Publisher: NI
S America (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 13 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2010
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
I always cringe when people describe anime as a “genre”. Animation is a medium and anime has a ton of genres. Still over a decade and a half of watching anime, I’m still surprised at what anime throws up as plots and situations. I mean a show about high school students taking up part time jobs in a family restaurant? I suppose it’s not the most bizarre plot line I’ve come across, but it does seem to be odd for a plot of an animated TV series. Like an increasing number of “slice of life” shows, its origins stem from a four panel manga. Luckily the show seems to flow well and isn’t jerky or feels fragmented. The first half of the series really impressed me, especially the first episode which was jam packed with introductions of the characters and tons of jokes. I was amazed at how well that was done and how it didn’t feel overwhelming.
The main problem I had with the show was Inami, the 17 year old high schooler who works at the restaurant as a waitress. She has androphobia (fear of men) and punches any man she sees, yet she’s timid as a mouse usually. Surely this kind of character has been done to death. I had horrible flashbacks to “Love Hina” where the lame lead was continually abused by his object of affection. It always confuses me as to why this situation is considered to be “funny”, while the reverse is always seen as abuse. Double standard for sure. While Inami isn’t like the female lead from “Love Hina” in terms of personality (thank god), and the fact her personality is quite pleasant, albeit rather submissive, she becomes the dominant figure in the series and her antics of involuntarily punching men become a bit tiresome.
However there is a lot more to this show than one girl who punches people. Like all (good) slice of life shows, the personalities and interactions between the characters is what makes the show work. Popura the extremely short and child-like and becomes the fall guy for a lot of the jokes in the show. Sota is the key to the whole show and ties the characters together makes the whole thing work, though his obsession with cute things (including Popura) is a bit overdone. There are also a number of great supporting characters such as the female ex gang leader who is the manager but does no actual work, the obsessive waitress who fawns over the manager and also the two male chiefs who provide a great deal of humor. I thought the inclusion of Sota’s overbearing sisters (one of whom also punches him, like Inami) was rather a pointless exercise.
NIS America’s release look brilliant, however there are some issues with the discs which the problems seem to vary between DVD players. Mine were fine until the closing animation of the very last episode. The disc paused a number of times. Seems to be the old Bandai Entertainment curse of a couple of years ago. It’s been put down to cheap crappy DVD replicators. The art box is also made in China, which just goes to show the length distributors will go to make their products as cost effective as possible. Just a sign of the times I guess. The US title of “Wagnaria!!” is actually the name of the restaurant in the show. Unsure why NIS decided to name the show that, probably having to do with “product differentiation” (all the credits and titles in the show say “Working!!” however). As a series it is pretty damn funny and I had a great time with it. However the whole man punching thing got old pretty quick (though they try to resolve it later in the show which I thought was good) and so were Sota’s sisters. I’ll give it a solid 7 out of 10.
"The Tatami Galaxy"
Publisher: Sir
en Visual (Australia)Format: Region 4 DVD, PAL, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 11 Episodes x 22 minutes
Production Date: 2010
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Siren’s second noitaminA title (Fuji Television’s block of anime programming to bring in an older audience). And while Madman may have got the more commercial titles from this block, Siren are releasing some interesting titles too. However they are of the more experimental type. I would guess that Siren hasn’t paid a great deal for these licences as they are sub only and I can only imagine how badly something like this would sell. The plot revolves around an unnamed young man who enters university with the hope of finding love in one of the many clubs on campus. However things go astray and over the next two years he is often led down the path of destruction by a demonic looking fellow student called Ozu. He also develops a sort of friendship with a younger female student named Akashi. Mix in a bunch of other odd ball characters and there you have it.
Well actually there’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the general set up. The problem I had with this series is the execution of the ideas. What happens in the first two thirds of the show is that our hapless unnamed student begins as a first year, joins a club on his first day, over the course of two years finds it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, decides to get revenge on club or associated persons or gets himself in massive trouble, then everything rewinds and resets to repeat once again the next episode. Essentially it’s a Japanese animated version of “Groundhog Day”. Well, not quite, but there are a lot of similarities. I think the structure of the series makes the show unnecessarily repetitive. After the first couple of episodes you know how it’s going to begin, you know that the main character will hate his life in the club, you know that Ozu is going to do something bad and make the situation worse, you know that the main character will meet an old female fortune teller who will tell him to seise an opportunity and somehow that’s connected to a little figure that Akashi lost and now he owns etc etc. Sure, the guts of the story it different every time, but is structure is bit predictable and dull after a while.
The last third changes things up a little where over three episodes our hero chooses three different outcomes to the one storyline. The final two are the best of the series (and explain the series’ title). They’re a bit “Twilight Zone”, but it does explain a lot of what happens in earlier episodes. The resolution of the series is fantastic. The series is very clever and at points it is quite funny, however it does get bogged down in the way it’s told and presented. That’s the major problem with the show. No matter how good that ending is, I found it a little bit of a chore to get through. I also found parts of it just too odd or silly to get into. Frustration set in after a while. On the upside, the art style is unusual and quite interesting (but it’s a bit monochromatic and dull in parts), the OP and Ed songs were great and having a cowboy and his horse as visual representations of the lead’s libido was a fun idea. Unlike their last noitaminA title (“Welcome to Irabu’s Office”), Siren has added a ton of bonus material such as a “making of” featurette, clean opening and closings, promo and TV spots and three bonus mini episodes. Surprisingly all of these have English subs, but I was tired out from the show, so I’ve decided to skip these until the weekend. Overall a great package from Siren (and remember this is the first time the show has appeared in the world on home video in English), but the show isn’t all that great. I can see what they were trying to achieve and the concept is solid, but the execution is a little off and it didn’t work for me. There’s also the possibility that Westerners won’t know what the hell a tatami mat is and won’t get some of the references. I wanted to like this a lot more, but I can only give it 6 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 23 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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