STORY – 6/10
It’s about Yume Kikuchi, a mage in training, equipped with more magical capabilities than the average mage, and how she learns more about magic during her stay in Tokyo. I think that the fact that Yume had tremendous magical capabilities was somehow forgotten throughout the series, among other things. Each episode had a storyline that was barely related to the other episodes, which made it difficult to like. It went from one story to another, leaving gaps in between, which made the story hard to follow.
Other than that, I found the concept of the government controlling magic quite corny. Those two things just don’t go together. I understand that there’s a need to control magic but what’s the point in having mages if they can’t use their magic on their own. That makes the magic thing less of a big deal, really.
CHARACTERS – 6/10
I tried to like the characters but none of them had enough good qualities to be liked. Most of the characters were static. Character development wasn’t good, even for the main character Yume Kikuchi. After 12 episodes I still felt unfamiliar to her character. I don’t know her anything about her personality, I don’t know how she would react to certain things, how she interacts with other people.
The producers of the show probably wanted the characters to be endearing to the audience, but to me Yume seemed like a stranger, and the supporting characters seemed more like extras too. Even Runa and Kera, who had their own episodes, seemed like random extra characters who would show up just to fill out air time. I found this quite annoying, and but not as annoying as I thought Angela was. Everything about her seemed so off. She was supposed to be a witchy-type mage, who is quite anti-social and somewhat defiant but passionate about magic, but her voice acting and character design didn’t match her character at all.
I liked Yume Kikuchi’s voice actor though – I have to admit there’s a little bias because it is the adorable Aoi Miyazaki, but I really like what she did with Yume’s accent. It certainly stood out and reminded me of Yume’s country bumpkin side. Generally, I think that the voice acting for the characters with accents (Runa, Yume’s mother and friend, etc) was really done well.
ART – 6/10
Art was pretty much average. Character designs were simple to the point of being bland, and so were some of the backgrounds. I wish they put more detail into the salsa bar. I’ve never been to a salsa bar before, but I assume that they should be colorful and lively looking places. Oyamada’s bar did not look like that at all. It looked like one of those gloomy and quite bars where people go to get drunk and rant about their problems to the bartender.
Having simplistic art isn’t necessarily bad, but they should’ve at least worked on the quality. Unfortunately, the quality wasn’t that good either, resulting in inconsistent and non-fluid animation.
MUSIC – 6/10
The music is probably the best thing I liked about Someday’s Dreamers. I found both the OP and ED catchy. I like the background music too cause they contribute to that [too] relaxing feel of the show, but I wouldn’t necessarily purchase the soundtrack. The music was good, but not good enough to make me want to listen to it outside the anime.
ENJOYMENT – 5/10
I was really looking forward to watching Someday’s Dreamers cause I thought it was going to be one of those shows that give you a relaxing feeling. Well, I certainly got that feeling from watching it but I got too relaxed, and I ended up being bored and uninterested (not to mention easily distracted whenever I watch an episode).
I was very disappointed by the anime, but I haven’t given up on the story yet. I think it’s a good concept but the execution was lacking (and maybe there could’ve been more episodes too), which is why I want to give the manga a shot. I’m going to read the manga in the hopes that it will have a better development of the story and characters, and that it’ll fill in the gaps that the anime was unable to fill. However, that doesn’t change the fact that overall, I give this anime a 6/10.
