Wednesday 20 February 2013

Tamako Market - Episode 7

It seems that ol' projector eyes has a visitor on the way - a visitor who turns up in short order as this seventh episode of Tamako Market kicks off.

However, it seems that neither Dera nor this visitor are particularly happy to see one another - for Dera's part, he seems downright terrified of the girl who arrives on the doorstep, while she isn't exactly thrilled by the bird's new, rotund nature.  It turns out that this visitor is a girl named Choi, and rather than a princess or anything of the like she's actually a fortune teller for the prince of her island, with Dera serving as her conduit for such fortune telling.


Having identified that Dera's Skype client is clearly faulty (I blame Microsoft), Dera is quick with the excuses to explain away his communications issues and... well... being a fat bloater, suggesting that Tamako et al tricked him into slave labour.  Needless to say, this changes Choi's thinking towards her current hosts, although in the face of their overwhelming kindness it slowly but surely dawns on her that Dera may not have been entirely straight with her.

To be fair to this week's Tamako Market, Choi's appearance has at least brought a little life to the show if only in terms of its character line-up - the series was crying out for a feistier individual in the midst of all these cardboard cut-out goody two-shoes, and she goes at least some way towards delivering that (by KyoAni standards anyhow).  Beyond that, what to say about this episode?  Everything it reveals or sets up is or has been horribly telegraphed, leaving Choi's love story and her marketplace allegory for her feelings to seem clunky, and no matter how much slapstick physical comedy it employs there's no hiding the fact that the show as a whole is as dull as dishwater.

Actually, I kinda enjoy washing the dishes, so that's probably a little harsh on the dishwater...

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