Maybe I shouldn't expect too much from a slice of life anime, but here's the thing. I find a fair amount of them really entertaining. In fact, two of those anime are from the same studio that created this. But there was something about Tamako Market that didn't really click with me, and I'm going to explain it all here.

First, I'll get the positive aspects of the show out of the way, because I won't say that I didn't enjoy watching this to some extent. The laidback and comfy vibes that made some of KyoAni's other works so appealing are here and accounted for, and it has a fair amount of likeable characters to go with it. Tamako herself is an absolute joy to watch. Her kind hearted demeanor combined with her somewhat naive nature makes her one of the cutest and most lovable anime girls I've ever seen. And there are little details about her design that show a few imperfections complimenting her cuteness. from the strands popping out of her to the mole on her neck. They're nice little details that give a bit of depth to the anime.

Speaking of, the animation here is great all around. The backgrounds are lively and colourful and the artstyle is akin to K-On, which results to a lot of appealing designs. And for my final point, the last 3 episodes are an incredible showcase of what I was looking for with this show; a sweet and wholesome anime with great focus on the characters and their relationships. The very last one may have relied too much on reiterating certain plot points, but I didn't really mind. Sadly, I can't say this for the rest of the anime, which feels so lackluster, underdeveloped and sometimes irritating in comparison.

The humour isn't really that funny for the most part. I got a few chuckles out of it, but overall, it fell really flat. But this is a fairly minor complaint compared to the other issues I have with it. Such as how some plot points go absolutely nowhere with minimal payoff. An example is in episode 5, where Dera confronts Mochizou about how he feels about Tamako, and when a friend of hers named Midori finds out, she gets super defensive as she starts calling Mochizou a stalker with next to no proof, leading to an argument about who knows Tamako better. And does this go anywhere or get proper closure? Nope. It's like that shit never even happened.

Another example is in episode 8. Throughout the series, a bird named Dera gets fatter as he allows Tamako to feed him lots of mochi, and the 8th episode is dedicated to him going on a diet so he can fit in a birdhouse. He does eventually lose a lot of weight by the end of the episode, but then he reverts back to being fat in the very next episode with no transitions or further establishment. I didn't expect any major character growth, but if they can't even carry minor changes over to the ongoing episodes, why should I care about what even happens? Another reason why I find it hard to care about what happens is that the anime does a poor job on focusing on characters who need it the most in some episodes.

Despite being called Tamako Market, Tamako is only the main focus of 2 episodes, with both being the very final ones. While she does appear in every episode and take up a majority of the screentime, the anime is more interested in giving most of the spotlight to Dera, an incredibly irritating and sometimes creepy bird that isn't funny in any way whatsoever, and the fact that he gets the focus in episodes that cleanly lean towards giving another character the spotlight, it heavily hurts the stories of said episodes and gives little room for character establishment, meaning that we get to learn next to nothing about characters like Anko and Kanna, who deserved way more than they got in terms of screentime and establishment.

With how much stuff is left underdeveloped, the same applies to a few of the relationships between characters. For example, we're somehow supposed to feel something in episode 9 when it's revealed that Anko's crush, Yuzuki, is transferring to another school, which causes her to act cold and distant towards, when literally the only interaction that the two had was when Yuzuki brought Anko a museum souvenir when she missed out on the occasion. That tells me next to nothing about their relationship, and considering we know little about either of them as characters too, how am I supposed to believe that Anko would act this way over something like this, or that Yuzuki means that much to her? This isn't the only time, either. Because later on in the series, a character named Choi appears, and after hearing what Dera said about how he became fat, she acts suspicious of Tamako throughout the entirety of episode 7. And while she does warm up to Tamako after she took care of her during her fever, it feels like their friendship takes a backseat until episode 10 where Choi convinces herself that Tamako would be the perfect bride for the prince of her tropical home named Mecha.

In the end, almost all of these issues I have come down to the fact that it feels like tons of potential character and story establishment was shoved into 12 episodes, which left so many things unanswered in favour of the unfunny bird, and any major character moments feeling forced. I wouldn't really say that these characters suffered too much from the little establishment many of them had. Except for Mamedai, Tamako's father. From what I can gather, he's meant to be a somewhat strict father with a soft spot, but considering that the anime did nothing with it other than a last minute showcase of his backstory in episode 9, all we see of him is a total jackass who scolds Tamako for incredibly stupid things, such as her ideas for new mochi recipes, giving him affection and singing the song that he wrote for Hinako, Tamako's dead mother. It just made him a really irritating character throughout and I never saw any signs of his soft spot for his daughters outside of that one moment where he asked Tamako to take care of Choi when she came down with a fever.

I may be looking too deep into this (and if I am, please tell me so I can correct this review in the future) and my expectations for this type of genre were probsbly set too high by the likes if K-On and Dragon Maid, but overall, I can't help but feel really disappointed with Tamako Market. I won't act like I didn't laugh at points, I won't act like I didn't enjoy myself, I won't act like that I didn't appreciate the laid back vibe and I definitely won't act like I didn't absolutely adore some of these characters, but a good chunk of the series has consisted of underdeveloped plot points and character relationships, focusing more on characters who are incredibly irritating or unfunny more than ones who are actually interesting, and a lot of things that go next to nowhere. I can see how it can appeal to someone who just wants a chill anime, but for me, it's too flawed for me to fully appreciate.