THE LAST HURRAH

TONY T. - Managing Editor, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

"Happy New Year!"

Kyoto Animation has come a long way in the last twenty years. Once a studio that focused primarily on assisting other groups’ productions, their production of the more comedic Full Metal Panic spinoff, Fumoffu, followed by the smash hit that was Suzumiya Haruhi has resulted in KyoAni being revered as perhaps the most respected animation studio with notably high production values on seemingly everything they touch. In my view, the first decade or so of the studio’s post-Fumoffu era contain their best work, which includes several of my favorite anime of all time. While I find Munto to be just alright and nothing that astounding, I do admire it as a clear work of passion from Kyoto Animation as it received several follow ups in spite of lackluster sales. Still, this is also probably the only context in which I have anything to say on Munto. Like the majority of people who’ve seen it, which has surprisingly dwindled in the last few years or so, I heavily enjoyed Suzumiya Haruhi with its unique mix of quirks and ideas. Skipping over Clannad which I disliked, though, my absolute favorite works from the studio are Lucky Star and K-On!, the former a fairly humorous comedy on the state of otaku culture in the late 2000s, and the latter being the most touching story of coming of age and friendship I’ve ever seen.

With that said, Kyoto Animation’s releases in the ten years since haven’t been nearly as enjoyable. I’m rather ambivalent on Free!, but I’ve downright disliked most of their material since the 2010s due to being rather forgettable and stale works that I find generally bank on being well produced. Series like Dragon Maid, Hibike Euphonium, Chunibyo, Violet Evergarden or Kyoukai no Kanata completely failed to intrigue me in the slightest as I think I’ve seen every idea within them done far better. Heck, I’ve seen many of the same concepts done better within Kyoto Animation’s own catalog. In my view, the only reason why they’re in any way notable is in their excellent production standards, which I find means nothing when the material is itself dull.

I would consider Tamako Market to be the last series in Kyoto Animation’s golden age, even if the chronological boundaries are a bit fuzzy (Hyouka and Chunibyo were released before Tamako). From the team of K-On!, Tamako Market appears on the surface to be somewhat similar to its predecessor, but stands out with a stronger focus on atmosphere and setting. K-On! featured many notable locations that remained memorable to me throughout its runtime, but Tamako Market really emphasizes this factor more with its world feeling truly alive and immersive. This is perhaps at the detriment of characterization, a factor that prevents me from enjoying Tamako quite as much as K-On!, but the series are fundamentally different in scope. Now, this isn’t like comparing, say, philosophy and nuclear engineering or anything. At the end of the day, both series are still fundamentally slice of life anime. However, where K-On! focused heavily on the life of its characters in association with each other in a social context, Tamako Market focuses far more on displaying the actual feel of living in its location. Put simply, K-On! brings viewers into a specific dynamic in a social manner whereas Tamako emphasizes less narratively driven elements like the overall mood of something as simple as walking down the street. In this way, while I prefer K-On! due to its phenomenal story and characterization, I actually find Tamako Market to be a far easier watch because it’s more of a tone piece than anything else. Having visited various markets in Japan before, the series does an excellent job of depicting the feel that they exude, at least from my limited perspective. From the cluttered yet charming assortment of various stores to the overall secluded but cozy feel of the overall marketplace, Tamako Market succeeds primarily due to its use of atmosphere.

Though Tamako Love Story, the film sequel, makes what I consider to be a strange decision to focus far more on character dynamics, it still works for me as the final work in my favorite era of Kyoto Animation. Tamako Market is not nearly as strong with characterization as K-On!, but that doesn’t inherently make Love Story terrible as it picks up with some pieces scattered throughout the series. Actually, in many ways, I find that Love Story’s more serious usage of plot elements left ambiguous within Market somewhat mirrors how Kyoto Animation’s Suzumiya Haruhi is a slightly more serious take on vaguely otaku concepts in comparison to the goofier Lucky Star. In this way, Love Story is probably inferior to Market with its focus on different ideas, but it still works fairly well while also still embodying some of the tonal aspects of the preceding work. As a romance, Love Story is kind of by the books as far as anime is concerned, but that isn’t necessarily terrible as the film does a standard romance fairly well. I daresay the conventionality of Tamako Love Story’s romantic dynamics might itself be the entire point of the work, given the title. It’s not trying to revolutionize love stories as it simply is a love story utilizing and incorporating elements from Tamako Market, and in that way, it largely succeeds as an accompanying film.

As a whole, Tamako Market and Love Story work phenomenally as a pair of works that embody the spirit of Kyoto Animation in the 2000s. Beyond that, they both feature the extremely strong production values of some of the studio’s later works in the 2010s and beyond. Your mileage will obviously vary – most people thoroughly enjoy the newer KyoAni works that I generally lambast and therefore might disagree with my assessment of some of the earlier material. Still, even outside of the context of their creation, Tamako Market and Love Story is an extremely fun little series that embody the best aspects of slice of life anime.