Tamako Market

Inside the Usagiyama Shopping District lies an eccentric but close-knit community of business owners. Tamako Kitashirakawa, a clumsy though adorable teenage girl, belongs to a family of mochi bakers who own a quaint shop called Tama-ya. One day, Tamako stumbles upon a talking bird that presents himself as royalty from a distant land. Dera Mochimazzi, as he calls himself, states that he’s seeking a bride for his country’s prince. Intent on his mission, Dera follows Tamako home and develops an addiction to mochi, becoming painfully overweight and subsequently unable to fly back to his homeland; thus, he takes up residence with Tamako's family and becomes the community’s beloved mascot.

Meanwhile, Tamako's friend, Mochizou Ooji, continues to hide his true feelings for her. Their fathers are fierce mochi rivals, but will it be enough to drive a wedge between Tamako and Mochizou? And just what will happen to Dera's task of finding his prince’s destined bride?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kitashirakawa, Tamako Main

Suzaki, Aya Japanese

Ooji, Mochizou Main

Tamaru, Atsushi Japanese

Makino, Kanna Main

Nagatsuma, Juri Japanese

Mochimazzi, Dera Main

Yamazaki, Takumi Japanese

Asagiri, Shiori Main

Yamashita, Yurie Japanese

Tokiwa, Midori Main

Kaneko, Yuuki Japanese

Kitashirakawa, Anko Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Mochimazzi, Choi Supporting

Yamaoka, Yuri Japanese

Hanase, Kaoru Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Kitashirakawa, Mamedai Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Nakamura, Shinichi Producer

Senami, Riri Producer

Yamada, Naoko Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Apr 12, 2022

superalicat

Recommended

Just some of my impressions of Tamako Market (mostly the show, but I do know how the movie ends so that might factor into my commentary here) **Some spoilers!**


I started Tamako Market initially because it was KyoAni and had the same character designs as K-On!, so I figured it was sure to be cute at least. And right away, something about it pulled me in. It reminded me, in a strange way, of the Soviet-era cartoons my mother showed me when I was little: a talking bird from a southern island, a plot with a prince seeking out a princess…even though everything surrounding Tamako Market, ... its main setting, is completely Japanese (you could argue that the profession of making mochi is one of the most Japanese ones out there), was completely relatable to me. The warm, homey feeling of the market transmitted itself to me and made me feel at home just watching it all on a screen.

This anime is a story about a community, leaving aside the princess plot, and about the new generation growing up within it. Even if a lot of it might seem like cute, simple fluff, it’s fluff with heart. All of the characters are so loveable that you just want to root them on (even comic relief Dera). I will say that I wish Choi’s story had gotten more resolution without being moved to shorts/pre-movie scenes because her romance was kinda skimmed over. But in its place came the much stronger development of an unexpectedly progressive love triangle.

As a dense 14-year-old on my first watch of the show, I completely and totally mistook those scenes of Midori’s crush as her liking Mochizou (admittedly, this is because I had a massive crush on him myself at the time, and still think he’s the cutest love interest ever). But after being educated on who Midori actually liked, I realized that her romantic interest in Tamako is never depicted as a bad thing or something she comes to grow out of, but with sweetness and care and sensitivity. Her love is just as valid as Mochizou’s love for Tamako. The show revolves around “everybody loves somebody” as its mantra, and that doesn’t mean that love should fit some kind of predetermined standard or societal norm. I also thought it was refreshing that Kanna was just doing her own thing the entire time and not given any romance, but that’s a whole other thing. Even if Midori’s crush doesn’t end up progressing past that stage, it’s never knocked down or disparaged, it’s simply a one-sided love. This is the kind of love triangle (love V?) that had me rooting for both sides interested in Tamako. Also, it took a couple rewatches to realize the pun of Mochizou’s last name being Ooji, basically the same as “ouji”/prince, which means he was Tamako’s prince the entire time. Just a little nod from the writers there, I guess.

I think more people can articulate better than I can why Tamako Market is an exemplary slice of life, and my review here is mostly a summary of my strongest impressions after having rewatched it a few times over the years. But that warm, welcome, accepting feeling that I get from it every time, that’s something that I don’t think this review alone can speak to. It might just be me, but Tamako Market is one of KyoAni’s stronger examples of making an extremely atmospheric and real-feeling world that, in the strangest way, coexists alongside talking birds and southern island kingdoms in the same 12 episodes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 10, 2021

Lab_Mem_Num001

Mixed Feelings

Episode: 12 (About 20 minutes each)

Plot: C *The show follows a ditsy young girl named Tamako Kitashirakawa who is the daughter of the mochi shop Tama-ya's owner. She is very passionate about her work and is part of a close-knit community in a small shopping plaza in Japan. Things get a bit exciting when a flamboyant talking bird named Dera Mochimazzi shows up explaining that he is there looking for a bride for the prince he serves in a distant land. The show mainly follows what Tamako is up to in school with her friends and the goofy events the little shopping community performs for ... each season before finally introducing us to the prince by series end to get us ready for the たまこラブストーリー [Tamako Love Story] film where we'll find out if Tamako's childhood friend Mochizou will be able to win her over. There are some fun moments, but overall, the plot is super simplistic and is definitely not going to be for everyone.

Visuals: B *Is it just me or does Kyoto Animation do hair better than any other studio? The character designs of Midori and Kanna are both really good and I love how detailed their hair looks. Other than that, like most Kyo-Ani shows, the backgrounds are really pleasant to look at and the shopping plaza is vibrant and full of pretty colors and realistic looking settings.

Voice Acting: Other than Dera who is hilarious and somehow even more fantastic and flamboyant in the dub, stick with the sub for this one. But for the most part, the voices of the characters are cute with very little annoying voices. Kanna's voice is probably my favorite in the sub because her personality is already weird and then you you add her goofy deep voice to portray her quips and it makes her comments even funnier.

Film Score/Soundtrack: C *There are a few stand out tracks that play during the more "emotional" moments in the show and some fun upbeat ones too, but for the most part, this isn't a score you will be listening to outside of the show's context.

Characters: C *Tamako Market is a bizarre show. I didn't really feel like I connected with any of the characters, but I enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

Tamako is likable enough as your token ditsy friendly girl who obsesses over mochi. Her childhood friend Mochizou is a hardcore simp for her that is downright pathetic at times, yet he has a habit where he throws a string telephone to Tamako's window at night to talk to her which is super cute. Shiori was a super shy girl that had no friends and Tamako tried super hard to make her friend in an early episode... only for her to become a background character that we hardly see again. Kanna is there to throw sass at every character and to be super weird. But she is a good friend to Tamako and I enjoyed every second of her despite her being underutilized. Midori has my favorite character design of the bunch, but is bossy and does the whole "I can do everything myself" cliche where by episode's end she realizes she needs help and all's well ends well. I loathe morale lesson episodes of tv shows. Anko is Tamako's little sister who constantly complains about living in a family that makes mochi so she doesn't help them with anything. Yet she has a friend that she has a crush on who is moving away so she uses the mochi shop to give goodbye gifts to him and still doesn't help in making them. She is a whiny little brat and if she was my sister, I would whip her entitled little butt into shape real fast.

And as for the adults, they felt more like cliches of character types as opposed to actual characters. Especially the dude that owned the record shop. He mainly existed as a plot device for other characters to feel better or to learn something and to move on. Dera the talking bird has his moments of brilliance and his moments that will make you head palm. But I will say for the most part, he was a likable character and I thought it was funny how scared of Choi he was. (Who btw also has an adorable character design)

Cringeworthy Anime Moments: I get it that this is a moe anime and everything is meant to be cute about it, but I don't think Tamako losing her badge needed to have music that dramatic playing. In fact, just about every time sad music played in this anime, the reason a person was crying was so ridiculous that I couldn't take it seriously. At least in K-ON!, in most cases, the sad music is mainly for comedic effect because they know that the situation is goofy and should not be taken seriously. I also found Tamako's father to be extremely annoying as he screamed all the time every time people say anything negative about mochi, and when anything about his past would come up, he would just yell and be a huge tsundere to his daughter. I typically am not the biggest fan of tsundere's that are excessive in their outbursts and refuse to allow people to connect (and that are abusive) so if you think the idea of a tsundere dad is cute, I guess I apologize for placing it in my cringeworthy anime moment section, but I for one found it to be an annoying ongoing joke. Dera trying to peak on the girls in the bath and then getting a nosebleed when he saw them in their bathing suits was about as cringe as it gets. And when he does it a second and third time, it unsurprisingly got even less funny than it was the first time. I did find the part about girls sneezing on Dera as a sign of affection to be cute and funny, but the pervy lets add some fan service real quick scenes that plague anime drive me nuts.

Opening: *This song is everything I love about J-pop. It's got an assortment of instruments, upbeat and fun vocals, a memorable chorus, and is just cuteness overload with the beautiful visuals to accompany it.

Ending: *The beat and vocals both remind me of Kylie Minogue's Miss a Thing which is a super groovy disco-esque pop song. Absolutely love it!

Final Verdict: 5/10 *Tamako Market is a show to c h i l l to. I can't really say it excels in any way (other than it's BOP of an intro and it's super catchy ending track), but I did enjoy watching it even though just about every episode had it's moments to roll your eyes at or really was about nothing of interest. It's definitely the weakest of 山田尚子 [Naoko Yamada]'s works that I've seen thus far, but I am intrigued enough to watch the たまこラブストーリー [Tamako Love Story] to see how it all ends.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 24, 2022

GwenPineapple

Not Recommended

Tamako Market begins very rough, with all of the first half, and a little bit more, being bad and unenjoyable, and by the end does manage to evolve into being somewhat enjoyable, functionally becoming a subpar K-ON - it fails to really meet any reason for existence, when everything makes it so painfully clear that it tries to do what K-ON! does, and fails at it.

Primarily, the show introduces things that it fails to properly utilise, which is the main cause of its failing. The main trio of girls - Tamako, Kanna, and Midori - have some immediate chemistry and charm together, but are rarely ... actually properly used outside of a few moments, there are two love plots (one between Midori and Tamako, and one between Tamako and Mochi) which both remain underdeveloped, and one of them is just swept under the rug as well.

If the show could have focused on its strengths, instead of being mostly directionless, it could have been quite enjoyable in its own right, though always in the shadow of K-ON! unfortunately.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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