Okay. Whoever thinks that all 44-year-old anime sucks, should seriously check out Tales of a Streetcorner. That’ll certainly change his or her mind. This is the proof that even some of the first anime are awesome.
This anime tells the story of several animate and inanimate objects: a little girl, a tree, an old street lamp, a curious little mouse, a mischievous moth and a relatively large number of posters on a wall in an alley, which include a violinist, a pianist and a bar girl. Believe it or not, but each of these actor has its own interesting story.
The largest part features an introduction of the “characters”. I put “characters” between quotation marks, because technically, the term would not be right for some of the roles. Although I do have to say that each of them has several characteristics of normal persons. Anyway, we get to learn all of the “characters”, we get to know their problems, personality, daily lives, et cetera. Along with this, we get to see a huge load of different posters, all with people living their daily lives on it. It was good to see that the creators actually put some jokes in this. I’m not going to spoiler all of the different stories here, but do have to say that most of them are really adorable. They’re so simple, yet I think thats the reason they work so well.
At the last ten minutes, or so, this show takes a turn you would so not expect from a show with this nature. It really had me shocked for a while. But after thinking about it a bit more, it does begin to make sense, as this was made no less than ten years after World War II (1962, to be exactly). The ending it features is probably one of the best endings ever. I enjoyed it a LOT.
The graphics are, of course nothing special. But for some reason, I wasn’t really bothered by the old-looking drawings. The music is another strong point in this anime. It’s really the type of sound that sticks to your mind like bubble-gum, and won’t come off for quite a while when left alone. The sound effects also work really well. They’re mostly there for comedy reasons, but they’re really consistant, and contribute to the unique atmosphere of this anime.
Overall, I’d say that if you’re thinking of trying out a very old anime, you should definately check out Tales of a Streetcorner. And even if you’re not, you should.
