Tari Tari

Title:Tari Tari
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - P.A. Works
R1 License - Sentai Filmworks (ADV)
Sakai Wakana once took music lessons, but she withdrew from music after losing her mother. Okita Sawa is a spirited archery club member who dreams of becoming a horse rider. Tanaka Taichi is a chronically late badminton team member who lives with his college student sister. Maeda Atsuhiro (nicknamed "Wien") just transfered into Wakana's class after 12 years abroad in Vienna, Austria.

And then there's Miyamoto Konatsu who loves singing but was demoted to merely turning the pages of the piano player's sheet notes for the school choir after screwing up the choir's concert the year before.
Denied the chance to sing by the choir's leader and being in her final year at high school she decides to form her own choir at school, for which she will need at least five members.

[TV series, 2012, 13 episodes, 24 min; a parallel manga version started only a few weeks before the anime; image left to right: Okita Sawa, Sakai Wakana, Miyamoto Konatsu]


2:07min Series PV - YouTube Video
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 9 8 8 7 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:2584#1552]
(Rent-/ Watch+)

Tari Tari's more or less a high school slice-of-life anime with a group of five students coming together to form their own choir club and going up against students and school administration to get what they want. The series makes an idealist spin on the motivations of the club as all five members of the choir club come from different social cliques, like a badminton club and foreign student, and try to promote the message that hard work and perseverance would allow one to get what they want. All well and good, except for the fact that it doesn't seem very credible for these five students who come from different walks of life and having different experiences (only 2 of the 5 have prior choir/ singing experience) to suddenly gain the cohesion and vocal skills to pull off a competent performance within the span of months, which kind of kills much of the enjoyment of seeing this series for me on top of it not really breaking any new ground as a slice-of-life title since the outcome's rather predictable.

Many of the choir club members do get their characters explored as they are a likeable bunch and have their personal dilemmas that the series takes time to exploring. Plus as to be expected from PA Works, the visuals are very pleasing on the eyes with gorgeous scenery shots, nicely drawn details on character designs and many instances of onscreen natural and fluid movement coming from characters and vehicles.

Praises aside though, I'd only recommend Tari Tari if you enjoy the slice-of-life genre and can stand the conventional setup of its premise since I've seen enough variants of it delivered for anime titles.

Last updated Saturday, August 31 2013. Created Saturday, August 31 2013.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2584#628]
(Five episodes watched):

This show gets off to a bit of a slow start, as we are introduced to the premise (forming a small choir) but don't really get to know any of the five main characters very well yet. The artwork is nice, though. My interest is piqued enough to watch some more until I get a better idea of where this is going. The impression I get from episode two is that there is nothing flagrantly wrong with this show, but it is not particularly funny and the plot isn't all that interesting. Maybe it feels that way because I still feel that I hardly know the five principal characters. For instance, there's the girl who really, really wants to form her own choir, but I have yet to distinguish the other two apart. Then there's the Wein guy and the badminton guy--that's about all I know about them. I was surprised that so many additional candidates for the new choir were drummed up so quickly, when the five basic characters are still only vaguely developed. Since there are so many new shows this season, any new addition to my watch list needs to be not just average but better than that, and so far Tari Tari isn't thrilling me. I watched the first two episodes, lost interest, started watching again because Devil Doll seemed to be liking it, but found that I still can't summon much interest and have quit once again. I just don't see where this is going. One minor problem was that I was also watching another show, Kokoro Connect, which had a three-girls-and-two-boys cast, and that made it harder to keep track of who's who.

Last updated Thursday, August 30 2012. Created Saturday, July 07 2012.
Rent 8 8 7 8 7 7 Devil Doll [series:2584#752]
[4/13 episodes watched; temporary score: 74% = "Rent-"; similarly themed anime: Piano, K-ON!, maybe even Clannad (TV)]

Hm... I wasn't not sure until episode 3 whether to watch this series to the end, even though I liked all three anime I linked above. My problem with this story is the combination of the narration style and the premise.

The narration style is down-to-earth, no comedy (except for Wien's deficits about Japanese mannerisms) but apparently no high drama either, basically slice of life at school and the forming of a club. This alone would be to my liking, as Konatsu's serious attitude towards music is closer to Piano and far from being a moe-blob show like K-ON! that the cute character designs might imply.
The premise, on the other hand, implies that Konatsu will be able to form a club with people who don't share her love for music at this stage, or even have personal issues with singing in the case of Wakana. So it would be almost a miracle if she succeeded - and this doesn't seem plausible in a down-to-earth slice of life story unless a very good explanation is provided. These five characters (three girls and two boys) would have to achieve anything significant within the short time they have left; but as each of them has something else to focus on (Wakana running her household, Sawa practicing archery and horse-riding, Taichi practicing badminton, and Atsuhiro/Wien adapting to Japanese language and culture again, let alone preparing for school exams) I can't see how this might credibly work.

Konatsu as the person who founded the choir isn't that great a character so far but Sawa is an ace and Wakana has a lot of potential, it just has to be released by the course of events (with the choir being the likely catalyst for this). Both boys are of less importance so far.
  • Episode 01: (0): Introducing all five characters and covering the synopsis, including a failed attempt by Konatsu to recruit Wakana as club member. Forcibly recruiting Konatsu's younger brother Makoto by threatening to expose his porn collection to his parents isn't a good start either. And Taichi being the only member of the badminton club sounds like a plot hole - why would Konatsu need five members then?
  • Episode 02: (0-): Way too fast, and too much drama for this early stage. From setting an almost impossible task to getting a dozen (fake) members (Makoto's friends) and a public recital in one episode, this one felt like it should have been episode 10-11 or so. The best idea here was the choice of the song as it will put the vice-principal in a tough spot (with her apparently knowing this song's origin, and having a personal agenda about it); this woman might become the most important side character of the series.
  • Episode 03: (0+): With all those fake members out of the way, the real story begins, with Taichi the badminton player being the main person of this episode. Some hints are given about events in the past, apparently all linked to Wakana's deceased mother Mahiru, and more hints of the vice-principal having some hidden agenda; some funny elements (like the Spanish guy with the pig) were thrown into the mix. The final scene of this episode was nice; I think the story now "clicked" for me, and I'll continue watching it.
  • Episode 04: (+): With the appearance of the Condor Queens we get the first answers to open questions, plus the first real conflict within the choir, proving once again how essential both Sawa and Wakana will be as Konatsu's support. The best episode so far.


Last updated Thursday, July 26 2012. Created Tuesday, July 03 2012.

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