[Pocari_Sweat]

It's funny how you can compare a series episode's quality on a specific week based by directly comparing to its competitors that also happens to air on the same day.

Spoiler for Comparison to Hyouka and Kokoro Connect:

In this season, Hyouka, Tari Tari and Kokoro Connect go head to head against each other. Whilst it was Tari Tari that took the spotlight last week with its evoking heartwarming and bittersweet episode last week, it was Hyouka that took the spotlight this week with an excellent finisher to the stellar Kanya Festival Arc, whilst Tari Tari took a slight dive in quality. Can't say much about Kokoro Connect personally since I was never too into that show, but a significant amount of people seem to think it's the best of the three so I'll respect that since it does form a more than satisfying third wheel to what is already a refreshing "Slice of Summer".

Anyways, back onto Tari Tari proper. My idea of Tari Tari being a pure music anime was already debunked at episode 2 when the creators decided they would blast through the club formation segment. Initially I was a bit puzzled at the decision but looking back where we are now, it makes perfect sense as it seems to be clear that Tari Tari's focus is not to be a music anime per se, but a character and life drama using music as a vehicle to develop the said characters and topic. In other words, Tari Tari is no Nodame Cantabile or Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, where the actual premise was about music and music was always on the forefront and was the driving theme that caused everything including the characters themselves to line up appropriately. Behind the numerous lighthearted moments in both those series, you would also see the uglier sides of the characters because of the musical theme and how one should taking it seriously if music was to be taken at a professional level. So far nothing of the serious sort in regards to music has been explored in Tari Tari.

In that sense, because of the differences in approach, Tari Tari is not much different from say the direction taken by K-on and Sakamichi no Appollon.

Spoiler for Comparison to K-On and Sakamichi no Appollon:

Whilst I question K-on's long and winded approach, Tari Tari is essentially the same in theme - a coming of age story where the show explore its characters, their interactions and developments. It just happens that K-on was not very good at it imo, in that it incorporated way too much fluff and not enough content such as back-stories, conflict, events and in an anime where music is a theme, the musical performances themselves. These are the elements that makes coming of age and character dramas interesting, which K-on severely lacked. Sakamichi was most definitely better at this than K-on was and Tari Tari is similar to this both thematically and in general polish and "quality". We just replace the "style and swag of Jazz" in Sakamichi with the genuinity and restrain of Tari Tari whilst also replacing a heavy male character focus in Sakamichi to a more female character centric focus (for now at least) in Tari Tari. And of course, Tari Tari has a significant "moe" element which unless you are allergic to the concept (nudge nudge to a specific select old-school fans) isn't a bad thing by default. Heck, Tari Tari is even adopting the Sakamichi's brisk pacing due to both series being restricted to 1-cour in length.

So to Pellissier, Reckoner and a few others that are a bit worried about the series taking a less musical approach I cannot help but say this was already the case from episode 2 onwards... at least from how I see it. However, whilst I'm happy with Tari Tari's focus, I can respect why some people want more of a musical focus since animes where music is the primary integral theme with everything else revolving around that theme, are indeed rare.

But as mentioned in my previous posts, in regards to this week's episode alone, I still did not really like it due to the fact the timing for a Sawa drama episode seemed off (seems really insignificant after a mother's death) as well as various presentation problems which I've already pointed some out in a listed format, which I would criticize regardless of the episode's placement.

However, I am still very optimistic of the series and it hasn't changed my belief that it is the best PA Works production since True Tears.