I’m a bit of a Kyoto Animation – AKA KyoAni – fanboy. Y’know, if that wasn’t clear already. The animation, the presentation, the direction, the sheer charm they imbue their series with, I love it. But something they haven’t done before – well, not since Munto but that doesn’t count – is trying their hand at making an original series. Something spawned from the creative minds working there, not just an adaptation of an existing property. And so when Tamako Market was announced as an original series being headed by a bunch of the staff that had made K-On! a success, well, I got pretty hyped.
Tamako Market is the story about Tamako Kitashirakawa, the daughter of a mochi shop owner, and her friends after a strange, talking bird called Dera Mochmazzi enters their lives. It’s a slice-of-life with some minor magical realism elements added, and there are some cute girls and they do some cute things but it’s not all about that. Either way, it’s good fun.
Much like most other KyoAni works, there isn’t much in the way of a focused, over-arching story in Tamako Market. There is a story, and it is a constant element of the series (starting with the first episode and being resolved on the last), but it’s hardly what drives the events. Not to say it’s neglected – much of what happens does so as a result of the characters conflicts that are introduced because of this story – but rather the series is content to instead take its time with the story, opting for a slow-paced, casual development of it amidst the relaxed, slice-of-life events that come and go.
So what is the overarching story? It’s really not that complex, although it’s certainly odd: Dera, a talking bird from a mysterious island chain, has flown off in search of his Prince’s future bride. He ends up in the ‘Bunny Mountain’ market district in Japan, and, through a wacky chain of events, in the Kitashirakawa household – that of the eponymous Tamako. They run a mochi shop and, thanks to Dera getting too comfortable in the warm and friendly atmosphere of the family, he ends up eating so much Mochi he gains too much weight to fly away and continue his search. So he lives with them, ostensibly until he’s able to continue his search, but before he’s able to a fortune teller under the employ of his prince, Choi, arrives looking for him. And then also basically joins the family. And of course Tamako is possibly a little more involved than it would seem.
It’s simple and straightforward despite its oddness, but is somewhat irrelevant on an episode-to-episode basis. The daily life of Tamako and her friends takes centre stage for the majority of the time – and this is no bad thing! By not focusing on any single story, the characters – their interactions, their growth and development, and so on – are given the space and time necessary to be explored at a more relaxed pace, to make them feel more natural and realised. Be it through single episode sub-plots or multi-episode character arcs, a fair amount is covered over the course of Tamako Market’s run, never at the expense of any of the other characters or elements of the series, and ranging over many different tones and sentiments.
The treatment of romance in the plots best illustrates this: from Anko’s adorably naïve attitude towards crushing on a classmate, Mochizou’s comic, consistent inability to get his feelings out to Tamako, Dera’s continued, unnoticed attempts to flirt with Shiori, to the bittersweetness of both Midori’s feelings and Tamako’s father’s love for his late wife, romance is an important theme to Tamako Market that is explored in many different manners, exploring many different attitudes and feelings. And despite this variety, it never fails to feel warm, sincere and optimistic. There may not always be a happy ending, and it may not always be easy, but at worst it’s only poignant; negativity is never lingered on, but the seriousness of some situations is tacitly acknowledged and accepted. The drama is light and character building, and doesn’t conflict with the otherwise upbeat, comic and energetic tone.
Despite the often relaxed and gentle tone and approach, Tamako Market’s approach to comedy is really quite well done. The timing and delivery is excellent, and the humour is varied in approach and style. A nice balance between character based, situational and physical comedy is struck, all of them incorporated and mixed to great effect.
Take the initial meeting between Tamako and Dera: the circumstances which brought Dera to Tamako were already pretty amusing, what with him basically accidentally ending up being sealed in a box of flowers until she opens them, but the way they react afterwards – Dera immediately getting his flirt on and winking at her, followed by Tamako wordlessly standing up, holding him, running out of the botanists and throwing the strange bird across the road – makes for a pretty damn funny scene.
…OK, so all the humour is lost when you describe it, but the series is still funny! Consistently so! And it’s to its credit that the comedy and energy required as such is maintained while also keeping up a relaxed and relatively peaceful tone as well as incorporating some fairly serious moments. What’s more, there’s never really any sense of incongruity either – a joke doesn’t fall flat because the scene is too serious to carry it, nor does a dramatic moment get ruined by an ill-advised moment of comedy.
KyoAni have a great history of being able to create engaging personalities for their series, and it naturally carries over into Tamako Market. In fact, it seems that their ability to craft interesting and entertaining characters is taken further than usual here, unbound by the constraints of merely adapting the characters like they usually are. There’s a sense that they’ve been allowed to spread their creative wings, so to speak, and go a little outside of the box. Frankly, that’s the only explanation for Dera; a self-aggrandizing, shamelessly flirting, somewhat egotistical wannabe-Casanova who is also a fat, talking bird is not something you’d really expect to come from the moe slice-of-life genre. While he has been somewhat divisive in the online communities, I personally found him pretty funny and his presence quite refreshing, helping shake up the formula by bringing in something of an irreverent attitude. The pronounced contrast between him and the people surrounding him also makes for some great moments, as he just plays off everyone in different and really entertaining ways.
Our eponymous heroine, Tamako, stands out less from the wider blob of moe within anime than the rest of the cast, but she’s still fairly well-realised and enjoyable for what she is. Cheerful, optimistic, kind, gentle, oblivious, a little clumsy, driven, passionate, she’s all too easy to describe just in terms of generic personality traits, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; through some small scenes of her having a quiet, angry, frustrated outburst, or the ribbing of her dad, she genuinely gives off the sense of being a rounded out character, that the traits mentioned above are facets of her personality than simple descriptors. It’s small, it’s understated, and she’s certainly not going to win any awards for characterization, but it is there. The growth she exhibits at the end, snapping and standing up for herself after everyone has been discussing what she’s going to do despite no-one thinking to ask her, is testament to this.
The supporting cast is frankly quite excellent, with most everyone – including just about every shopkeeper in the district – being distinct, easily recognisable and quite memorable. A surprising level of depth is also given to some of the more major ones. Mochizou, Tamako’s male childhood friend who has a long-standing unrequited crush on her and son of the competing mochi shop’s owner, helps provide a level of comic relief and a small romantic dimension to the show. While it never becomes a focus, his crush is frequently explored in the episodes, and this small tension on his part combined with friendliness and comfortableness only attained when you’ve known someone for so long makes the interactions between him and Tamako feel a little more believable and charming. He also holds a lot of value as the only male peer of Tamako’s – the snarky camaraderie between him and Dera makes for some great scenes (especially when Dera tries to school him on the ways of romance) that couldn’t have been achieved otherwise. It provides both him and Dera further chances to shine, away from – but not forgetting – the girls.
Mochizou is also typically the butt of many jokes by Midori, one of Tamako’s school friends. More interestingly though is the slight tension between the two of them, with them essentially in competition with each other. Midori, you see, comes to realise that her feelings towards Tamako extend beyond simple platonic friendship. The full extent of her sexuality is not detailed – we only get a good idea of her feelings towards Tamako – and despite being uncommon it doesn’t define her as a character. Her personality is as developed as any other character’s, but this topic does bear special mention. Learning about these feelings and having to reconcile them with the knowledge that they will never be reconciled makes for an understated, bittersweet and memorable character arc for her, and demonstrates the surprisingly mature writing in this series: she’s a non-heterosexual schoolgirl in an anime, and instead of being played for yuri it’s handled with care and sincerity. It’s admirable, really.
That a character who deals with such a sensitive matter can be close friends with a girl like Kanna is yet more evidence of the strength in the writing and direction of Tamako Market. Kanna is not a complex character – not at all. She’s quite out there, only ever speaking in a slightly dazed deadpan, and is quite atypical in many regards – her hobbies including fixing stuff and measuring most anything – and as a result provides a fair bit of humour. She’s quite unpredictable, but in a way that makes it seem like she’s operating under her own, slightly different, logic, as opposed to being lolrandom or something. Really, I could fill this entire review of examples of her being great – she’s charming as hell in a very odd way. I have no idea what sort of character you could describe her as – if she’s not unique, she’s certainly quite rare – and despite her relative unimportance (she’s prominent, but not as much as any of Tamako’s other friends) she is one of many small things that helps give Tamako Market its own identity amongst the deluge of moe slice-of-life anime.
Everyone else, regardless of role and importance, also all feel distinctive and well-defined. Tamako’s younger sister, Anko, is obstinate that everyone calls her Ann as she feels this would make her seem more grownup, but has little to worry about as she’s surprisingly mature and insightful for her age; the latecomer to Tamako’s group of friends, Shiori, does little to stand out by herself (arguably being the most generic or typical character in the series), but provides some great sources of humour if only for how Dera behaves in her presence; Choi’s determination to do everything herself and not cause anyone trouble, in tandem with her naïveté and the disciplinary stranglehold she has over Dera, makes her rather fun; Tamako’s father tries to be strict and reserved, but the constant teasing by his daughters and continued love for his late wife makes him feel so much softer and relatable (and moe as hell); and one can’t forget the eccentric and friendly gang of shopkeepers that make up the district they all live on. It’s always wonderful when a character-driven series has such a strong and interesting cast!
Production values are top-tier – but this is KyoAni. That’s like saying the sky is blue, or water is wet. The music is somewhat unmemorable, although the OP is absolutely fantastic, as is the accompanying animation. Character designs are cute and soft and cuddly-looking – about what you’d expect from a KyoAni series, really – but also really imaginative and purposefully goofy for many of the secondary characters. The animation is godly, as usual – detailed, lively and full of evident effort, this series is an utter joy and incredibly fun just to see.
The little touches KyoAni puts in – their oft-overlooked attention to detail – while largely a technical display and less a matter of writing also contribute a surprising amount to the characters and events. For example, when Tamako is in the public baths, she’s visibly squinting due to her short-sightedness. Attention isn’t drawn to this, and her eyesight is not really ever mentioned, but it helps flesh her out and is something a lot of other studios wouldn’t have bothered with.
Gosh, there’s been a lot of gushing in this review. I can’t help it! I’m a KyoAni fanboy, and I have a great appreciation for what they do and accomplish. And Tamako Market – their first original series since hitting it big – is really enjoyable. It isn’t perfect, however: like many other series that prefer to have a relaxed pace and gentle atmosphere, the lack of a focus on any story makes it feel a bit directionless, which leads it to feeling perhaps a bit insubstantial. And while the subtle, subdued characterisation is certainly impressive and has surprising depth, it’s not quite enough, failing to make up for the shortcomings. I greatly enjoyed this series, make no mistake about that, but it does fall short of excellence, and I could easily see someone who’s less responsive to these types of shows becoming bored. That said, I still think Tamako Market is great fun, and can easily recommend it.
8/10
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