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Mar 10 2013

Categories: episodic review, tamako market
Tagged: tamako market

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“A love song?”

The best episode of Tamako Market yet. This series manages to capture slice-of-life moments framed with a more shoujo mindset extremely well. This episode is all about love, but it’s subtle yet heartwarming yet believable. That’s the strength of Tamako Market. It’s nice to see three romances, all by the Kitashirakawa women, in three different stages weaved into a single story. The episode is bookended by Mamedai’s pursuit of Tamako’s and Anko’s mom, which is a classic boy meets girl, boy wins over girl, boy has two daughters with girl love story (Disney Channel, here we come… surely this is better than Dog with a Blog). The episode also features Anko’s puppy love with Yuzuki (complete with the bitterness of him leaving but with the sweetness that he might be back). And, of course, Mochisou’s unrequited pursuit of Tamako.

(The common thread? All of them gained a little happiness in their love via Tamako. She made Anko see Yuzuki depart. She baked Mochisou a cake mochi. She told her dad that she loves him after he got all nostalgic. That’s pretty damn good. She had a positive effect on those around her, and she didn’t even need any moom prism powers.)

(We could toss in Dera’s love for mochi in here too. If we locked Dera into a vault full of mochi, would he swim in it a la Scrooge McDuck, or will he just consume until he turns into the gluttony dude in Seven?)

And, of course, a continuing theme of family, where each family member pulls for another. It’s great how even small touches like when one family member leaves the store, another would sit down to man the store matter of factly. You can tell they genuinely care about each other, and it’s a properly functioning unit, especially when Tamako tried to help out Anko with Yuzuki’s departure and with how Tamako’s dad just teared up when Tamako told him that she loves him. Maybe it’s not the most realistic depiction of a family, but it’s a classic Ghibli-esque depiction of a family.

“Whose side do you think you’re on?” / “You’ve got no right to call me ‘Dad’!”

Funniest scene of the episode. Loved how Mochisou didn’t miss a beat when his dad told him to get more mochi rice, only to run and disappear into Tamako’s house. They’re like the Baratheon’s and the Stark’s. Then again, we all know what happens when they tried to marry Sansa to Joffery…

The record store guy is on keyboards, Tamako’s dad in on guitar, and the fish guy (?) is on drums. It would have been gold if Mochisou’s dad was on bass just to add fuel to the rivalry. Too bad. I did like the song as it was quite appropriate… it’s like perfectly 1980 school band-ish. Then again, this is the K-On! team, so I expect nothing less than perfectly executed high school amateur band renditions where the music is played well, the singing is pretty good, and the lyrics are as fuwa fuwa time as one could get.

(Mio’s seiyuu voiced Tamako’s mom. Swiftly approved. She did her panicked voice when Tamako’s dad confessed to her.)

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. I just hope the baton club doesn’t turn into Animal Farm.

Tamako is actually pretty smooth. You would think she is clumsy (for whatever reason, Kyoto female leads tend to be clumsy and/or weak… *cough* Ayu-chan *cough*), but Tamako is fairly smooth and coordinated. Thank goodness we have Dera in the clumsy role…

I enjoyed this scene too, where Choi-sama nails Dera with a paper crane. Dera and Choi are definitely the boke and tsukkomi couple of Tamako Market. However, I don’t like how Yuzuki is stereotyped as the geek. Come on. Is it really necessary for him to wear an “E=mc^2” sweatshirt? Isn’t this overdoing it a bit? We get it. He’s a nerdy, quiet one. We don’t need to see him walk around carrying the Feynman lectures or wearing a pocket protector. We get it.

That’s a penis mochi. No two snakes about it.

Another cute scene. I wonder if Tamako actually remembered (which would go inline with my theory that Tamako is a mastermind), or if Anko told Tamako as a way of paying back Mochisou’s help with Yuzuki. Either way, genuine happiness from Mochisou.

(The way the flame and the candle bounces with the mochi cake… Ghibli move.)

Air support!

Three MVPs:

1. Tamako’s parents. For being real parents.

2. Tamako. For helping make Anko, Mochisou, and her dad happy.

3. Dera. For providing Anko air support, for providing comedy, for shopping, and for being a makeshift projector.