Mage trainee Yume discovers that magic doesn’t solve everything in the melancholy Someday’s Dreamers.

Someday’s Dreamers. V.1, Magical Dreamer. V.2, Power of Love. V.3, Precious Feelings.
TV series (12 episodes), 2003. Director: Masami Shimoda. V.1-3, 4 episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Geneon/Pioneer Entertainment.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto (literally, Things Precious to a Mage) is a melancholy tribute to adolescent trepidation about entering adulthood. It is very reminiscent of Miyazaki’s classic Kiki’s Delivery Service, but is aimed for mid-teen girls rather than 13-year-olds, and is a TV series (12 episodes, January 9 to March 26, 2003; animation by View Works and the J.C. Staff studios) rather than a theatrical feature.

17-year-old Yume Kikuchi has come from rural northern Iwate Prefecture to the Tokyo metropolis to enter a summer apprenticeship to become a mage. (Although the dialogue uses the vocabulary of magic and witchcraft, the “Special Powers” shown are more like sci-fi extrasensory abilities.) She is assigned to the tutelage of Masami Oyamada, who she is shocked to discover is not a woman but a polite, handsome man who is the manager of a popular salsa bar. He seems to be homosexual, which Yume dubiously assumes makes him a safe guardian for a girl, but she gradually realizes that he is suffering from a mysterious tragedy years earlier.

Oyamada helps Yume register at the government’s Bureau of Mage Labor, which is about as mundane as applying for your first driver’s license. Someday’s Dreamers could easily serve as a training guide for high-school graduates looking for their first jobs. There are brief allusions to the history of the relationship of mages to normal humanity, but basically there are reams of bureaucratic regulations to keep mages from abusing their talents. Mages are strictly forbidden to use their Powers for personal benefit, or for any purpose that has not been government-approved. As a trainee, Yume is assigned to a low-level division that grants official “wish-fulfillment” -- magically cleaning up graffiti, helping to find missing persons, temporarily restoring an old woman’s decrepit house to its new-built splendor for a nostalgic anniversary. Yume is thrilled to be able to help people, but she wishes that she could perform more exciting magic. And what is she expected to do if she sees a deadly traffic accident about to happen and does not have time to get approval to prevent it?

That does happen, but not as often as unexpected traumas. Yume discovers that granting wishes is not an easy cure for life’s problems. Cleaning up graffiti does not stop the vandals from striking again. Using magic to temporarily improve something may only increase the wisher’s bitterness when the magic wears off. It seems that for every person grateful for her help, there are two who berate her when she cannot solve their dissatisfactions. Yume’s situation is often similar to that of a young nurse who becomes too emotionally attached to her terminally-ill patients. She also witnesses what happens to a fellow mage trainee who is too arrogant and hot-tempered to control her powers. Yume slowly makes new friends as she advances toward her certification as a licensed mage, and as she privately determines to use her power to heal her teacher’s hidden torment. Too many people, she realizes, want to use magic as an easy fix to make permanent some pleasant moment from their past. The important thing is to move ahead into the future. Warning: several episodes are bittersweet tearjerkers.