▪	RELEASED BY:		TOKYOPOP
		▪	AUTHOR / ART:		NORIE YAMADA / KUMICHI YOSHIZUKI
		▪	FORMAT:		JAPANESE / BW
		▪	PAGES:		192
		▪	RATING:		T
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		08/07/2007
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		08/22/2007
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		HOLLY ELLINGWOOD

After hearing Ryutaro’s surprising story, a shocked Nami feels that she is inadequate and has somehow failed the young man who means so much to her. Upset, under pressure from school and her parents, let alone herself, Nami succumbs to a fever. When she is at her most vulnerable, malicious classmate Kayoko takes advantage of the situation and strikes through Nami’s closest friend – Chika. By the time Nami is well enough to return to school, dynamics between her friends have changed, and Ryu has become an odd addition to the group. But with unrequited feelings and pent up emotions riding high, ready to break apart, will they break those who bear them so heavy in their hearts?

Magic fades in the background and is merely one of the everyday things in Nami’s life as the romances and bursting emotions of the various characters in Spellbound are pushed each to their own breaking point. Some of those moments involve love confessions, Chika’s true feelings will startle many, including Nami, Kayoko comes up against some adversity, and Mitsuaki has something to say to Nami. The story holds some intensely emotional moments, some surprising revelations about Nami’s classmates, and a dramatic scene between Nami and Ryu. These chapters are rife with misunderstandings. Many lead to sorrow, some to resolve, and others to opportunities. The results of all this however won’t be fully revealed until the next volume. This volume is a slow but inevitable emotional combustion that happens between the various characters.  These set of events do slide perilously close to teenage melodrama, rather than the more poignant bittersweet story telling associated with Someday’s Dreamers, but it comes to an interesting final scene before ending, and the waiting for the other shoe to drop to see what happens next in the lives of not only Nami and Ryu, but their friends.

It is this interweaving of the stories of the secondary characters that garners extra interest. Each is tied into Ryu or Nami one way or another. These various emotional investments of these people have varying tones, some inspiring, others foreboding. It piques the curiosity to find out how everything will work out in the upcoming final volumes.

IN SUMMARY:
Someday’s Dreamers holds surprising heartfelt confessions and realizations this volume.