Anime: Tari Tari 1d1g59

First off, let me state that Tari Tari is not about cute, moe girls forming a band/group. In the spirit of previous PA Works, it is much more focused on the development and interactions of girls and (some) boys who all need to overcome something from their past. This is by no means a K-On clone, and isn't remotely anything like IdolM@ster; it's much more in line with shows such as Hanasaku Iroha. The beauty is in the subtle character interactions rather than an amazing plot line, and for once I can say a series actually did a decent job of keeping it real.

Tari Tari is a playful, school based slice-of-life story with a bit of light comedy. Don't expect any action and don't expect any romance. It's just an uplifting story about a group of kids working together to make the best of their situation. As in Iroha, the lack of much stuff going on may bore some people to death; so if you think the first few episodes are dull, be prepared for more of the same. However, if you manage to connect with the above-average characters in this show, you'll enjoy where the story goes.

Animation:
I tend to favor the animation in PA Works productions and that doesn't change here. Expect fluid animation and dynamic coloring throughout the work. The majority of scenes are indoors, though the few outdoor scenes are very well drawn. Now normally, here, I talk about character styling, but what stands out even more is how realistically the characters interact with each other. From the small gestures to the varied emotions displayed, you really get a sense that they really worked to bring a greater depth to each character. As for the styling itself, the important characters are distinguishable enough; though I did confuse Sawa and Wakana for awhile. I have a feeling the uniforms harken back to those in True Tears, as does the choir singing Reflectia, but if the uniform color annoys you know that the characters do have a decent amount of street clothing as well; just try to ignore the Power Rangers outfits...

This is neither an ecchi nor an action show so expect virtually no fan service (perhaps minus one scene) and no real action (unless you count running as action).

Sound:
For a series about a choir group, this category better be good; and luckily the series definitely delivers here. The series opens with a cheerful, pop song with a decent melody, but the real surprise is the cast-sung ED, which on top of being catchy is also an important part of the story. Pay attention as the singers of the ED (and the animation) changes as the series progresses. The BGM in general is relatively minimalist and not very memorable, which is okay as the VA cast is superb.

Great animation alone doesn't bring out great characters, and the VA cast does a great job of ing with realistic performances. Asami Seto gives a surprisingly vibrant and dynamic performance as Konatsu and Saori Hayami gives Sawa a firm yet comforting feel. All three female protagonists sound great when singing together as well.

Story:
The story loosely revolves around the formation of a choir group led by Konatsu, who was essentially banned from the official school choir for ruining their competition last year. I say loosely as the majority of the story is more character driven as each of the characters deals with some particular trouble be it trying to be a jockey or overcoming the death of a loved one. Each of the characters successfully overcomes their issues with the of the other group .

As you might guess from the description, the story is arc based, with each of the five choir taking turns getting excellent development. The gals in the story get a bit more attention than the guys (who are more like ing leads) but I'm not complaining. Once everyone's friendship is pretty much solidified, the story builds just a tad to a climax following the exact same pattern as Iroha, though this time with a different conclusion.

It's a slightly slow but, in general, cheerful progression leading to a satisfactory conclusion. As others have noted, the story isn't particularly directed, but in this case it works out as the characters more than make up for it.

Character:
With the exception of Another, I feel that the character quality in PA Works is above average. As I've mentioned multiple times already, the characters in this series feel much more organic and believable than many in other series. Each of the character's nuances are humorous individually, but seeing these play out in a group setting is even more entertaining. And boy are there opportunities for interaction here. The lead girls are very well developed and, in general, fun to watch. The guys, not so much. One is a bton wannabe while the other seems to fantasize about being a Power Ranger, and somehow gets it fulfilled in the series. There is a slight romantic twist at the end but nothing substantial.

The series was very focused with its characters, making sure that even secondary characters were more developed than the leads in some other series. Overall, a great cast with good development.

Value:
Tari Tari is about going back to the basics of what worked before lolis and tsunderes took the world by storm. It nails home the fact that you can have a great set of characters without catering to every perceivable fetish, and that a series can be an enjoyable watch without having to resort to the realm of magic or sci-fi. If you're just looking for a good ol' slice of life with great character and a frank attitude, Tari Tari is my choice for the season.

Tari Tari is one of those solid slice-of-life shows that truly works to do what they intend to do. It has a good and believable cast, with intricate pasts and good development. It has a coherent setting that emulates a real-world environment. It has a decent dramatization of its events, a few tragic but most ordinary and happy. It has a small dose of comedy. And happily doesn't waste time with cheesy romance. All of that is certainly a win-win formula for a slice-of-life show as far as I'm concerned, but somehow this show missed to create a hype. I could say this happened because the absurdly hyped (and terribly bad) shows like Sword Art Online and Accel World somehow left all the other shows of the season hidden in a smokescreen, but I could also say it's because Tari Tari, despite its childish name, is a bit more serious in the early episodes than what the current audience likes.

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Art & Animation
Tari Tari left me dazed during the first episode. The visual of this show is simply gorgeous. It's the best mix of photo-based backgrounds, CG elements, and traditional 2D characters that I've seen in a TV series. Everything is really sharp, colorful, and extremely detailed. It has a nice work of background layers and it merges them with the other elements in a way to make it look natural and realistic. This is a solid progression from the already great work from Hanasaku Iroha by P.A. Works. The character design is sadly from your global-anime-character-database, meaning they all look very generic and similar to every other characters from shows in these last 4 years. The animation, however, is yet another outstanding feat here, one of the best animation used in a slice-of-life show and probably the best animation from its current season. The motion is fluid, we have constant animation in the scenes, the clothes and details are nicely done, animals receive a great deal of attention as well, the CG elements feel natural, etc. Seriously, I haven't seen such a quality animation in years. Perhaps the only shows that left me astounished like this was Gundam 00 and Haruhi Suzumiya. However, I think it's about time they change the art style in this kind of shows, it's annoying to see generic characters all around. I can't even see much difference between Sawa and Sakai besides the fact that one has big boobs. But considering how beautiful the visual is, I can let it .

Sound
Sound direction is great here as well. Considering the fact that music is a central point for the plot, this could've easily be misused and overwhelm the watcher with music every five seconds, but that's not the case. Tari Tari suffers from the kiddy voice-acting of a few girls, but besides that we have a fitting opening, some nice merging endings (this is a great tool for shows with drama), and background music is always consistent. At the last sequence of episodes you'll see more characters singing, and while it's not bad, it can leave watchers a bit uncomfortable and embarassed. Sound effects are top notch, helping the already semi-realistic scenario feel even more alive.

Story
I can't say much about story here. It's a slice-of-life centered on the life of five highschool students that gather after the cheerful Konatsu decides to create a new choir/music club in their school. From this starting point the show moves to develop its characters. Sakai Wakana may present herself as some kind of protagonist, but the show dives into each character's stories until the late part, when it moves the focus to Wakana once again in order to finish things up.

1. Simple tale, but lacks a good target
   These kind of shows usually get the job done when they focus on the characters and leave only a small excuse to trigger the initial plot events. In this regard Tari Tari succeeds. It's a simple tale about the friendship of these students and how they grow in their last year of high school, dealing with their pasts, their dreams, previous events, and most importantly, with what happens in the present. Sadly the initial objective is achieved quite early and the show doesn't give us another big target point to reach until very late, it just focus on developing the cast and solving each of their problems. At least the execution of these small personal stories is quite good and full of drama and great scenes, but certainly it would be better if we had a bigger picture of the plot.
   
   Slice-of-Life Only
   There's no romance in this show, as well as it's not focused on comedy. We have a few funny scenes, especially in the later episodes, but the intention here is to draw some emotion and make you feel confortable with its daily life tale. You'll have a good amount of coincidences and other plot devices to make the show worth a watch and not as ordinary and pointless as Usagi Drop for example, but also this doesn't have a really defined target such as Honey & Clover or Ano Hana, which can leave many people a bit lost.
   

Character
Ah, it's always good to see characters that are not absurdly tied to stereotypes and have more intricate and realistic personalities. Tari Tari is very successful here, bringing a cast that is varied and feel natural. Their feelings, how they deal with their pasts, and especially how they react to current events are all done with care to make them believable and human. You may be annoyed by Konatsu's super cheerful behavior, but she demonstrates in a few scenes that she's not as simple as it looks like. She works as a magnet to attract her friends, and well... this is what usually happens in real life, a happy and funny friend that is the central point of a group. It can annoy, but also helps to move things and keep a good pace. The rest of the cast doesn't have such issues at all, with personalities and actions matching what is expected from the problematic teenagers and always showing something new for you with each episode.

1. Balanced cast for today's standard
   The show goes around each character, giving enough spotlight to present each of them. You'll have a great deal of development and presentation on Konatsu, Wakana, and Sawa, but the other two also get enough screen time to grow on you. They just fall short in of development, but nothing that harm their nicely portraited personalities. Despite having three cute girls, the show is not overflowed with moe, cuteness, and other similar things like K-On and Hanasaku Iroha. The two boys in the plot also don't have the "protagonist" template, making them better characters and avoiding stupid romances just for the sake of seeing blushing girls. Well, you'll see shy girls here, but not because of stupid ecchi scenes at least. Overall, this is like Ano Hana's cast for those who've watched it, except that the supernatural Menma is replaced by a more tolerable cheerful Konatsu.
   

Value
Slice-of-life is a good genre to use, mainly because it can have a wide array of dramatic happenings to drag you, but was a little overexploited in these recent years. Cute girls, lolis, tsunderes, and other terrible character templates, have plagued this genre and turned most of them to moe stuff, ecchiness, or lame romances. Tari Tari is not void of all these issues. It has most of them, but all in very small doses that barely affect the experience. The production values of this show are also top-notch, with such stunning visuals and solid sound direction that is above all other of the TV shows released in the same season.

Sadly, the big hype of the other shows of the season, ed by the fact that this is similar to Hanasaku Iroha in its promotion, made Tari Tari lose most of its impact and in the end became just another slice-of-life show. It's a shame that shows like Clannad get hyped and not this one. This is not a masterpiece, but deserves more attention than most other slice-of-life shows out there.

Enjoyment
Anyone looking for a great slice-of-life will be very pleased with Tari Tari. It's a warm experience that is steady, focused, funny, and at the same time manages to keep away from most annyoing elements of recent shows. Those who liked Ano Hana, Honey & Clover, and perhaps Hanasaku Iroha, will surely welcome this. Tari Tari doesn't have exagerated comedy, romance, or ecchi, or much fanservice besides showing the cute girls around, so anyone expecting something in this fashion may better look elsewhere.

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Comments
Tari Tari surprised me in the season. I was already skeptical about everything. Sword Art Online proved to be one big typical-harem-mindless show, Accel World proved to be just another massive amount of fanservice over a convoluted tale, Eureka Seven Ao was simply terrible, Last Exile II and Gundam Age transformed their franchise in kid's shows, etc. I just gave Tari Tari a chance because I had nothing else to look for and Kokoro Connect didn't ring much interest after reading about it. And well... what a good surprise!

Tari Tari is very simple, offers nothing groundbreaking, it doesn't have complex plot, the cast doesn't develop that much, we don't see an awesome premise. It's just yet another slice-of-life show, but it's absurdly nicely done overall. The visuals left me dazed with such impressive quality. They had a good animation with Canaan and Hanasaku Iroha, but besides that they mostly did average jobs or worked on shows that never caught my attention or fit into my liking. From there everything moved smoothly.

The show never resorted to overusing the cute girls in those irritating scenes where they blush, try to hide their pantsu, shake their boobs, etc. As well as it never used the typical undeveloped teenage romance like the shows based on erogames or other novels. This alone made me respect Tari Tari. But the show did a bit more than that. It showed a good and believable daily life tale of high school students, with a good merge of music that was absent in K-On, where it ended up more like a show with cute girls to please kids who liked guitars instead of telling something about ion for music. Well... give Tari Tari a chance, move past the childish name of the show and perhaps it can please you as well.

It doesn't do everything well, but it does a lot really good. I'm not sure any show does everything well, so that's not a really big negative anyway. The show had some really good slice-of-life, drama and comedy moments. Brilliant combo. But yea, not all comedy and drama was good, but when it wasn't, it was still able.

Great characters in the show too, from the main cast and sub-cast. I do get that maybe Wien could've gotten more attention, but I also feel that more focus on the main cast would mean less for the sub-cast. So it's ultimately a balance, especially given this was a 1-cour show. It's just the way the show went. And to be fair, Wien does get a lot of screen time anyway(being awesome for the most part).

You then of course have Wakana. Who stands out as the best character in the series. And is an example of why the characters in the show are great. Even before her arc, she still had a kind and gentle personality in her. To help others. She only ever got upset when seemingly pushed into ing music. In essence, she wasn't 1 dimensional. A 'lost parent' wasn't the only thing that characterised her. And yet you could still see her change after her arc. Brilliant.

I have to mention Sawa too. Who, for the entire show, portrayed a determined and feisty character. Yet there was still more to her. Helping out friends in need. Her constant banter her her mom and Konatsu. And her fashion sense. Again, just more than a 1 dimensional charater (you could probably say that about the others too, but I'm highlighting Wakana and Sawa).

As for animation, I have to say, I really liked it. I'm not one to sit and see that a show is made by a certain studio and say it'll be something to look forward to. I don't usually pay attention to that. Nor who's writing or directing. I didn't even know it was the same studio who made True Tears. But I still liked it. Even the character faces, that somehow turned people off. I really liked it. I also like how the directing used subtlety well with regards to animation. As a counter example, KyoAni gets praised endlessly for it's visuals, but I always see moments where characters fidget for unnecessarily long times or pose in unnecessarily moe poses/outfits, simply to showcase animator skill rather than anything else (and as otaku bait of course).

I don't really recall much of that in this show. Everything felt way more natural. There were fanservice parts, but they were never focused on heavily. And ep 13 was really good. I loved how Wakana looked at the end, and I loved how the ending song had Sawa opening a window to show the same sky that is usually shown at the beginning of the ED in most other episodes. I can't quite where the ED came from, but it does feel like the group's song (where Mahiru and Nao have a song, and Mahiru and Wakana have one too).

Speaking of music, I liked it too. I was at first adverse to the choir songs, since it was kinda cheesy and I don't particularly like choirs, but it grew on me. Maybe part of that was actually seeing the emotions behind the song, but it grew on me regardless. The OP and ED were great too. And I loved how the ED would change in music and animation to reflect the episode at times.

Voice acting was pretty damn good too. Both to elicit personalities and during singing moments. I can't really say much else. Sawa's VA is quickly becoming a favourite of mine.

And I guess, finally to plot. If nothing else, I'm amazed at how much content was squeezed into every episode of the series. A lot of shows, even those not in the slice-of-life genre, tend to minimalise content variety so that viewers can grasp what is happening. But I loved how, even in episodes that focus on specific characters, we get some insight into the other characters (like the previews before the OP for the first 5-6 episodes or get it during the episode itself). And not just from the main cast, from the great side-cast too (minus the principle and chairman, haha).

For the main plot points, it was generally built up well enough. Truth be told, I almost dropped the show after the first couple of episodes. But something kept me coming back. Part of it was probably knowing Wakana had something interesting to divulge, but part of it was also because the plot intended to focus on other things besides the music too. This wasn't a pure music show. So I stuck around. And I'm glad I did. I got a great slice-of-life show with brilliant character development.

For another review, check here out: http://whatculture.com/tv/anime-review-tari-tari.php