait until he was successful to ask her out but when Super Hero Legend finally became an anime he was too late since she has already married someone else.

Azuki and Mashiro talk about their dreams.

After getting yelled at by his mom for goofing off, Mashiro gets a call from Takagi saying that he is going to confess something to Azuki. Mashiro meets up with him and head for Azuki's house. Takagi rings and asks Azuki's mother for Azuki to come out. When Azuki comes to meet them, Takagi tells Azuki that the he will be going into the manga industry and that he knows Azuki's dream is to become a voice actress. Just as Mashiro opens up he explains how he agrees to draw for Takagi stories. He also said that if they get an anime they would want Azuki to be the voice for the heroine. An elated Azuki then gets a spur of the moment marriage proposal from Mashiro. He asks, if they do achieve their dreams would she marry him?

Azuki becomes flustered and runs back inside to her house. Mashiro thinks he blew it until Azuki talks to him over the intercom and says: "okay". Azuki agrees to marry Mashiro but only until after their dreams come true. Until then, they can not see one another but they can push each other to work their hardest through emails and text messages. Mashiro leaves determined as ever to make this dream a reality.

Ending Theme

"Bakurock ～Mirai no Rinkakusen～" ( Bakurock ～未来の輪郭線～Bakurock: Outline the Future) by Ya-kyim