1. The premise and its execution: It's a coming of age comedy about a university student who wants to live the ideal university life; nevertheless, he discovers this will not happen in reality. This is the point where he starts thinking about the decisions he can take in different situations to improve his university life, this situations includes trying to be part of an university club, get rid off anoying friends (from his perspective) and a romantic interest. The reason of why the dialogues are really fast (or the subtitles depending how do you watch the anime), is to represent the anxiety of the protagonist while he's thinking about the next decision he will take. During the show, we not only saw him accepting the fact that life isn't always rose-coloured, we, also, saw him taking important decisions instead of just think about them. The pacing was excellent and this allowed the evolution of the protagonist be organic. This is why the end of his character arc felt so satisfying.
2. The cast: Like I mentioned in the first point, the protagonist started having his expectatives about how his university life should be. Once he accepts reality, is where his character development reached the peak. Akashi is the ideal women in the eyes of our protagonist. She's usually a cold person with other students except the protagonist. Despite not being present most part of the anime since it's presented from the protagonist prespective, her appearances and actions contributed to the plot and, in addition, she always showed her caring for the protagonist. So, this wasn't a one-sided romance. Ozu is the most intriguing character of the cast. He's an specie of antagonist from the protagonist perspective despite he's the one who persuade and help the main character to improve himself. With his actions, he, directly and indirectly, showed that the "rose-coloured campus life" of the protagonist was just an utopy. This is the reason of why the protagonist had his differences with him big part of the show. The rest of the cast could look a like a bland characters as a first impression, however, all of them have a significant contribution to the main plot the episodes they appeared, they have their own agenda and issues to solve and a short but effective character development.
3. The animation and the use of symbolism: Absolutely flawless. Is not only the fact that both look beautiful, they complement the feelings and thinks presented during the scenes. Many people complain about the "time resets" presented in the anime, when, in my opinion, is one of these symbolisms. In this case, to represent the daily and repetitive routine of the protagonist (which is complemented with the oracle old lady), and his "what if" questions. I found extremely creative the idea of putting colours in all the enviroment and leave the characters with a white colour, also, these coulours change according to the feelings the characters feel during the scenes. All the characters have an unique design which is also a symbolism of how the protagonist percieve them (this is more eveident in the case of Ozu). To finish this point, my favorite symbolism was, undoubtedly, the protagonist horniness one. Really fun and original.
4. The soundtrack: Like the case of the animation, each soundtrack used in the show was to represent the feelings and thinks of the characters. From a very subjective point of view, the ending for me is a piece of art.
5. The magnificent ending: There was a point where the protagonist overthought so much about the different scenarios and decisions he could have taken. All of them came together to his mind during the last episodes and the anime presented all the connections between them making better the immersion and showing the events of the previous episodes weren't a random or stand alone stories. This was the moment when the protagonist finally decided to take action and solve the major conflicts he was facing during the show. Finally, the main conflicts were solved and the main cast got and excellent close of their character arcs.
CONCLUSION
Like I mentioned in the beginning of this review, Tatami Galaxy is a flawless work which used to the perfection all its narrative tools and it fully exploited the potential of its premise. Don't watch this anime is a sin. I highly recommend to do it, at least, once in life.
