Category: Tamayura

Yeah, the second season of Tamayura is all about Potte. The rest of the cast, with the exception of perhaps that new girl, don’t get to stand in the spotlights unlike what they did in the first episode. It’s about her coming to terms with her father, and further pursuing photography. The rest… is mere details. The question’s whether that alone is good enough. Up till now, this series left things to be desired. I was really waiting for this show to come with something really good.

That came with episode 9, which showed Potte meeting the other best friend of her father. I love this guy and how he thinks back to who used to be his best friend. The creators nailed this workaholic who has long since grown up and who gave up his passion for photography in order to pursue other things, and yet his old personality is still there. He’s still got the interest in photography, and the memories he made in his past.

For me this was the best episode of the second season so far. It got Potte thinking, it was heart-warming and genuine, and what also was very important was that it didn’t repeat itself.

The rest of the episodes need to be more like this. Obviously not the same, but Potte really needs to significantly develop (given how much buildup she’s gotten) and the show needs to take its concepts further in some way. I’m not sure how they’re going or planning to do that though.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Something weird happened. Like, I watched these three episodes over the course of multiple days (time issues), and now that I’m sitting down and writing an entry after watching episode 07, I realize that I have no clue anymore about what episodes 05 and 06 were about. Seriously, I remember dreaming away a bit and all, and they went on a trip… thingy… but apart from that I’m blank.

Now, there are two possible reasons for this:
1) My memory is degrading really badly.
2) Nothing worth remembering happened in these two episodes.

While I fully admit that my memory isn’t perfect, it’s time to give a bit of a critical eye to this second season of Tamayura, and mostly the big picture: what exactly is the point of this sequel? At the beginning, this seemed to be about Potte starting her own club, and taking her passions further by standing out of her comfort zone. Beyond that though… what else?

We have this new selection of characters… who are there but have yet to make a lasting impression. The cast beyond Potte made no development whatsoever so far; like, has anything been added to their characters, AT ALL in this second season?

In the meantime I’m still dreaming away with that awesome soundtrack, but what were the characters doing in this episode for example? Potte entered a competition, they attended a festival, they went to Potte’s childhood friend… haven’t we seen this in some way before or am I going crazy? To me it really seems like this show is just repeating itself. Though granted, the ending wwas charming.

Why did I originally like this series? It’s because it did more than most slice of life series about a bunch of random girls: it had strucuture, and characters who felt charming and had depth. I feel like that depth and energy is missing in this sequel. Or more like, it lacks: it’s not completely absent, but not fully there either.

Comparing this to Aria The Natural, Aria’s second season: that series was rather tough to get through due to how slow it was, but it was varied, and it continued to add to its cast. And it didn’t do this just by introducing a bunch of new characters, but also slowly building further upon the main cast. When is More Aggressive going to do that?
Rating: 4/8 (Nice)

Seriously. This is one of the cutest anime that I have seen in a long, long while. I mean, over these entire two episodes, I just kept going “d’awwwwww” at just about everything the characters did. That is very rare for me: usually I hate series that aim to be cute. The big reason for that is that 90% of those characters are not characters: they’re either cardboard cut-outs, they try to play up their cuteness too much, plain stupid, contrived, and just plain underdeveloped. Tamayura has something that makes the entire cast different from that.

What Potte is trying to do: that really invoked empathy from me. Perhaps my own shyness connected with her, or perhaps it was because of how much development she already has. These two episodes really were about overcoming shyness, and they really did that well. Even beyond Potte, that one teacher was a very nice touch, about how it took him like, 20 tries to ask what he wanted. And the whole performance. It was so bad, yet so adorable!

The new character already feels right at home after four episodes, and the great thing is that she doesn’t feel forced in, but it was more than logical for her to appear. The rest of the cast, Potte’s friends, they’re close to her and all, but most of them don’t share her passion for photographing,and the ones that do are either much older or younger. Here she managed to find someone of her own age and experiences to connect with.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Hell yeah, Tamayura! Let’s get more aggressive! Rawr!!!

On a serious note, I’m glad that this series has returned now, and it hasn’t lost its touch of making me just dream away while watching an episode. The last time there was a series that did this so well was last year with Natsume Yuujinchou Shi. The very misleading title of this series seems to refer to Potte’s growth: her taking her hobbies further, and starting a photography club at school. It’s time for the characters to explore all of the things they can do.

And that’s actually very good, because the one thing I want from this sequel is progression. At this moment, this sequel can’t just do the same thing that the first season did: it needs to be like Aria: continue in the same style, but bring in heaps of character-development. I mean Im glad and all that this show got a second season, but the main reason for it is so that it could get a chance to exploit its potential. Not pander with random slice of life again. A pointless sequel is just a waste of a good budget.

Whether this really paid off will obviously take a few months to really become apparent. So far, the first steps have been made though, with Potte starting the photography club, and the introduction of this new character. But there needs to be more. Potte already had a sempai to look up to, and the first season was all about realizing your dreams. Come on, Tamayura! Be ambitious!

Also, I’m not sure whether or not this is because it’s been a while since I watched the first season. But I actually found Norie funny, along with her antics around Potte’s little brother.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

The first part of this episode was pretty much what we expected: celebrating the end of the year by organizing a large exhibition, restaurant, shop and theater for the lead characters. Although it still was weird to see people celebrate the end of the year in a completely different way from what I’m used to. (What I’m used to is mostly staying inside, watching random television and everyone massively igniting fireworks all at the same time after the clock hits 12).

What this episode showed me was that Japanese really treat the end of the year as another festival, where you can informally visit a lot of places, hosted by all kinds of different people. Is that true, or was that an exaggeration by this series? Last episode there were perhaps a bit too many people who came to just view Maon’s performance, and this episode too had the characters acting like magnets for other people.

And then, this episode suddenly closed off with Sayomi taking them on another trip, and her car getting stuck. I must say, that was quite a creative way to end this series with. It was fully on-topic, giving Potte a reason to remember her father again, but at the same time it was so random and whimsical that it’s definitely going to be memorable, rather than the usual carefully built up ending or aftermath. I like it.

The past half year, Sato Junichi has really delivered. First with Ikoku Meiro no Croisee, and then with Tamayura. They filled in for each other perfectly: Tamayura didn’t have an as interesting setting as Croisee, it on its turn did not have the forced drama and had much better acting. I’d count neither among the best slice of life series I’ve seen, but at the same time both were really solid and interesting.

I tried following other slice of life series this year, but that didn’t work as well as here. I’m still not exactly sure why, but these two series did not try to be funny: they just let their characters speak for themselves. Nichijou could have been nice if its jokes weren’t so hit and miss. A Channel just degenerated into boob jokes, while Yuruyuri went down even faster with its lesbian jokes. Those just aren’t the shows I want to watch. These two series however had characters who knew who they were, a solid setting to back it up, meaningful dialogue. That kept my attention.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

“Oh yes, today is christmas”.

I find this a very typical line here. Christmas stands synonymous for a warm-hearted feeling, so I pretty much expected this show to fully use it. And then this episode came, and it actually showed that it doesn’t need it. This episode was charming beyond belief, even without the Christmas feeling.

I think that out of all of the characters in this series, the best developed one is actually Maon, and not Potte. Every character is of course very well rounded here, but Maon has this extra edge, where she actually managed to crawl out of her shell very believably. The whistling really shows this: in the second half, she only used it when feeling down. What once was the start of her development now has turned in this reminder to herself of how she should try out many different things.

As a writer, I could really relate to this episode, and what it means to keep living up to everyone’s expectations. A writer’s block is inevitable sometimes, and while at first it seems like just simply putting your mind to it, in practice things don’t go as easily. Personally I’ve found that looking at your work from a different angle works best, with the challenge being finding that angle. This episode portrayed it wonderfully. It was also a very un-typical story, and yet it was exactly something that you’d expect a high school girl to write.

And holy crap, this thing will end next week! Overall, I’ll be content if it ends there though. That makes this series short and sweet, unlike Aria, which requires a lot more effort to fully watch. If you add these 12 episodes to the four episodes of the OVA, you pretty much get the perfect length: 16 episodes. This is something that a lot of other producers should realize. Sure, it’ll probably be a bit harder with continuous stories and all, but what I’m saying: producers, be creative. You’re working in the anime industry, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find inspiration.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sato Junichi. Do yourself a favor. Get a cat. Remember the episode from Aria? The one which was entirely devoted to President Aria? Well, for a moment, it actually looked like this episode would in its entirety follow around the big white blob that is Momoneko-sama. It got surreal at times, turning into this bizarre parody of the silent movie to narrate what he was saying. THANK GOD though, the second half of this episode was about something completely different. And it was wonderful. It’s been a while since I watched such a down to earth portrayal of love sickness. The character it centred around only appeared in one scene before, but her characterization was already terrific. With three or four episodes left, I do hope that the creators will use this time to do something special. I mean, this episode was a step into the right direction, but I want more. This show already has excellent characterization for just about every of its characters. Now use that. Also, I’m not sure if I’m the only one in this, but I always really feel sorry for the voice actors who are tasked with voicing simple animals. This episode thankfully wasn’t as bad (seriously at least these cats had some really good voice acting, even though there was absolutely nothing feline about these… things), but it’s especially bad when a voice actor is called in to voice a cow in the background… doing exactly one “mooo”. Do these people feel any pride in their work? Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>