Rain rain GO AWAY
I had relatively high-ish hopes for Tamayura after Hanasaku Iroha, its summer season predecessor, passed my standards with flying colors. Was I right to expect so much, and perhaps more, from this series? Probably not. Don't get me wrong - Tamayura is a very relaxing series. But in the end, it's only a shell of what it pretends to be.
The graphics are fine. Regular strong lines as usual (although everything seems to have a brown tint). Drawing everything as a glowy or fuzzy object makes it seem like I'm watching the entire episode in 360p though. Other than that, I didn't really notice the quality of the drawings because I was too engaged in listening to Ayana Taketatsu speak.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh it's Ayana Taketatsu *faints*
The sounds were ok. The usual warm, gentle songs. I really liked the main theme for Tamayura, since I'm a sucker for gentle piano tunes. The OP (Okaerinasai) was ok, it wasn't really anything special though. The ED (Kami-sama no Itazura) I didn't care about.
Main Theme, Piano Arr. Take it for a spin!
So what happened with the plot exactly? Well the main girl (Fu Sawatari; voiced by Ayana Taketatasu) is a paparazzi avid photographer. Right, so she gets cured from her depression by making new friends and realizing that taking "d'awww" photos make her happy, so she goes and does stuff with her mates in the coziest, most traditional Asian town you could possibly imagine. Then the rest of the episodes are focused on the various people, places, and events in the town - and how they all form to make a community. It's supposed to be heart-warming, and concludes with Fu/Potte's pictures showing everybody what their friends and family are like in happy situations.
And it's kinda meh.
It's realistic, that makes me happy, yes. It has cute girls, that makes me happy, yes. But what is the point? Is it trying to preach a theme? Is it showing the evolution of Potte over time? Or is it just a bunch of random episodes that try to make viewers feel a vague warmth in the pit of their stomachs at the end?
Sadly, I think Tamayura is aiming for that last statement.
This is not what I wanted when I got this starter Pokemon
Yes, I know that they say all this stuff about photography and happiness and life and whatnot, but to me it seem like nothing more than dropping buzzwords here and there to make Tamayura seem deeper. The disquieting lull in contrast to the other series this season makes Tamayura look profound, but I mean, just look at it - it's just regular people, doing regular things, getting regular lessons out of it. I hate to say it, but if you're going to focus on realistic aspects, you gotta either stretch it a bit from reality (after all, anime and manga are to an arbitrary extent forms of escape from our own lives) OR you got to make the events more appealing. Having a random play or a random set of exhibitions based around characters we don't really care about don't appeal to me.
Tamayura represents the other side of anime, the extremely "realistic" side. It shows us exactly why it's just so hard to make a good series: because a good series must balance that realism that we all require in a modern society to relate to ourselves in a logical manner...and the magic that only be found in fiction. That first, perfect kiss. That glowing sunset into an epic monologue. That one crisis that brings everything together. That's how REC and CLANNAD became famous.
I'm sorry, Tamayura. You're just not good enough.
Oops
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