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Tatami Galaxy offers a rather unique premise for an anime in that our nameless male lead is trapped in a time loop as he experiences differing scenarios for his ideal university life, unaware that there is another path for him to take which won't lead to his ideal perceptions crashing down upon him and entrapping himself in the neverending time loop. The series mixes around comedy and some rather elaborate storytelling in the exploration of our nameless lead's struggles as each of the differing time loops lead us to know more of the other characters that our lead interacts with at points and make him realize that many of the people of his so-called ideal scenario are not as they seem on the surface. The time loops also introduce our lead and the audience to a few characters who are not what they would seem on the surface according to the narration provided by the male lead. Many of these moments serve to be comical as a number of the character revelations are over the top, but others serve as an existential reflection by our male lead over what his true path in life would be with his college life. While a unique premise for a title, it won't be for everyone thanks to its time loop premise repeating events with our male lead (which led me to originally ditch this series years ago) and a good amount of the series being rather dialogue-heavy, enough so where the dialogue can make it difficult at points to keep up with English subtitle translations used for official and fansub releases of the series.
The visual presentation of the series is a bit avant-garde. Character designs are a bit on the simple side in terms of details with some character designs seeming to be a homage to older animation styles (notably with Ozu and Higuchi), but scenery and symbolic shots involve a mixture of abstract drawings, surreal use of color shading and rotoscoped animation. Despite what my Art rating would reflect of these visual choices, the choice of animation style helps to allow Tatami Galaxy to stick out more prominently compared to conventional animation styles employed for anime.
While a bit of an acquired taste, Tatami Galaxy still offers a unique approach to a time loop scenario in anime by turning it into an existential comedy with its focus on our male lead coming to grips with the so-called "rose-colored campus side" he comes to desire out of his university life. The series is a definite look if you are looking for anything out of the ordinary for an anime title.
