Someday's Dreamers: Lesson 2: Power Of Love (DVD)

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Beyond the plot, I like the feel of this anime. It´s a quiet, thoughtful look at various still shots of life, and it works for me. I also like the limited time frame for the series. Unlike an open ended series, this one needs to wrap up a significant portion of the plot (Yume´s training) in short order. Where the series will go form there, if it does, I don´t know.

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. There 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 three fifteen-second TV spots for the series. Besides the thrill of watching foreign commercials, these spots offer little. The last extra is a brief interview with Aoi Miyazaki, the voice actress for Yume. It´s a treat, but nothing out of the ordinary for such an interview.

--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 Angela´s mage icon. On the inside is a mini-poster that takes up both pages. It´s a picture of Yume and Milinda, the DJ and Masami´s bar. 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:
Wow. Just wow. 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. The single bad thing I could really think of to say about it is that, at some point, it has to end.

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