This is a simple equation and a hard fact of maths. If you add 2 and 2 you will have four, its a tried and true fact of life. So why am I bringing this up in an anime review up, well because Tari Tari also religiously follows a tried and true equation, High school girls + slice of life = Money
In fact it follows so close that it actually didn't bother to bring anything original or interesting to the table, and because the writers believed so deeply in this formula they thought that it wouldn’t matter what they fed us, as long as they stuck to this equation people would watch it. (And the sad fact is, if you look at the blue-ray sales, they where actually right, sigh.)
So what is Tari Tari, well here`s a quick summary of what its about.
Tari Tari follows 5 high school kids with High school problems who form their own choir club due to the main character, Konatsu, being unable to "Shine" in the original music club. The main plot revolves around each of the main characters providing a look into each ones goals and life ambitions and the problems they face in achieving these goals.
It all sounds simple enough but here`s where the problems come in, the main plot, that of the group led by Miyamoto Konatsu trying to perform at the cultural festival, while a simple enough idea is so poorly written and executed that it ruins the whole series, confused, let me explain...
the idea of a group of teenagers, all with their own problems, being brought together by music and then working to put on a big show is a pretty good idea, Sakamichi no Apollon (kids on the slope) did this idea too but they did it so much better because it was much better written. These characters had their problems too but they where more relatable and, most important of all their problems weren’t solved in two episodes so the story could move onto another character with problems.
Also the music played a much bigger part in Sakamichi no Apollon, you really get a feel that these characters are being brought together despite their differences because of there love of jazz, with Tari Tari no one really seemed to care about the music club for much of the series and it certainly never seemed to bring them together or help them with their problems, in fact they all solved their problems on their own so what was the point of this series.
Not only that but there where some really stupid scenes in this series as well. Like with the sub plot about the school being closed down because some rich guy wants to build a hotel, I mean what is this a 90s Disney channel tv movie, come on how lame is this. Theres even a scene where the rich guy is sitting in a big chair looking over an expensive wine bottle while telling the principle hes going to close the school, oh I get it, hes a bad guy isnt he. they should have just had him counting dollar bills while stroking an evil cat and spitting on orphan puppies, if your going to do a stupid scene like that you might as well go the whole way don’t ya think.
But to be honest this show isn’t really about the plot, its more about the characters and how they fight against their problems and obstacles in order to achieve there dreams. And while all five protagonists have believable problems, mostly typical of your average teenager, the show again suffers from bad writing and clichéd ideas. You see again they followed a formula with the characters, introduce them and their goals + add problems + shake well = leave to cool for 1 episode then move onto another character. Then there’s the characters themselves, despite this being a character driven story we find out very little about some characters and too much about others, very little time is devoted to the male characters, they are developed shocking little in this series and given very little screen time and attention compared to the female characters. I mean I suppose there was some attempt to give them depth like with the sup plot about Wien and some childhood friend back in Austria (which again is horribly written to the point where its almost comical) but its very small in comparison to the female cast.
The main problem with the characters is again the belief of the writers that by adding a few scenes of people crying and some sad back story’s this would count as character development, it does not. Character development is when we the audience can relate to characters who feel like real people and we watch and learn how they grow and change throughout the course of the story, its not devoting two episodes to a character crying because she cant do what she wants then ignoring them for the rest of the story.
Now to be fair some of the back-storys where quite sad and moving such as Wakana`s with the story of her dead mother, but again it could nave been done much better with some decent writing and some good direction.
So anyway the problems with this series aren’t particularly complicated or mysterious, its just a simple case of a series that tried to be quirky and whimsical with characters that warmed your heart, but instead it fell its face face due to bad writing, lack of imagination and using every cliché in the book. Overall not a bad series but there’s so many other that do this idea much, much better such as Sakamichi no Apollon, watch that instead.
