In an act of.....desperation I guess, I browse through the summer anime line-up once more to stop at Tari Tari saying "You'll be my new Kimi To Boku., ok? Be nice to me!". The addition of music was promising, too.
After watching the first two episodes, I wasn't sure if my choice to watch Tari Tari was a mistake or not. The pace seemed akwardly rushed. But staying optimistic, I just hoped it would slow down after that and give the characters some time, to develope and shine.
It slowed down indeed and focused on the characters, but not in a way it should've. At least I don't think so.
The characters basically took their turns getting depressed, so they could cheer up at the end of each episode (or after two episodes) through the power of friendship and music.
That itself is an ok idea, but just not executed well. Instead of dealing with the circumstances the characters are confronted in a subtle way, the show throws it right in the face of the people watching like it's yelling "HEY, I'M DRAMATIC NOW! Feel sorry for the characters!" just to demand "awww"s and tears of joy later.
The opening is a perfect example for this. There the female main-characters are shown one after the other all sad and crying, just to pluck up courage then and be happy while singing and laughing with the others, eww.
Speaking about the characters. There isn't really much for me to say about them.
They suffered from the shallow presentation and thus could never grow on me, let alone be taken seriously.
This is not to say that they never had their moments to shine. Every now and then they really succeeded in being charismatic and appealing. Especially in comical scenes. Unlike the drama, those weren't as overly exaggerated. Instead they were done in a more likable and subtle way.
But the same goes for the whole show itself, I think.
If it just would've contained the drama (quite) a bit and put more effort in making the characters and their situations more authentic it could've been way better.
Of course it's only natural for a show to specifically trigger emotions, but Tari Tari is just trying WAY to hard.
With that happening throughout the whole series there was no way I could take it serious as a slice of life-series. It felt like an overdramatized and too theatrical show, that was just there to sneak in some tearjerkers and pretend to be smart and profound.
The music being one of the main themes I expected a bit more from it.
The songs and bgm-tracks were nice, sure. But there were very few of them and not really much of variety. Meaning the two "main"-songs (from Wakana's mother and her own) sounded too much alike.
I'm not going into detail regarding the animations because they don't really matter in this kind of anime.
I didn't like the character design, but that's just my opinion. No criticism because of that.
And the word "opinion" is perfect to conclude this review.
I didn't like the way the show forced it's uncreative, linear drama on me. At times I even hated it.
But I'm not saying that because of that, the show is undeniably bad. There are people who like this kind of presentation and that's fine (more or less). Nothing wrong with that.
All I wanna say is that people who like smart and well-thought-out slice of life, that is authentic and not too naive at the same time, should stay away from this show. Watch Kimi To Boku. or Usagi Drop instead.
