Ai Yori Aoshi #3: Hugs And Kisses (DVD)

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Video:
The video aspect ratio is 1.33:1 (full-screen on 4:3 monitors). The colors and shading came out well in the transfer, and the animation quality is top notch for a television show. I didn´t see any flaws with the picture. The backgrounds especially are gorgeous. The animation is never jerky. Some of the girls have unlikely hair colors, but that´s not too out of the norm for anime.

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. I didn´t hear any problems with the audio quality. The music, both in the background and opening and closings, is a little above average.

Extras:
There are three main extras on the disc. The first is the "Creditless Closing". This is pretty much what it sounds like. The closing from the end of every episode (except for episode 15) is played without any credits overlaid.

The second extra is a "Conceptual Art Gallery", which consists mainly of various sketches of Taeko and Mayu. In all, there are twenty-seven pictures, most of which focus on Taeko.

The last extra is the "Episode 15 Ending Creditless". Yes, I copied that correctly. I really liked this extra, it fit so well with the romantic feel of the episode. It made me think back to the early days of my anime watching. Back in 1997 (when we had to go to school in four feet of snow up hill both ways), about the only way anime companies could get the word out about new and upcoming releases was to post series openings and closings. People traded them, and the local anime club would even screen them from time to time. I personally kept a large collection of them, some that I hadn´t even seen the series for. I wish that Geneon would post this closing.

--Miscellaneous--
The DVD comes with a two page insert. On the cover is a chapter listing. The inside is a two page picture of Aoi standing on the beach, still wearing a kimono. The back page has an explanation of what the Star Festival is and the legend behind it.

The cover is reversible. I´ve noticed that the reverse covers seem to be more related to each other than the default covers. Perhaps I´ll flip all them someday to see if it works for me.

Film Value:
Sometimes, I think this show was written by a committee that met about twice a month. The committee was split into three groups, the largest one dedicated to making this show like any other romantic comedy, the middle group in charge of gags, and the smallest group, who tried to inject as much of a plot as possible. If every episode was like the last one, this would have received a film value of 8, no problem. As it was, it took a serious gut check to leave the rating on 6.

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