After finishing a major story arc in the previous volume, the sixth installment of Kodocha takes a break and presents four stand alone episodes that are mainly played for laughs.  This delightfully off beat series is surprisingly funny and very enjoyable.  Though it's a shojo series the show appeals to a very wide range; anyone who enjoys a good laugh.

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, and she has a big crush on him.

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.

After having a relaxing summer break and nice vacation, Sana heads home where her mother's new book has been released.  It's a non-fiction book that details Sana's life, including the fact that she was abandoned as a newborn and doesn't know who her real parents are.

This volume:
 
After the trama that Sana goes through when she finds out who her birth mother is, and discovering that she has a little sister, teh star's life calms down a bit in this volume.  On one of her rare days off, Sana is invited to the orphanage where she lived for a month as a baby.  Sana's the hero of the orphanage. All of the little girls who live there want to grow up to be just like their idol, and Sana eats it up.  There's one kid who's not impressed by Sana's fame though, and the more Sana argues with this "little Akito" the more foolish, and funny, she looks.

Having enjoyed her day off though, Sana decides that she needs more time off, like a lot.  So she decides to quit show business all together.  This causes Rei to panic a bit, well....a lot, since he's her manager and without her, he might end up homeless again.

Then after a stand alone episode where Sana's half sister gets lost while visiting Sana's on-location set, the 11 year old gets into a lot of trouble.  Since her sixth grade class is so rowdy, the teacher hasn't been able to get through the material that she needs to.  It's the end of the year and there's no way to catch up now.  To determine who shall pass and who gets held back the entire class has to take a cumulative test three days hence.  This is bad news for Sana, who is horrible at math.  There's no way that she'll be able to learn a whole year's worth of lessons in just three days.  But Akito has a secret plan up his sleeve.

After the weighty issues that made up most of the previous volume, this lighter toned disc was a nice change of pace.  They went for the laughs in most of these shows, and haven't really started the next big story arc yet, but that's okay.  There are also more songs than usual in these episodes, something that I enjoyed since they are always funny and pretty short.

This volume contains the next four episodes of the series in a white keepcase.  Unfortunately, FUNimation is still including trailers before the main menu that you can't skip past.  This is really irritating, and this from someone who loves to watch the trailers on anime discs.  I wish they would stop this annoying practice.

Audio:

This disc has the original stereo Japanese language track as well as an English dub in both stereo and 5.1.  I alternated between the Japanese track and the 5.1 dub while watching this show and found both of them to be 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.

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 very little aliasing or other digital defects.  A very good transfer.

Extras:

As for extras on this disc, the only one this time is the third part of the interview with director Akitaro Daichi which runs about seven minutes.  He talks about how the many different outfits made the show hard to animate, but that inventing all of the hats that Sana's mother wears was a lot of fun.
 

Final Thoughts:

This volume takes a break from some of the heavier issues that have been tackled in recent episodes and presents a quartet of light comedy shows.  Though the more emotional episodes give the program heart, I have to admit that I enjoy these light frivolous shows a lot.  Highly recommended.