For our unnamed main character—we’ll call him Watashi—this couldn’t be more true. He’s a college dropout at the end of his rope, eating a meal at the end of the night at a ramen stand. There, he meets a (self proclaimed) God of Matrimony. After this God’s inexplicably large chin tells Watashi that he basically knows everything about him, our hapless main character is sent on a flashback to his not so great college years.
The flashback of his college years zips on by, and so does Watashi’s narration of events. He talks at a thousand miles per hour, and that might keep people away from watching this show since the dialog is hard to follow. Don’t. Watashi is hard to follow, but the show he’s in isn’t. Think of him as a guy being forced to talk about what happened in his past but does so as fast and painless as he can. He’s selfish, and doesn’t care about easing the viewer into his life nor does he care for seeing people as they are.
You see, while Watashi’s lightspeed narration takes over the soundtrack, the way he sees the world takes over the visuals. Every backdrop looks like a cardboard cutout and the characters lack color, but the design choice is deliberate. The design shows the way Watashi sees the world, so focused on himself that what he sees around him might as well be a parody. The easygoing members of the Softball Club, for example, all have the same smiling face, while the repo men of the Bicycle Police (don’t ask) look more like gorilla’s in prison suits. Yes, really.
This narrow focus from Watashi also affects what the viewer learns about the people in his life, meaning not much is learned about them at all. Instead, the characters are closer to ideas in his life. Jougasaki, for example, is Watashi’s antithesis for success, being handsome, buff, and leads the Misogi Movie Club, while Watashi is average looking, scrawny, and barely keeps his place in any club. Jougasaki and his biceps often play the villain role to Watashi, and his other hobbies include boobs, a far cry from Watashi’s sexual repression.
Then there’s Ozu, the wildcard in Watashi’s life, the kind of guy who can be one’s best friend or worst enemy depending on how one approaches life. Ozu’s described as not having a single good trait about him, but as the show goes on he shows a wit sharper than his teeth and foresight wider than his narrow eyes. Watashi—and the viewer—is never sure how Ozu does what he does, whether it’s getting classified information or hijacking a blimp. But Ozu’s also the fall guy, who Watashi blames for the way his life has turned out.
You see, as Watashi is sent on a flashback through his not so great college years, he thinks that his life might’ve turned out better if he joined a different club, so he joins the Tennis Club. He doesn’t just want a good life, but a rose colored campus life. Through club activities, he plans to surround himself with raven haired maidens and reach sweet, sweet romance. But he can’t make any friends, let alone start a romance, and is instead stuck with Ozu. Whether from Ozu’s mischief, Jougasaki’s villainy, or his own selfishness, Watashi ends up not liking where his life ends up, and relives his flashback to join a different club in hopes of getting a rose colored campus life.
And does it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
No matter what club Watashi joins, the end result is always the same, and he never seems to learn. Do more than a few things always go wrong after Watashi joins a club? Maybe. Is Watashi setting his expectations too high? Definitely. But how else would he act? He’s fresh out of high school and been sheltered all his life. A guy like that is bound to be a hopelessly naïve fool, as he often points out every time his hopes are dashed. But what’s really baffling—or believable, in his case—is how often he looks past what—or who—he does have, like Akashi.
This is because Akashi is that friend, who’s also a girl, who might become Watashi’s girlfriend if he just thought to talk to her more. She treats him more fondly than she treats others, but she doesn’t throw herself at him. She has other concerns, like her engineering, and always tells it like she sees it, able to keep even Jougasaki at bay. She isn’t the companion Watashi deserves, but the companion Watashi needs. That said, the romance is non-existent, but this show isn’t a romance; it’s a story about a guy who wouldn’t know opportunity if it dangled in front of his face.
And while Watashi ignores opportunity, he keeps reliving his college years in hopes of getting a rose colored campus life. Through this, the show becomes frustrating, but not for the right reasons.
For theme, it makes sense for the show’s story to be repetitive. Because no matter what choice Watashi makes, the end result is always the same. The problem is the show’s repetitive execution. The first five episodes have different set-ups, but the opening, middle, and final act of each episode is roughly the same. It tries to be different with each episode, but those common threads end up bringing focus to how similar they are.
On the other hand, the last six episodes take the same set-up, but they play out differently and are only similar in their final acts. They don’t try too hard to be unified, and this lets each episode be its own story while still keeping to the show’s theme, which makes for a refreshing watch. But this begs the question of why the show doesn’t do something similar for its first half. The show is supposed to be challenging, I get it, but until the halfway point it’s not even obtuse; just awfully repetitive.
That repetition also brings down the characters. As characters themselves, they’re all great. But their interactions with each other become repetitive. Seeing Watashi dread his first meeting with Ozu loses impact after the second time, and the scene of Watashi saving Akashi from a random moth can only be cute so many times before it becomes old hat. Until the show’s second half, their interactions with each other become predictable, and the sad thing is it doesn’t need to be.
Maybe the nature of the show’s theme ends up making it too easy for it to become repetitive. But since it was able to keep the story refreshing from the halfway point onward, I have to wonder what this show could have become if its effort were better directed in the first half. It definitely has thematic focus, it knows what it wants to say, and has a great cast of characters needed to say it. It could be an excellent show, but it’s not there yet.
I say “yet” because writing and directing is something that can improve with time. I’d like to see this show remade with that improvement in mind, its effort redirected to avoid being repetitive, to be better than it is now. It DID show the ability to be better than it is now, which makes it so frustrating it fell short of being excellent. As it is now, Tatami Galaxy isn’t a rose colored experience, but it’s definitely an opportunity worth grabbing.
