Tamayura: Hitotose was really quite a lovely series, about a young girl moving back to her late father’s birth town, making friends and taking photos. While it struggled during the first half to really find its footing, failing to be laid back and peaceful enough to be iyashikei and not being funny enough to be pure sitcom, once it settled in the second half the warmth of the characters and the small stories it told about them proved to be wonderful. The turning point was episode 7, which I still rank as one of the most perfect episodes of anything, easily as good as most any episode of the director’s previous work, ARIA. While it was never able to reach that height again, Tamayura: Hitotose did successfully carry the same general tone and approach for the rest of its run, and it is this lead that Tamayura: More Aggressive follows on from.
I’m just going to take this opportunity to mention how amusing and cute it is that the sequel to a relaxing, gentle, peaceful series about cute girls doing cute things promises to be more aggressive. It’s just… it’s just so adorably charming and stupid and oh god I love it. We’re kicking it hardcore this time!
Tamayura: More Aggressive takes place in Fuu’s second year of high school, and she and her friends basically do what they did in the first season: hang out, visit places, and take pictures (or engage in their preferred hobby). The big change this time around is Fuu’s desire to be ‘more aggressive’ from now on, and the first thing she does with her newfound determination is to form a photography club at her high school. This represents the biggest change to the series’ formula, through the introduction of Kanae, Fuu’s senior and a pretty good photographer. She joins the photo club and becomes friends with the group and it’s all rather pleasant.
The change in dynamic Kanae brings is very welcome and refreshing, allowing a much greater emphasis on the actual act of photography instead of just the photos that Fuu would take. Techniques, style, and composition do get discussed (in an in-universe way, of course. You aren’t going to learn anything here!), and the club of two go on photography trips and enter competitions. It really feels like Fuu is taking photography more seriously and approaching it, well, more aggressively, making the prospect of her taking it up as an actual career path seem far more believable. Before Kanae joined the gang Fuu didn’t really have anyone to discuss photography with in any detail regularly, and definitely not anyone to learn with.
Kanae herself is also a really enjoyable character, making her worth far more than simply her influence on Fuu. Not that she’s a particularly complex or deep character – she’s timid and has a habit of repeating certain filler phrases twice when nervous, but admires and supports Fuu and is super enthusiastic about photography – but she’s cute and entertaining, and thanks to being somewhat similar to Fuu in timidness and lack of confidence there ends up being some great chemistry between them. Watching the two of them get flustered by the fact that the other’s flustered just never gets old. Their ‘musical’ appearance on stage at the festival stands out as a particular highlight of just how great the comedy created by these two can be.
By contrast, Fuu’s other three friends from the town – Kaoru, Norie and Maon – are noticeably less prominent this time around. Given the emphasis placed on Fuu’s photography club, and the introduction of Kanae, this makes sense and it’s honestly not that bad of a thing. One of the major problems of the first season was that Fuu’s friends – especially Norie – could be rather annoying with their quirks and the frequency of their usage. Not only have these quirks been used less this time around in general (enough to keep the character feeling the same, but not a lot more), but there are less opportunities for them in the first place. These three are still there of course, and still important, but they take a backseat to Fuu and Kanae, and it’s to this season’s benefit.
What really makes this sequel though is what it chooses to focus on primarily. In Hitotose it was largely about Fuu settling in, learning about the place and her friends, and generally enjoying her new life. This time around the focus is very much on her father – learning more about what he was like, what he had done in the past, the people he called friends, and what he meant to them. This decision was an absolutely perfect one, helping to humanise the most influential person in Fuu’s life and leading to so many sentimental and beautiful scenes. The shining example of this has to be when they discover the Sakura tree he planted to commemorate Fuu’s birth, hidden away but still photographed. The amount of love he had for his family shines through so strongly, and that relics of his affection can still be discovered by Fuu years on makes it so clear just how powerful his love was.
And it’s not just with his family; on multiple occasion friends and acquaintances from his past turn up and meet Fuu, and none of them have anything bad to say. Well, they might regale a few incidents of his less than perfect behaviour – his inability to stick to plans and the lack of attention he paid to the advice of others, amongst others – but it’s clear that they could never hold it against him because it all came from sheer enthusiasm and, yes, love. The message of this series really is that your love will outlast you in the best possible way, and seeing this through the eyes of his daughter – especially seeing how much he loved her, even if this only becomes known later – is utterly heartwarming and beautiful. It sounds so cheesy to spell it out like that, but the heart and sincerity this series puts behind that message, and the fact that it’s never made explicit, ensures that it works and hits its mark.
Tamayura: More Aggressive is full of such moments, included many ones unrelated to Fuu’s father. It is these that made Tamayura: Hitotose successful, once it reached them. While it never reaches the sublime height of Tamayura: Hitotose’s seventh episode, Tamayura: More Aggressive is a far more consistent experience and is better on average in this regard. The peaceful, quiet joy, warmth and comfort of this sequel makes it a fantastic follow up from the first series, and if you enjoyed that Tamayura: More Aggressive is certainly worth your time.
8/10
Leave a comment