Tari Tari

Premiered today. Trope page link.

High-end animation, almost Hyouka-level. Strong dialogue. A cat acting like an actual cat. What's not to like?

I enjoy PA Works' stuff.They're god at cute girls

horriblesubs has done the first episode

edited 1st Jul '12 7:49:40 PM by Flapjackmaka

The choir is signing the theme to True Tears. I have mixed feelings about that.

I liked the first episode. Still archery girl... It's very very weird... but when I don't see her with an accessory... Like her horse, or her bow or her nice hat I have a hard time parsing her. There's something uncannily... normal about her. Like I expect her to be a background character based on her design.

I also was expecting a different voice from our protagonist taking into account her design.

Finally... "Does it have to be a boy?" I like how the teacher thinks. She's funny.

Her voice is very familiar, but I can't place it.

Finally, I've been waiting for a good slice of life to balance out all the plot heavy shows I usually watch.

I should mention how much I like it when slice-of-life shows balance out the gender-ratio of the core cast, whether or not romance actually plays a part in the show.

Also surprisingly nice to have the guy shown around the school by another guy.

So far, this show has been nothing but pleasant surprises. I hope it continues.

Not really a surprise, but Sentai Filmworks picked up this one too.

Hope it does well enough on Crunchyroll to justify a dub + Blu-ray.

I loled at the True Tears choir.

Also, the girl with the cat and the scruffy-looking dad looks a lot like Nishizawa from Hayate No Gotoku.

EDIT: Honestly, I really like this. Yes, it's basically Hanasaku Iroha in a slightly different setting with slighly different characters but it's got the same nice animation and good writing, so I'm game

edited 2nd Jul '12 4:21:23 PM by Arilou

It also has guys of around the same age which will probably get a significant amount of screentime.

First episode was fantastic. The characters are already showing nuances to their personalities (except for the horse-riding archery girl who's just kinda plain at the moment). Sakai and the new guy are particularly interesting. Mainly the new guy because of his ideas about Japanese culture. Heck, even the teacher is interesting.

There's also the considerable number of plot threads laid out in this episode. Aside from the one about the choir, I'm interested in transfer student's mystery pen pal of sorts, as well as Sakai's situation (she seems like she's moving away... I'm not sure. For what reason do people usually take supplementary classes for anyway, aside from low grades? Not to mention her reluctance to sing EDIT: which I suspect has something to do with her mother)

All in all, a good start for what looks to be a great slice-of-life show. The story is more "standard" than Hanasaku Iroha but that might not be a bad thing; since the premise is familiar I can assume that the writers will be able to pour more effort into execution, and that seems to be the case. Seriously, the writing is solid.

edited 5th Jul '12 6:59:09 AM by fillerdude

I thought Sakai had also transferred in, and that her family was in the music business somehow. (hence why she's expected to sing well but won't)

That's what I thought too. What threw me off was: well, Sakai's stuff was packed in boxes; if she was a transfer student then she should have transferred in only recently, but her classmates and teacher seem to be a bit too familiar with her.

Unless of course the boxes were packed just for the heck of it. Or maybe it was a storage room, or she didn't feel like unpacking. I dunno. You're probably right, she's probably a transfer student. But I still want clarification on how come she's "not taking up enough classes in the regular curriculum".

I like the idea of her family being in the music business, though. In fact, I think her mother might have been a music celebrity or something. Loss of mom —> reluctance to sing because singing dredges up sad memories. or something like that.

Episode 2 is out, and this show does not dither about. It's like the anti-True Tears.

God I love the teacher. "Are you pregnant?"

Lucky Sakae, she gets three cakes! The song at the end was great.

Whaddya know, plain archery girl become a lot less plain this episode thanks to her dynamic with Konatsu.

Pregnant teacher is still awesome. "Are you pregnant?" There's a lot of little stuff like that, funny and cute and somewhat heartwarming but basically I really like the character dynamics in this show. They feel like real people.

Next episode will have the males entering the "main" story. Both will probably end up joining the choir, but I'm still interested in how it'll happen. Plus I definitely don't mind seeing more of transfer student (wonder if he got a better book?).

Suddenly, pig.

Konatsu's brother lost the game a long time ago.

Most unusual club in anime? Probably not, but the Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club is not something you normally see in high school club offerings.

Also, the ED sounds much better with the guys' voices added in.

Yeah, the ED got better. Now all it needs is Sakae's voice.

Poor Konatsu's brother.

Sakae's interactions with the old guy are hilarious. Speaking of Sakae, I wanna know the deal with her mom already.

Oh and Sawa is still the best girl in the show. And there was too little screentime for Wien.

edited 21st Jul '12 12:01:01 AM by fillerdude

Episode 4:

• Go transfer student! Be a hero!
• Sawa and Wakana look great in swimsuits. The guys' costumes are great too.
• Can't wait for Wakana to give in and return to music.

Episode 5: This one had some good parts, but it left me a bad taste in my mouth.

• Konatsu and Wien complement each other. Can't help smiling over how enthusiastic they are.
• Badmi x Sawa! Badmi x Sawa! No, okay, I'm not really a shipper of that pairing, but it looks like it could happen.
• And for the bad taste:
  • Little Wakana. She's such a jerk to her mom, for reasons I feel were not adequately explained or hinted at. Like they made little Wakana pointlessly angry towards her mom so they could make her backstory even sadder.

so i guess the two girls fooling around in the hallway near the end of the OP are the vice principle and Wakana's mom

I thought it was made plainly clear that young Wakana was a little too serious and results-driven for her own good. Note how every scene she had with her mom she seemed to have acted like music was a waste of time, when she could use it instead for studying. Which is ironic, given how the department she was trying to get into in the first place IS for music studies.

Exactly. How come she was so results-driven? How come she's annoyed at learning music when she's trying to get into the music department in the first place? Did she not know her mom was ill? How come her relationship with her mom was so sour in the first place?

With this week's episode, I'd guess that somewhere along way, Wakana started treating music as serious business, and stopped having fun while do so. Results mattered, which in turn made her out-of-synch with her mom's philosophy.

I think I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I found it nice how there wasn't a single "white knight" that came swooping in to take care of Wakana's problems. Instead, we had each member of the Choir-and-sometimes-Badminton Club giving the girl their own share of kindness, which in turn gave Wakana the push to resolve her issues herself.

I get all of that. It's just that the episode really sucked at getting that across in my opinion.

Anyway: Tari Tari 6 blows away all the iffy emo-ness of the last episode with 20 minutes of amazing character dynamics and a glorious ending song (which is the song Konatsu and Sawa sang at the competition, but with the addition of the other three's voices).

Re: amazing character dynamics: all centered around Wakana. I agree with Myssa here that it was nice how everyone in the Choir Club helped Wakana move forward. Really great stuff, full of amusing little details and heartwarming moments.

Next episode seems to deal with Sawa's (again, best girl of the show) problems with her career choice so I'm looking forward to that!