After several excruciating days of waiting for the mail, my copy has arrived in my hands and… what’s this? It’s about the same size as a regular audio CD jewel case… Ah well, I’m not going to comment on the size, it’s the content that matters, right? I’ll try not to spend too much time on this…Inside the booklet are lyrics printed on a bronzed background, with another picture of Minorin on the reverse, as well as credits and so on. The images and typesetting feature reflections, an appropriate theme for this DVD, since it’s like a look at how much Minorin has grown as an artist, as well as a person. The release is actually a DVD+CD combo, with the DVD being the three PVs and the Documentary Movie, and the CD being the extra song included especially for this DVD. While I’m on the subject of the song, it’s called Contact 13th, which sounds a bit like Futari no Reflection from the main album. A sort of thankful, happy song, I guess. The CD only contains this song though (no off vocal, either). Ah well, it’s a nice DVD-only kind of thing.
When I pop in the DVD, it automatically starts the movie, so I stopped it just to see the DVD menu, which looks like this. Nothing fancy, really. It’s separated by PV and the documentary, then there are a few TV CMs included, even the announcement shown here. But anyway, let’s continue on with the PVs. Massive screenshot dump follows.
The first one is Kimi ga Kureta ano Hi, the first song to get a full PV, despite being her 2nd single. I’m not in love with this PV as I used to be, but it’s still interesting nevertheless. I wonder why Minorin cried during the PV; she later comments that she wasn’t really sure herself. The theme of this PV is time and water.
The second one is Shijin no Tabi, the featured song from her Contact album. I think this one is still me favorite PV of hers so far, even after watching the one after it. The camera angles are pretty amazing and I love how the deep blue sky and green grass made her shine brighter in the white dress. When she does that Vogue look, it gives me chills. The theme of this PV is the red cloth and earth.
The last one is Jyunpaku Sanctuary, her first single released and last single of the year to get a PV. I’m pretty satisfied with what they did for the PV I suppose, but it totally digresses from the original concept of the puzzle, as shown in the old 15 sec TV CM. Oh well, this time we get to see the light side and dark side of Minorin. The theme of this light and dark.
I guess Lantis sees Minorin as some sort of nymph, what with her playing with water, frolocking through grass and flowers, and playing with sand…
After the PVs, we continue on with what I look forward to most, the documentary movie entitled Grateful Days — a backstage look of Minorin’s progress this year. The movie starts out with Minorin at her birthday live in 2006, where she announced the re-start of her discography and her switch to Lantis. The rest of the movie is guided by present-day Minorin having a sort of interview, where each question follows up with the backstage scenes we see. I’m not going to go in detail on the answers to her questions; you’ll just have to see the video for yourself. The interview seems pretty slow paced (or that may just be her thought process) and relaxed. It’s
nice to see something like this every once in a while, unlike those face-paced, loud TV interviews on those silly Japanese variety shows.
The documentary is divided up into three chapters for each PV, covering recording sessions, the making of promotion videos, photoshoots, and events & performances. How many an otaku will moe at her silly antics, from practicing the Hare Hare Yukai dance, to playing with props, to simply being herself. There is also one part towards the end where she unravels her own copy of 
the Contact album, and her reactions are priceless.
One part of the documentary I especially like is when she digresses from the professional side of her for a bit and talks about her father. He seems to be a very important part of her life, as he is the person that introduced her to softball and helped her pick up the guitar. He played folk songs when she was young, so that was the style she played when she did road shows in Akihabara. They even included a clip of her singing songs she wrote herself; I swear, Lantis totally needs to let her release her own album of her folk songs.
To conclude, this DVD not only provides the full clean versions of the three PVs, but also let’s you take a look in the life of Chihara Minori herself. Even though most of it is revolving around her work with Lantis, the documentary has a sincere feel to it, with her thoughts of all that has happened to bring here this far. It really gives you a feeling that the year is wrapped up and waiting for the next.
This DVD is recommended to all fans of Minorin, so go get it while it’s hot!
