Tamagawa Kyoudai

“Tamagawa Kyodai” is a short OVA commissioned by the Tokyo Waterworks to tell the story behind the construction of the Tamagawa Aqueduct, a canal in Tokyo. It’s based off of a novel by Sonoko Sugimoto, and is largely factual.

With the birth of the Edo Shogunate, Edo (Tokyo)’s population grew dramatically, and there wasn’t enough fresh drinking water to go around. Thus, two brothers, Shouemon and Seiemon, are named by the government as leaders in a canal construction project. After facing numerous setbacks and overcoming challenges, they manage to successfully get water flowing into central Tokyo. There’s an “epilogue” of sorts with live-action footage of ... the actual aqueduct at the end.

Since it’s based on a true story, the plot progresses relatively well, although there are a few odd moments. For example, when the two brothers are discussing ideas for how to bring more water to Tokyo, the younger one suggests getting it from the Tamagawa River, and the older one is like “you’ve got to be joking; that would cost a fortune!” And then, the next scene cuts to the narrator saying, “the government decided to do just that, however, and named the brothers as the leaders of the project.” The turnaround here is kind of sudden. Also, to take responsibility for the setbacks the project faces, the magistrate commits suicide, and his ghost talks to the older brother, encouraging him to complete the project. This seems like an unusual thing to put in an anime directed towards children (maybe they thought it would be more interesting with a ghost in it).

The OVA is under 20 minutes long, so there’s little room for character development, but we do get to see some nice family scenes with Shouemon’s wife and child.

Regarding technical aspects, the animation and art are above average, and most of the characters, even the ones in the background, have distinct designs. The all-instrumental soundtrack is what you’d expect for something taking place in 17th-century Japan, and there’s nothing memorable about it. The voice acting is pretty good; the actors are probably all professionals. Unfortunately, there are no credits for individuals in the video or elsewhere, so there doesn’t seem to be any way of knowing who did the voices. Or who animated it, directed it, etc., for that matter.

There’s not a whole lot that could potentially be considered objectionable here, except for perhaps the aforementioned suicide (not shown on screen) and ghost, as well as a brief scene at the end of people in a bathhouse (nothing is really shown, though).

The video file can be downloaded for free on Tokyo Waterworks’ website, and it’s available only in Japanese (they really should just upload it to YouTube…).

Overall, this is an interesting piece with a largely accurate depiction of a little-known but important part of Japanese history. If you can understand Japanese, I’d recommend checking it out.