The Show:
There's no joy in Mudville, the mighty Kurata has struck out.
Kodocha
Volume 13, accurately titled That's a Wrap, is the final volume
that FUNimation is releasing in region one. One of the reasons that
this is so sad is because this isn't the end of the series. There
are still 51 episodes left to go, but presumably because of poor sales
the series is being truncated in the US. This disc represents
the conclusion of the first season, which isn't a bad place to stop the
series, and the volume does wrap up the current story line. Still,
it is disappointing that the second year won't be available in the US.
Series recap:
Sana Kurata is 11 years old, in the 6th grade, and a TV star.
The only girl in her class with an agent, she has to balance her school
work with her career. Sana's mom is an award winning author who has
taken to wearing very odd hats, lets a chipmunk live on her head, and doesn't
want to turn in her latest manuscript. The other adult in Sana's
life is her agent, Rei Sagami, who is very loyal to the budding star.
Though her TV show is doing well, school is not so good. She has
the misfortune of being placed in the worst class in the school.
The guys are very disruptive and they are led by Akito Hayama, the toughest
kid in class. Though Akito starts off as Sana's blood enemy they
eventually become friends. And maybe a little bit more.
Sana's love life isn't that simple. Though she gets over the crush
she has on her manager, and starts to notice Akito, there's another person
in her life. Naozumi Kamura is another very child actor who has worked
with Sana a couple of times. He's handsome, intelligent and talented,
and he may be interested in Sana too. He fades when she meets
her new co-star in a made for TV movie, Takeshi. This man (who plays
Sana's father in the movie) and Sana really hit it off, and when a tabloid
reporter takes pictures of them together, Sana announces that they are
in love. The publicity stunt works and the show gets high ratings,
but maybe Sana wasn't kidding.
This volume:
The final disc wraps up the first season in a pair of tear-jerking episodes.
Sana is growing really close to Takeshi and when he collapses on the set
she's justifiably upset. She visits him in the hospital and makes
him promise that he'll never leave her. Unfortunately, he won't be
able to keep his word since he's terminally ill, with a very short time
to live.
While filming the final episodes of the program that she and Takeshi
were working on, Sana is surprised when her co-star unexpectedly shows
up on the set. The script is quickly rewritten to include Takeshi's
character and the two actors give a fantastic performance as a father and
daughter detective team on the run. At the end of the shoot, Takeshi
dies in Sana's arms.
The young girl takes this quite hard, naturally, and has a tough time
dealing with the loss of her friend. She basically refuses to believe
that he's really gone. Though weeks pass, she still can't get it
out of her mind that she'll see him again. When his ghost doesn't
appear near his old apartment or at Sana's house, she heads off into the
mountains where they once spent some time together. Her timing couldn't
be worse because a blizzard hits soon after she starts up the peak.
The volume ends with a recap episode that focuses on Sana and Akito's
relationship. Does Akito love Sana, or is he just fooling around?
American viewers may never know.
The DVD:
This volume contains the next four episodes of the series in a white
keepcase. FUNimation is still including trailers before the main
menu, but now you can skip past them! Hurray! Thanks FUNimation,
this makes watching your discs much less annoying.
Audio:
This disc has the original stereo Japanese language track as well as
an English dub in both stereo and 5.1. I watched this show with the
5.1 dub, but the Japanese track is equally good. The English track
has some very good talent, and Laura Bailey does an outstanding job as
Sana. The way she pronounces the phrase "monkey-boy" while insulting
Akita and his pals always gets me laughing. When she talks fast,
it gets even more humorous. Make sure you listen to her "next episode"
tags at the end of each show. Her delivery really made the English
dub very entertaining. This show has one of the best dub tracks around.
The sound quality is very good. The 5.1 dub makes very good use
of the surround speakers as well as the front soundstage. While the
Japanese track isn't as enveloping or dynamic it too sound very good.
Video:
The full frame video looks fine. The lines are tight and the colors
are solid. I was surprised to see a few spots on the image, but these
were fairly rare. There is a bit more aliasing in this volume than
the previous ones, but it wasn't a major defect. Overall this disc
has a very good transfer.
Extras:
This disc also has a commentary track to the last episode with Laura
Bailey (who does a stellar job as Sana) and Jerry Jewell (Akito.)
I'm not a big fan of anime commentary tracks, but this one wasn't horrendous.
Laura and Jerry had a good time kidding around, but I didn't really learn
much from listening to the track (aside from the fact that Laura, according
to Jerry, has really nice arms.) The pair didn't know if FUNimation
was going to release the second season or not when they recorded this,
and they both were hoping that they would. It's too bad that things
didn't work out.
Final Thoughts:
This first season ends with a pair of serious episodes that are more
sedate and serious than the rest of the series, but are good shows never
the less. It's too bad that FUNimation can't see there way to release
the second season, but even so the disc wraps things up pretty well.
Kodocha
is a fun series that really deserved more attention from US anime fans.
Highly Recommended.
Buy: