"Let's make this a project where we don't depict a dark side."
That was the message director Naoko Yamada communicated to the staff on Tamako Market.
It's a show without any real conflict. The main character arc isn't coming of age, rather staying exactly where they are.
A series focused on a humble, day-to-day shopping district that welcomes a talking bird as if it were a minor quirk.
It's optimistic, at a time when optimism is a scarce commodity
A community I want to be a part of, in a world I want to create.
More than anything, Tamako Market is the most important thing you could watch right now.
Why?
Well, let's see what the director has to say:
"Market is really nice to watch when you're eating dinner and drinking beer"
Well said! You can do just that over on HIDIVE, where Market and its sequel film Tamako Love Story are streaming both subbed and dubbed.
HIDIVE has a fantastic backlog of shows sure to please any KyoAni fan, from Clannad and Chuunibyou, to Amagi Brilliant Park and Tsurune.
Catch Naoko Yamada's directorial debut on K-ON! as well.
Sign up now at hidive.com for a free 30 day trial.
Now let's enter the warm world of Usagiyama Shopping District, and see what makes Tamako Market exactly the sort of show we need right now.
Yamada says she was first approached about Tamako Market after the first season of K-ON!
Tatsuya Ishihara had proposed the studio make a family production based in Kyoto, and Yamada
along with character designer Yukiko Horiguchi and writer Reiko Yoshida were approached to take the series on
after the trio's work together with the K-ON! series
The anime original began as a more dramatic romance between its titular lead and the prince,
with the love triangle forming upon the addition of childhood friend Mochizou.
Yamada envisioned it as a fleeting romantic adventure, citing "Roman Holiday", the 1953 american rom-com
starring Audrey Hepburn as a princess who sneaks away from her structured life to take in the daily sights and sounds of Rome,
where she meets a reporter played by Gregory Peck, and romantic hijinks ensue.
It's easy to see how this graphs onto Tamako's framework:
just swap genders and replace the dazzling streets of Rome with a humble Kyoto shopping district.
The series would have a much heavier presence of fantastical elements than seen in the ultimate product,
including Tamako having some sort of special power.
In these early stages the Market itself served as more of a backdrop for the story to take place, rather than the heart of it.
However, as pre-production continued, these fantasy elements were stripped away, eventually leaving only the talking bird, Dera, behind.
Through its long pre-production cycle compared to its broadcast's state, the Uji-based studio's desire to set the series in nearby Kyoto never waned.
The smaller, more communal atmosphere of the former capital felt right for the sort of story they wanted to tell.
The various people who come from all over Japan and the world to visit there, and the welcoming vibe they themselves received from locals
while on scouting tours left a lasting impression on the crew.
As Yoshida recounted their visits, she longed for the numerous sweet shops and udon stores they went to.
Yamada said: as the story began to materialize, her focus shifted to depicting the charming interactions between common everyday people,
they wanted to create a place where someone is always there to greet you.
With that idea at mind, she said that the setting of a simple, working class shopping district was a no-brainer.
They even had their real life district picked as a frame of reference:
the Demachiyanagi shopping street located in North Kyoto just off the Kamo river.
First and foremost, they wanted to depict the entertaining life in the shopping district.
In doing so, the series hardly evokes the most famous imagery of the historic city.
Tamako's most iconic real life landmark are the simple stone steps across the nearby river.
This isn't a tourism advert for Kyoto, the focus was on recreating that welcoming neighborhood atmosphere
the staff themselves were treated to in their scouting visits, while still giving it a very Kyoto-ish feel.
With their stage set, all they needed now was to fit their protagonist into it.
Yamada said they chose a mochi shop because of its close connection to japanese culture, and how it represents this shared experience,
both across cultures and among japanese people.
Much like the idea of the market itself, it's cherished within that group, while readily shared with outsiders.
"The way we drew mochi was very important. When we started this project, everyone became mochi. Even now Horiguchi-san
is still mochi. She eats mame daifuku everyday. It's awfully sweet. Everyone in the staff has been infected."
(That quote doesn't have any real relevance here, I just wanted to share)
That working class environment was key to the mood they wanted to create. Yoshida said she worried over
how to insert the shopping street as a stage for the show. They didn't want sales to enter the picture much,
or stories about money drove the narrative. Minus the family rivalry of the dueling mochi store owners,
this was a community driven by cooperation, whose successes and failures were shared across the collective.
There is no singular person in charge. Things are run as one.
When a small plot about the Market's decline in consumer base does enter the picture, it doesn't devolve
into each shop's warring ideas for attracting their own customers, but how they can lift the community as a whole.
The focus is not on the Market from a business perspective, but as a home, that's tied this eccentric family together.
Yamada described it as such:
"Everything I longed for and dreamed about is packed in the Usagiyama Shopping District. In this way, everyone can live together.
It's heartening to see specialty shops together, or perhaps that's the charm of the district: to see the whole thing together."
We see it right from the start. Our first view of the Market is a bustling, lively holiday scene.
The montage of Tamako strolling through the district on her way home establishes its warm, inviting vibe.
"You really feel how everyone in the district loves Tamako in the very first scene of the first episode when she's walking in the district. Honest, frank, stubborn, yet kind.
Everyone loves Tamako and she loves everyone... It's a scene that symbolizes the take on the world our show takes."
That world view was, in the words of Yoshida, packed with wholesomeness, humanity and the softness that's lost in many shows today.
From a distance, that all-embracing spirit feels like a trip to some other planet.
While we most often see the Market through Tamako's interactions with it, the show frequently presents it from an outsider's perspective.
Dera does so on a more narrative level, a plot device that allows us to familiarize ourselves with these characters organically,
(as much as a talking bird can anyway)
but you can really see this in episode 3, when Shiori joins the group.
After returning a lost Dera to the Market, Shiori is warmly greeted and showered with treats and freebies before Tamako invites her to stay for dinner,
where she even pitches in herself with the cooking.
Overwhelmed by the kindness of these strangers, she struggles to thank Tamako for her hospitality,
as we see how the intimacy and openness of their group feels impenetrable to her.
So she resigns herself to remain on the outside looking in, rejecting Dera's next invitation to return to the Market.
She's eventually forced to go back, after running into their homeroom teacher on his way there for an at-home visit.
When everyone inquires about Tamako like doting parents, Shiori reflects on her first trip, realizing how this warm atmosphere extends to everyone.
Eventually she musters the courage to tell Tamako how she feels.
Shiori's arc is important in illustrating the infectious authenticity of this community, how they welcome outsiders with open arms.
In some ways she's a stand-in for the viewer, as we ourselves may feel disconnected from such a tight-knit family unit,
but through her story, we can feel that much more a part going forward.
However, beyond that, Shiori feels like a self-insert for the director.
Yamada has often described the difficulty she has communicating her thoughts with those around her,
citing it as her greatest challenge as a director.
Communication and the struggles therein is a guiding thread through so many of her works: from the various forms it takes in "A Silent Voice",
to the suffocating feeling of being unable to express yourself in "Liz and the Blue Bird".
You can sense the director's voice when Shiori describes how inviting the market was to her;
this place where everything is genuine, where they freely engage with one another,
yet how distant it felt as a result, like something she could never break into. But, ultimately, she does.
Tamako Market's strongest message is its unwavering optimism. Look no further than Tamako herself:
while the community of the Market feels like this living thing, Tamako is its heart, much like her mother before her.
The only times we see the district cold and empty are after Tamako's mother's passed away,
and when the prospect of Tamako leaving looms large.
Yamada described her as a symbol of everyone's happiness. Her design is meant to evoke a sense of ordinary charm:
the three hairs always standing up a subtle indication of how there's no pretenses with Tamako.
She's not concerned with creating an image. What you see is the real thing.
Her love of home is contrasted with her younger sister Anko, who'd love to live somewhere more stylish.
From her first scene, Anko ignores the daily chaos around her, and laments when the only one who calls her
by her preferred nickname is Dera, the weirdest one of them all.
Anko says she dislikes her name because it has a "mochi feel" to it, she wants to dissociate herself from the market,
but when her memories of what this community has meant to her come rushing back, she too is just as much a part of it.
That connection to a place is special, it's what ultimately keeps Tamako there in the end, even as the opportunity to become
a princess in some far-away island presents itself,
the only thing Tamako cares about is the medal she earned for finally completing the market's stamp card promotion.
It's the accumulation of all these insignificant moments within this family group that make it an easy decision.
Yamada and Yoshida both described how they wished they'd been raised in a single place like Tamako,
to have a chance to build these deep relationships with a home.
As someone who moved around a lot as a kid, I can empathize. Having not been a part of such a close-knit community like Tamako's myself,
it feels like a fantasy. But I don't think we're supposed to necessarily look at this community and feel it's something we've already been a part of:
we're meant to feel like outsiders at first, just as Shiori did, because let's face it, places like Usagiyama are largely foreign in the world.
One where cultural differences are celebrated and exchanged, rather than erased, commodified or feared.
Where anyone can love anyone they want. Where all are welcome and equal, regardless of race, status, or gender identity.
If that sounds unrealistic, it's supposed to be.
Yamada says she believes it's important to feel positive about the world.
Usagiyama is the product of those feelings: not a reflection of the way things are, but how we want them to be.
As comforting as optimism can be, it can also be misleading. Gloss over things with a fresh coat of paint.
Unwarranted optimism can blind us to the true state of the world, leaving us complacent with the status quo.
It needs to be disruptive, a reminder of how things should be, can be, lay bare how far we have to go to make them be.
In times like these cynicism comes easy.
When it feels like everything's going to shit, it's much harder to look around and stay positive.
Right now positivity sounds downright naive (and it kinda is), but being optimistic is not the same thing as being positive.
Optimism is about a belief in better; it may not seem realistic, but that's because it's not real. Yet.
The world is not like Usagiyama, but as soon as we stop believing it can be, it's already lost.
The people at KyoAni seemed to believe in it, and going through all these interviews, I was struck by how much the staff seemed to embody
that Usagiyama spirit themselves.
Time and again what came up was how there seemed to be no barriers, they simply enjoyed each day of each others' time
and the new experiences that came with it. Here's Yukiko Horiguchi:
"There were many times when we would chat idly while we each drew something. Those times during our strategy meetings where we would
encamp ourselves in the conference room chatting about ordinary things that had nothing to do with animation were the most fun parts of the production."
In many ways, that communal, inclusive atmosphere represents the ethos of Kyoto Animation.
This is a studio commited to creating a healthy, constructive environment,
providing full healthcare benefits and paid maternity leaves to its employees;
teaching new generations of artists through its in-house animation school often led by its most senior creatives;
offering equal job opportunity, regardless of gender.
Of course, it's not as simple to say "other studios should just be like them".
KyoAni's business model is uniquely suited to how they've structured themselves over decades.
It largely exists outside the framework of the modern anime industry.
The rest of the industry can't just be like KyoAni from a business perspective, it needs systemic change.
The point is: so many of KyoAni's works carry this optimistic spirit, but they don't just say it through their art,
they live it in how they work.
There's a horrible irony then that the same people who made this show about simple acts of kindness
suffered through a most senseless act of cruelty.
It's been over a year, though it feels more like five, since the arson attack on Kyoto Animation that took 36 lives and damaged dozens more.
To be honest, it's hard to even think about things like hope in the face of that.
The only thing more disheartening than tragedies like these, might be the dizzying pace at which they keep occurring.
Everything that's happenend in the year since has only made despair seem more enticing.
As hard as it can be to revisit these works, re-watching Tamako Market reminded me of what a genuine human spirit can look like;
the appreciation of the simple joys, not only within the show, but also from the people who made it.
In the wake of the incident, Demachiyanagi shopping street was one of many places touched by KyoAni's works that offered their support,
and in the face of it all, the studio continues to inspire today,
doubling down on their commitment to creating a positive environment, even as new setbacks mount.
They were the first major studio to close after the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
while taking every measure possible to continue to provide for their workers.
Because that's what truly made them special,
allowed them to create the works that have meant so much to so many, and will continue to do so going forward
I'll leave you with director Yamada's words on what Tamako means to her:
"I had an extraordinary amount of anxiety being able to create an original production, but thanks to going through various experiments
this series was created, and it became an irreplaceable experience.
When we began to make this series I would talk to the staff about what kind of work it would be,
but since I'm not able to speak well with others I was very anxious about being able to communicate what I wanted
and Horiguchi-san came as my lifeboat.
There were many helpless bits like that. I would feel like I would give in to my own weaknesses,
but by being able to always snuggle close to Tamako, and entwine myself with her for eternity,
I'm able to sigh in relief now.
I was taught so many different things. The experiences with everyone at Usagiyama were like nothing I've ever experienced before or since."
For proof that the idyllic world of the Usagiyama shopping district is not some fantasy,
look no further for inspiration than the people who made it.