Someday's Dreamers: Lesson 3: Precious Feelings (DVD)

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Video:
The video aspect ratio is 1.33:1 (full-screen on 4:3 monitors). The print and transfer appear to be flawless. The colors came out especially well. The animation style is pretty different from most series I´ve seen. For a series based off of a manga, the character designs are typically simplified a great deal so that they´re easier to draw. In "Someday´s Dreamers", the entire animation, from characters to backgrounds, looks closer to the detailed manga style.

The color choices are in the soft range, giving the production a warm, fuzzy look. The computer graphics used in the show aren´t jarring and are mostly used for magical effects.

Audio:
You can watch the show in either Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo Japanese or DD 2.0 stereo English. There is an option for English subtitles. I watched it in Japanese with English subtitles. There weren´t any technical problems with the audio that I could detect, it´s a pretty standard TV mix. I really liked the music, especially the closing song.

Extras:
There are only two extras on this disc. The first is Kumichi Yoshizuki´s Conceptual Art. There are twenty-four black and white pictures. The gallery is self-paced, which I find preferable. The pictures show different ideas and representative poses for the principal characters.

The second extra is Masataka Nakano´s Photo Session. This is an approximately three minute long montage of various cloudscapes and city views that were used as source material. Backgrounds and general crowd shots are usually animated by studying such photographs.

--Miscellaneous--
The DVD comes with a single-page, folded colored insert with chapter listings on it. There are a few small pictures from each episode by the chapter listings. The back of the paper has a large picture of Masami´s mage icon. On the inside is a mini-poster that takes up both pages. It´s a picture of Yume leaving the city, after her apprenticeship is over. The cover is reversible, but since the picture on the reverse side is the same as the one in the insert, I left the cover as is. There is also a postcard with the same picture on it as the default side of the cover.

Film Value:
Hat´s off to this show- I don´t know if the extraordinary drama of ordinary life has ever been captured so well, in all of its many forms. This series is beautiful, evocative, and emotionally rich. It´s unfortunate that it was only twelve episodes- most one-season shows are at least thirteen episodes- but perhaps that´s best. This way, "Someday´s Dreamers" will never have gone on too long, instead remaining beautiful.

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