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.

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.