I started Tamako Market initially because it was KyoAni and had the same character designs as K-On!, so I figured it was sure to be cute at least. And right away, something about it pulled me in. It reminded me, in a strange way, of the Soviet-era cartoons my mother showed me when I was little: a talking bird from a southern island, a plot with a prince seeking out a princess…even though everything surrounding Tamako Market, its main setting, is completely Japanese (you could argue that the profession of making mochi is one of the most Japanese ones out there), was completely relatable to me. The warm, homey feeling of the market transmitted itself to me and made me feel at home just watching it all on a screen.
This anime is a story about a community, leaving aside the princess plot, and about the new generation growing up within it. Even if a lot of it might seem like cute, simple fluff, it’s fluff with heart. All of the characters are so loveable that you just want to root them on (even comic relief Dera). I will say that I wish Choi’s story had gotten more resolution without being moved to shorts/pre-movie scenes because her romance was kinda skimmed over. But in its place came the much stronger development of an unexpectedly progressive love triangle.
As a dense 14-year-old on my first watch of the show, I completely and totally mistook those scenes of Midori’s crush as her liking Mochizou (admittedly, this is because I had a massive crush on him myself at the time, and still think he’s the cutest love interest ever). But after being educated on who Midori actually liked, I realized that her romantic interest in Tamako is never depicted as a bad thing or something she comes to grow out of, but with sweetness and care and sensitivity. Her love is just as valid as Mochizou’s love for Tamako. The show revolves around “everybody loves somebody” as its mantra, and that doesn’t mean that love should fit some kind of predetermined standard or societal norm. I also thought it was refreshing that Kanna was just doing her own thing the entire time and not given any romance, but that’s a whole other thing. Even if Midori’s crush doesn’t end up progressing past that stage, it’s never knocked down or disparaged, it’s simply a one-sided love. This is the kind of love triangle (love V?) that had me rooting for both sides interested in Tamako. Also, it took a couple rewatches to realize the pun of Mochizou’s last name being Ooji, basically the same as “ouji”/prince, which means he was Tamako’s prince the entire time. Just a little nod from the writers there, I guess.
I think more people can articulate better than I can why Tamako Market is an exemplary slice of life, and my review here is mostly a summary of my strongest impressions after having rewatched it a few times over the years. But that warm, welcome, accepting feeling that I get from it every time, that’s something that I don’t think this review alone can speak to. It might just be me, but Tamako Market is one of KyoAni’s stronger examples of making an extremely atmospheric and real-feeling world that, in the strangest way, coexists alongside talking birds and southern island kingdoms in the same 12 episodes.
