Anime / Tari Tari

Tari Tari is a Summer 2012 Anime animated by P. A. Works. Centred around five high school students in their final year of high school, the story tells of the successes and setbacks they share as they strive to come to terms with both their past and future. Wakana Sakai once took music lessons, but she withdrew from music after her mother died. Konatsu Miyamoto is a positive-thinking girl who loves singing and spends time after school at the vocal music club. Sawa Okita is a spirited archery club member who dreams of becoming a horse rider. Taichi Tanaka is a chronically late badminton team member who lives with his college student sister. "Wien" just transferred into Wakana's class after twelve years abroad in Austria. Music brings Wakana, Konatsu, Sawa and the others together into an ensemble during their last summer in high school.

Viewers may watch this on Crunchyroll in the following areas: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. In addition, Sentai Filmworks has licensed Tari Tari has also been for release in the US.

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Tari Tari provides examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: Wien's story arc parodies the Sentai genre and culminates in episode ten, incorporating elements such as:
  • Badass Creed
  • Bragging Theme Tune: Wakana, voiced by opera-graduate Ayahi Takagaki, rises her vocal pitch to sing the Sentai's theme.
  • Calling Your Attack: "Mango Beam!", "Curry Punch!"
  • Camp
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat
  • Laughably Evil: The Germ Squad
  • "Super Sentai" Stance
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In episode seven, Wakana oversleeps, and her father ends up making a lunch for her. When she opens it up, there is a heart shaped design in her rice, along with the word "love". She immediately tries to hide it, but Konatsu ends up getting a peek at it, and comments that her father must care for her very much.
• Black Mail: Konatsu asks her brother to join the club at least twice, and both times threatens to tell their mom where his hidden porn stash is if he doesn't join. Ironically, his mom already knew where he hid it.
• Book Ends: The show starts with Wakana leaving her house, and ends with her coming back, albeit many seasons later.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Konatsu does this after the ending credits are finished, turning around, looking and smiling at the camera.
• Broken Bird:
  • Wakana's lack of socialising stems from her past. She initially pushes away those who approach her, but through efforts from Konatsu and Sawa, she becomes more open.
  • Sawa's desires to become accepted by a jockey school led her to extreme measures. Similar to Wakana, her friends' efforts help her recover.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Sawa objects to her father's views of her aspirations to become a jockey.
• Character Focus: Each main character gets an episode which focuses largely on them and/or their problem.
• Death by Origin Story: Wakana's mother died when she was younger.
• Epic Fail: During the badminton match, Wien makes ready to smash the shuttlecock with everyone watching dramatically... only for it to get stuck in the net.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Wakana's mother, Sawa's, and Vice-Principal attended the same high school and were together in Choir Club.
• Evolving Credits/Evolving Music: The ending starts off with just Konatsu and Sawa sitting together and after it zooms out Wakana is shown in the background. By episode three: Wakana sits on the side, while Wien and Tanaka sit above Konatsu and Sawa. The final change occurs in episode seven, when Wakana has joined the rest of the cast. The pictures shown are now depicting the group do activities together.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Sawa's father initially disapproves of her wish of becoming a jockey, although his perspectives later change somewhat when he threatens to send the representative of the local jockey academy to Hell.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Many of the girls playfully do this to each other.
• Generation Xerox: Wakana shares similarities with her mother in terms of both physical appearance and personality.
• Girlish Pigtails: Sawa.
• Gratuitous English:
  Wakana: I don't, money!
  • In episode seven, after overhearing Sawa talking on the phone, Konatsu mistakenly assumes her friend is seeing someone, and says "Fall in love!" She then tells Wakana about it in the next scene, and they repeat the phrase.
  • Episode nine has Konatsu declaring "Lets try!" right before they talk to the vice principal to get her seal in allowing them to work after school to fund their club activities, which was forbidden barring special circumstances.
  • Konatsu jokingly calls Taichi "Lonely boy" when he's on his way to school to practice badminton by himself.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Konatsu and Sawa.
• Hypocritical Humor: Konatsu has no problems barging into the bathroom while her brother is taking a bath. However, when he walks in on her taking one, she flings water at him and insults him for doing what she did to him earlier. Similarly, she reprimands him for entering her room without permission despite frequently doing the same to him.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The episodes are named with the convention "doing (this) and doing (that)"; in fact, Tari Tari itself means "doing this or that".
• Imagine Spot: In the first episode, after being told she won't be allowed to sing, Konatsu angrily pushes books off her advisor's desk and gives her an earful. Then we find out she was just imagining doing that while plopping her face in a sink full of water.
• Insistent Terminology: Tanaka likes to remind everyone that they are not only a choir, but also a badminton club. Even in the ending theme.
• Loophole Abuse: In episode thirteen, when the chairman threatens to suspend the Choir club and sometimes Badminton club members if they go through with their festival, the principal says he'll allow it, since the chairman isn't needed to approve a festival, nor can he directly punish the students. Unfortunately, this costs him his job, since the chairman can fire the principal, and he also loses his retirement pension as a result.
• Love Confession: Taichi seems to give one to Sawa at the end of episode thirteen right before she travels overseas to continue her dream of becoming a jockey. However, no words are heard due to a song playing over the scene and its not made entirely clear if Sawa accepts his feelings or not.
• Love Epiphany: Taichi starts to develop one for Sawa after seeing her dance gracefully in episode eleven. In the next episode, the picture of her he takes and gives to an art club student was a rather plain one shot from behind her, rather than the shot from above that she asks him to take.
• Love Hurts:
  • Upon seeing Sawa going through a Heroic BSoD in the eighth episode, Kanata wonders if Kanata was going through a breakup, but she later learns of the actual reason for Sawa's troubles.
  • Konatsu similarly imagines that love is involved in the ninth episode, where Wien was depressed because letters he wrote to a friend in Vienna were returned unopened. Konatsu immediately assumed that he was writing to a girl and was rejected by her.
• Male Gaze: Subtly present, it is seen when Konatsu is first singing out in a public square as the other main characters happen to be passing by the area at the time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In episode five, Wakana nonchalantly tells her father to get rid of the piano in her room, because she doesn't feel she'll need it anymore, and that it would be better if someone else could use it. She also leaves her little keychain figurine on it as well. Then in the next episode, Wakana finds out that her mother forced her father into secrecy regarding her illness, and especially because the last words she had towards her mother were rather rude ones. She rushes back to her room, and begins to break down crying when she suddenly realizes how important the piano and the keychain were to not just her, but her father, as well. Fortunately, he didn't really get rid of either one.
• Naïve Newcomer: Wien's unfamiliarity with Japanese customs arise from him following tips from a local custom book that might have had some inaccuracies.
• New Transfer Student:
  • Wien is a new transfer student from Austria and finds himself unfamiliar with Japanese customs.
  • Wakana transfers into the general studies program.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat:
  • The Assistant Principal seems to go through a lot of effort to block Konatsu's efforts to create her own choir club. She tries to do this again regarding their job in episode ten, but the girls point out that she had already given them approval for it in episode nine. Wakana even points out that going back on her word after she had already approved it would look unprofessional, particularly as the club was using any money made from it for club purposes, which was okay under the school's policies.
  • The chairman of the school, cancels the culture festival in order to build new buildings faster. He even tries to suspend the Choir and sometimes Badminton club.
• Pet the Dog: As much of a pain she is to work with, the assistant principal does at least give Wakana a tip on how her mother wrote songs in episode ten, when the latter was suffering from Writer's Block.
  • Several more moments are given to various characters in episode twelve who were either an Obstructive Bureaucrat earlier, or had their hands tied and couldn't do much to help the students, such as the Principal.
• Poor Communication Kills: Wakana when she first runs into the Condor Queens. Of course, considering what happened, one could hardly blame her for reacting that way.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Sawa wears her uniform in this manner◊ during school hours.
• Real-Place Background: The beautiful locales of Tari Tari take place in Kamakura, with emphasis on Enoshima Island.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • The school's Principal is much less obstructive than the Assistant Principal regarding Konatsu's new club.
  • Sawa's father thinks he's trying to be this for her, but she feels he's much like the vice-principal with Konatsu in attempting to thwart her dreams before they have a chance to try it.
• Secret-Keeper: Wakana's father knew about her mother's illness, but was asked by her mother not to tell her because she was taking exams at the time, and was trying really hard to study for them. Her mother also didn't want the song they were going to make together to be one about sadness, since that's all Wakana would have likely thought about had she of known about the illness.
• Scenery Porn: As per usual of P. A. Works, both the scenery and details are spectacular.
• Schmuck Bait: In episode seven, Wien asks what the White Festival is, and while the girls give conflicting answers at first, they conclude it's a literal white rhino that they keep under the school except during the festival time. He buys it immediately, and Taichi comments to himself that girls are scary. Later Wien is seen writing to his friend about it.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The school principal allows the Choir club to perform at the White Festival in episode thirteen, despite the chairman's protests and threats of firing him.
• Secretly Wealthy: Wien's wealthy background surprises the characters when they visit his home in episode eight, which is styled after Wafter Kamakura's Museum of Literature.
• Serious Business:
  • Wien regards the superhero market job seriously owing to his background: his interest in superheroes stems from it helping him connect to a seven-year-old boy named Jan in Vienna. After Wien goes back to Japan, he writes letters to Jan, which is shown throughout the series. But in episode nine they all get returned to him, and apparently Jan doesn't live at that address anymore.
  • In episode eleven, after Konatsu gives Taichi a sort of rousing speech about giving his best efforts for the club's event at the festival, Wien also gets charged up and tells Konatsu he'll try his best as well, throwing her off guard as he's right up in her face as he says it, and she wasn't really expecting him to take it too seriously. Luckily for them, unlike Taichi, Wien is pretty good at creating props.
  • To the principal, supporting his students to perform a half-hour musical (with one song in it) is apparently enough reason to risk his job and retirement over.
• Shout-Out: The students in the choir club sing the True Tears opening in episode one, which was also produced by P. A. Works.
• Sick Episode: Wakana spends time off in episode six recovering from an illness.
• Spoiler Opening: Wakana is explicit in her refusal to join Konatsu's choir club, while Wien and Tanaka have their own activities. That said, they are depicted to be actively participating in the club in the show's opening.
• Start My Own: Konatsu decides to start her own choir club in the first episode after being told she's not good enough to sing in the other one.
• Straight Man: Tanaka fulfils this role
• Tears of Joy: The vice principal sheds tears in episode twelve after Wakana mentions that her mother must have had a good friend who cared deeply about her. The scene changes to a Flashback of the Vice Principal and Wakana's mother sharing some moments of friendship while they were in high school.
• Tempting Fate: In the finale, after being foiled by the principal and vice-principal in his attempt to stop the Choir club from performing, the chairman of the school board says that no one will come to the festival anyway. Naturally, a large number of people from the neighbourhood suddenly showing up early.
• Terrible Artist: In episode eleven, Konatsu wants him to draw the background settings, brushing aside Taichi's protests and maintaining that everyone else is doing stuff for the first time, such as Wakana with songwriting and Sawa with choreography. When he presents a sketch to Sawa, Konatsu, and Wien the next day:
  Konatsu: Never draw again.
• Transfer Student Uniforms: The school that Wakana attends has different uniforms corresponding to different faculties. Despite transferring from music to general studies, Wakana retains her uniform from music rather than changing into the general studies uniforms.
• True Companions: The members of Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club forge a deep friendship with one another following their trials and triumphs.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Averted with Sawa in episode eight, when she takes her horse Sabure to school because she left her bike at school earlier to make it to the audition in time. Several heads from random people turn as they see her.
• Weight Woe: When Sawa realises that she is over the weight limit for the jockey school she's applying, she begins dieting. However, this begins impacting her health to the point where she falls from her horse during a competition and suffers mild concussion because she's too weak to stay focused.
• Wham Episode:
  • At the end of episode seven, Sawa, having starved herself and suffering from weakness and an inability to concentrate, falls off her horse during horse archery practice.
  • Episode eleven reveals that the source of distraught in earlier episodes stems from the fact that their school is being turned into a condominium unit, because the principal said they couldn't find enough funding and with the declining birth rate, attendance rates were also low. As a result, he tells the teachers and the parents that they'll have to cancel the White Festival, and will try to allow the remaining students to graduate, but the school is going away. This also explains why the students saw construction men measuring around the school in earlier episodes. Despite that, Wakana suggests they sing together anyway.
• World of Ham: The main characters when they're doing their job as the West shop rangers in episode ten. Wien's immersion into this role drives him to chase down a thief who took Konatsu's bag, on foot, and manages to keep up with him the entire time. He gets stuck upon catching up, but starts singing the theme song of the superhero show he watches. It understandably freaks out the thief when the other characters start joining in with his singing as they surround him.
• Xanatos Gambit:
  • Konatsu does this on two separate occasions, the first time getting her brother to join the choir club by threatening to reveal where his Porn Stash is. He then leaves the club claiming he got rid of it only for Konatsu to tell him,that their mother was the one that told her.
  • And during episode three, Konatsu, Sawa, and Wakana all play a badminton match against Taichi and Wien. Both sides made a bet, if the girls win, the boys join the choir club, and if the boys win, the girls will join the badminton club. Although Taichi loses, Konatsu puts down "sometimes badminton player" on his choir club enrollment paper. She says had she of lost, she would have put "sometimes choir singer" on her badminton club application. So basically Konatsu was going to get Taichi to join the choir club one way or another.
• You Are Not Alone:
  • Wakana tried to push away anyone who tried to get close to her, but eventually managed to let others closer to her.
  • Sawa tries to go it alone with her own problems in episode eight, but then she gets a call (and song) from her friends, as well as hearing her father talk on the phone with the equestrian school she was trying to get into.

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