Before that, what is it? I'm not sure. You all know Ai-chan, no?
Idol, seiyuu.... You get the picture. This particular TV show seems
to be targeted at younger (below 9th grade or so), female audiences.
Then again, who am I kidding? Older men probably buy more of these
than the target audience does.
Anyway, back to the reason. It's a long story, so if you don't care,
just skip to the images.
One of the corners in Dears*Dears internet radio (featuring Taniyama
Kishou, Nakahara Mai, and Shimizu Ai), involves listeners sending in
what a "proper" person should do, and Taniyama Kishou actually doing
whatever the postcard says a "proper" person should do. In one of the
shows (2004-08-08), he is told to call his mother and thank her for
giving him birth, _without_ letting her know that it was being done
for the radio show. To say that it was interesting... is an
understatement. Both Nakahara-san and Ai-chan stay quiet during the
phone conversation, but afterwards, they show some extreme reactions.
Basically, they're both very much moved. I'm pretty sure Nakahara-san
was actually crying. And Ai-chan kept saying, "okaasan koe kawaii!"
That's it. That's the reason why I became more interested in Ai-chan,
and therefore buying these DVDs.
If you haven't had enough of my dribble, here's some more. Ai-chan
definitely does not feel like a city girl. I'm too young to have a
daughter of her age, but I'm too old to have a younger sister of her
age, either. Bimyou desu nya.... Whatever. I think it's time for me
to stop babbling.
Anywho, each of the first pressing DVDs comes with a photo. And when
I say a photo, I mean a real developed photo, not a printed photo.
DVD also contains about 2MB worth of 1024x768 photos as well as a
secret user name and password for a special web site. For this
volume, they had one more 1024x768 photo and a realvideo clip. Seems
kind of pointless. Why not just put them on the DVD?
Image1: It's written AI+heart+MUSUME, but read AINYAN. Don't ask me why.
Image2: Her first work is at Dengeki Daiou. Notice the red circle. It's
the volume 2 of one of my most favorite manga, "Mokke." Cool! Does that
mean it has a chance of becoming animated? If that happens, I'll be
right there with my credit card ready. And the monitor on the right is
Eizo LCD monitor. I think it's L565, which is the same model that I
have! Double cool!
Image3: She can't seem to figure out how to operate the copying machine!
Image4: Her second work.
Image5: Shop manager teaching her how to do stuff.
Image6: Bonus feature on how DVDs are made! They don't go into much
detail, but it's to be expected considering the target audience. One
thing to note is that it says "DVD=Digital-Video-Disc." That is
actually incorrect. Officially, DVD does not stand for anything. DVD
is just DVD. Apparently, it was supposed to be Digital Versatile
Disc, but people kept using "Video" and eventually, the consortium
decided to drop the whole thing altogether.
Image7: This is a montage of something that I thought was "just so
wrong." To be honest, I laughed more watching this portion than
anything else I've watched recently. (1) Red arrow points to his
camera. Also note the other worker looking funny in her direction.
(2) Taking pictures! (3) There's the camera. (4) Putting the camera
down on his desk. (5) Back to work. (6) Must be too distracting.
Leaves his desk. He actually comes back later, though.
*** All images are aspect ratio corrected ***
