Mameda is the Tanuki in question, being sent to the big city in Taisho Era (early 20th century) Japan. She takes the form of a brown haired girl in most of the scenes, which is actually a knock against it because Mameda’s Tanuki form is so adorable, which combined with her seiyu, makes a compelling enough character that I felt the typical anime-girl design she walks around in was unnecessary. The side characters are only occasionally articulated while crowds are depicted in blue, as blanks. Nothing that happens in the first episode is especially captivating, well apart from the flying ship thing that was touching… but what keeps me watching it is how bad I feel for Mameda being constantly mocked and mistreated by a society who are no longer fooled by her silly tricks.
The Rakugo stories are hard to understand- like I get they are parables, but the punchline goes over my head and I don’t understand the references, so combined with the totally unconvincing performance Bunko gives, I can’t say I find anything interesting in its portrayal of Rakugo at all. They do this montage at the end of each episode that attempts to explain the story told in the Rakugo scenes… but the long winded explanations somehow manage to be even more confusing!
Most of all I can’t stand how harsh Bunko is toward Mameda, which means I end up not really caring about her as a character. I just want to see Mameda succeed at something or find a loving home if nothing else.
*It’s been 3 episodes and so far this is a pleasant enough watch with a nice sounding ED that I could recommend watching the whole run, but whether it becomes memorable or not after the season ends depends on whether it can do something truly magical with its theme. I don’t know if a semi-comedy like this is aiming to do anything so profound, but given the significance hinted at by its historical setting and cultural subject that it’s based around, I do hope it tries.
