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If there's ever an anime that's not really targeted at foreign audiences, this would be it. A nostalgia trip back to the 1960s, at the time of Japan's coming-of-age. So, it's perhaps appropriate that the series "proper" starts at this point, just before the elder son's own coming-of-age ceremony.
I reminded right away of Isao Takahata's movies but, thankfully, the tone is more even here, and not so obviously elegiac. Not necessarily a feeling of, "woe is us, the past was so much better"; just more a feeling of wistful reminiscence, the kind you'd get when flipping through your parents' photo albums.
Like Guardian_Enzo, I very much enjoyed the "walking tour" epilogue, and the flashbacks to 1960s Japan in the OP. I have my own reasons for enjoying the episode, as social and economic developments here in South-east Asia mirrored Japan's own, albeit about 10 years later.
So things like the emerging tension between a younger generation aspiring to bigger things rather than inheriting a family business; the highs and lows of a multi-generational family living under one roof; simple festival observances like New Year's prayers and allowances (similar observances exist here, though practised differently and at different times of the year), there all ring a bell for me.
The interesting thing, therefore, would be to observe how Western audiences react to this. Historians and sociologists, or people who have an interest in Japan, would like this anime, no doubt, but how would they relate to it, I wonder, since the issues are largely dissimilar to those of their own societies.
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