183rd G-View: Tamako Market

Wassup doods and peeps! It’s G-View Time! As a Slice of Life fan, I am confident in my abilities to judge a good SoL from a bad one. How does Tamako Market fare in my eyes?

The first strike, Tamako does NOT perform a magic act! THE OP IS A LIE!

Genres: Comedy, romance, Slice of Life

Themes: harmonious neighborhood, moe, school, school life, shopkeepers, shopping district, talking animal.

Number of episodes: 12

G-Rating: 6/10

Plot Summary: Tamako is just a normal young girl whose family has been making mochi for generations. As her birthday approaches, she happens to meet a talking bird who claims to be a royal court attendant looking for a bride for his master. After the encounter, Dera the bird decides to stay around her and becomes a part of Tamako’s life and the neighborhood that she lives in.

When I first heard the creators of K-ON had a hand at making this show, I was excited. After all, I really liked K-ON! and K-ON! The Movie. On the other hand, it was also hyped because it was being produced by Kyoto Animation. I do not know, nor care what the big deal is with KyoAni, Aniplex or whatever other studios are praised. The main reason why SHAFT is the only studio that interests me is because their productions often tend to be weird and I like weird. I did not know what to expect from TM but I was optimistic. What I got was an unremarkable, unsatisfying, lackluster SoL with mediocre rom-com elements.

The greatest appeal the show had was its animation and the marketplace the story took in. It was a bustling marketplace filled with quirky shopkeepers and lots of neat stuff for sale. Other than that, there’s little else that stood out to me. The OP’s good but the rest of the soundtrack is forgettable.

The show’s main gimmick, and the reason people stuck around (besides KyoAni), was this overweight cockatoo named Dera Mochiyukky (I don’t care what kind of other bird it might be, to me it’s a cockatoo) whose last name was a short term running gag about how it sounded like it was insulting the taste of mochi. Dera is a bossy bird with a self-professed knowledge on all things related to romance and love. When he isn’t busy being a fat piece of meat, he goes around hitting on girls or giving love advice. His messages were pretty basic stuff that anyone over the age of 13 would understand. As for which side I stood on what I thought about Dera, whether it was like, hate or indifferent, I was indifferent towards the bird. He was there and did his thing. I do admit to laughing whenever he struggled to fly due to being overweight, thanks to his seiyuu, Takumi Yamazaki.

Midori, Tamako and…umm, that other girl who hung out with Tamako.

As for the main plot and subplots. Meh. When the show isn’t focusing on Dera’s quest to find a suitable bride for his island nation’s prince, the show focuses on the other characters and their attempts at love, I suppose. That’s pretty much it The main plot and its resolution average and the character development is, for the most part, absent. The moerific elements are there and they are enjoyable but not enough to keep the show from losing my interest. Before episode 10, I only cared for one person in the entire cast and afterward I STILL only cared for the same person.

Tamako’s a hard working, adorable airhead. There’s guy whose personality is that of a male stereotype that I could care less about. The shopkeepers all had their quirks and were interesting, Shiori’s a girl with glasses…and that’s all. Choi’s a native who loves the prince…and that’s it. See where I’m going with this? Most of the characters are, like the rest of the show, underwhelming. However, there WAS one thing that kept my interest intact.

Midori’s quest. You see, it is revealed very early on that Midori’s feelings for Tamako may be more than simply an overprotective best friend. Heck, she was borderline ambiguously gay. She, like Dera, was a controversial character. Besides her implied lesbianism, I pretty much enjoyed Midori. Her actions were believable from a spunky girl who just happens to possibly have a crush on her childhood friend, who is also a girl. To quote Black Gekihara, “KyoAni REALLY tried to make fans dislike Midori based on some of her actions but they failed”. Of course it succeeded with some but that’s their opinion. Midori was fine by me.

However, Midori’s not one of the best ambiguously gay girls I’ve seen in anime. Haruka here, while she made similar mistakes as Midori did, was a much more likable character and HER quest for the girl she possibly liked, was more engaging.

why couldn’t we have got this instead?

Normally when I watch an SoL, no matter how good or average it was, I would usually feel fulfilled and like I got something worthwhile from watching it. The same cannot be said for Tamako Market. I can see other animeniacs having enjoyed the show for what it was but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve seen MUCH better moerific or basic SoL shows out there. If some of my readers felt like they got a lot from this show, I am happy for them, but me, other than Midori’s quest, everything else was a waste of time.

P.S.: An is an inferior copy. She PALES in comparison to the legendary Azu-Nyan. Even Yuuko from A-Channel was a more worthy Mio Akiyama clone. An, you suck.