Piano – The Melody Of A
Young Girl’s Heart
Movement One: Secret
Love (Animé TV)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C+
In an unusually intelligent for female-aimed Animé series,
Miu Nomura is a young lady who loves music and in her junior high years, will
discover the music of the instrument and her heart in Piano – The Melody Of
A Young Girl’s Heart. Instead of
being sexploitation, juvenile or supposedly comic, this series makes a more
serious-if-predictable attempt to show the coming of age of the heroine in the
story. In all this, it is not
slow-moving.
Of course, this does not mean the characters around her
are free of dysfunction, but it is done with more respect of the young viewing
audience, something oddly and intentionally missing from most Animé
series. Though it could have been more
aggressive in the core of the storytelling and eventually drags a bit, the
ambition to do an Animé like this should be applauded and maybe the show will pick
up in later installments. Secret Love
is the name of the collection, though the actual episodes are not titled. This is for roughly 13 years of age, though
Right Stuf does not mark their product with any age indicators like other Animé
labels.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is nicely transferred, but
has the same intentional softening of the image throughout that is as clichéd
as it is annoying. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo in both English and Japanese offers no surrounds of any kind, but is
as clean and clear, as Dolby’s compression will allow. Extras include the main voice actress
talking about the show in Special Epilogue One, character bios, original
character sketches, line art gallery, textless opening and six trailers for
other Right Stuf Animé releases. Right
Stuf is producing some top rate Animé DVDs only matched right now by
Geneon. How the competition will affect
the two companies should be very interesting to watch.
- Nicholas Sheffo
