Tamayura

Tamayura is a short OVA series by Studio Hal Film Maker. The studio adapted the manga into four 18-minute long episodes in 2010. HFM does not receive a lot of attention lately, but Tamayura is mainly a Slice of Life and since this studio blessed the SoL fans of this world with the famous Aria series, I thought I look into Tamayura as well and see what´s going on.

The Anime is about a clumsy and shy girl named Fuu Sawatori who recently moved to her late father´s hometown where she makes new friends and memories together with her new friends and her little brother. As ... she is into photography like her dad who passed away five years ago, she captures the memories she makes with her camera and tries to get closer to her father through this hobby.

Now this anime does not keep you in the dark of what it´s all about for very long. Right from the start, director Satou Junichi makes clear he wanted to produce a little feel good anime. Indeed, it is a perfect show to watch after a stressy day. It´s calm, slightly melancholic and cute…a little too cute to be honest. While overreacting to whatever is going on is very common in anime, Tamayura goes a bit over the top in this regard, turning the girls into annoying human beings at times (Beware of the Cake eating scenes!) Anyway, I did not mind once the story developed. This takes a while I have to say as nothing is going on at all in the first episode. Things get more enjoyable as the series progresses though.

As for the characters, I wished the other girls would get more important roles, but they are treated as supporting cast only and their only job is to help out and accompany Fuu. This is a shame as at first sight they seem to be at least as interesting as our main girl.

Better parts of this anime are definitely the beautiful sceneries. While the animation itself is average, a lot of love for details can be found in the nature and the places the group goes. Those are always accompanied by the most laid back and quiet music playing in the background, creating a very relaxing atmosphere all the way through.

But the best part of Tamayura is that there are many sequels with full length episodes! The whole series consists of much more material then just those four OVAs. They basically just serve as a teaser while still managing to conclude the story of these OVAs at the same time, giving you a chance to spend an hour to see if Tamayura is for you or not.

While it is not the greatest Slice of Life ever, it has its highlights and it is definitely not bad. Just go watch it and then decide if you want or need more!

Maybe I just didn't need any healing but this "healing story" came off as a bland and boring time-waste.

It tried to be wise and nonchalant but ended up just being boring.
Neither the art or sound is anything special either.

It is just your average very Japanese like show trying to put some pseudo-wise lines in an anime where nothing happens.

And finally - photography. I've yet to see any medium show it in interesting light. Maybe that's just me but photography is an uninteresting subplot.