Teasing Master Takagi-San is my favorite anime, and yes I really do mean that. While it may not be a “top-tier” anime objectively, the series has received a positive reception over the years and has garnered a good amount of fans. It’s a cute, wholesome, hilarious and even nostalgic anime that resembles the feeling of being young, reminiscing the days of middle school, and making fun memories with the people we spend time with. Takagi has all of that, and it does an excellent job at making these moments feel natural and organic. It’s the kind of series that serves as a nice breather to help balance out from the more deep and complex stories out there, but still having moments for the viewer to keep themselves relatively engaged.
With Season 3 currently out, I thought I go back and review the Takagi anime as a whole, highlighting the charm of what this series brings, and how much it has progressed overtime. While I will admit Seasons 2 and 3 are good sequels that improve the qualities of the 1st season, I still find Season 1 to be quite underrated and there are some nice moments here that people tend to overlook. The season may not be perfect, but it manages to keep its overall narrative consistent which later gets improved in future seasons.
Art: The art and the animation is pretty solid. I love the visuals and how the setting is based on the real life Shodoshima, which fun fact, this is where the author of the Takagi manga grew up in! The anime manages to recapture a couple of the island’s locations such as the school, a few neighborhoods, the shrine, the library, the tunnel, and the bookstore to name a few, and when you look at a side by side comparison to its real life counterpart, the shots are pretty similar, almost looking like a faithful recreation. While Takagi isn’t the only series that manages to recapture Japan’s notable locations and landmarks, it still does a good job at making the viewer feel interested in wanting to visit sometimes.
Moving back to the in-universe stuff, I like the character designs and how they actually look like middle schoolers. A lot of series tend to either overage or underage their characters from their respective age group/school year. This is mostly a nitpick on my end when it comes to those series, so it’s not really a huge issue for me unless it becomes taken too far. Aside from that, the anime does a good job portraying the behavior of most middle school children, from their youthful appearance, to their playful, innocent expressions. Nishikata’s reactions are hilarious and his expressions, complimented by his sounds effects, are what makes the comedy land. Takagi’s expressions are great too ranging from adorable cuteness to playful teasing. Those smug faces she makes are pretty hilarious.
Overall, the art for Takagi is solid. Its got good looking visuals, and the expressiveness of the characters captures the nostalgic feeling of being in middle school, giving a sense of adorable wholesomeness and hilarious laughs. Shin-Ei did a good job in this aspect, which they later improve in the future seasons.
Story: The story follows two separate plots. One focusing on the two main leads Takagi and Nishikata, and the other revolving around 3 best friends being Yukari, Sanae, and Mina.
Takagi and Nishikata Story:
In Season 1, the narrative is relatively straight forward, Takagi teases her classmate Nishikata and Nishikata tries to find ways to tease her back, but often finding himself failing to make a comeback, so he continues until Takagi succumbs to his teasing. Its a simple plot that's easy to follow, but still leaves the viewer engaged as to how Nishikata will try to tease Takagi. Season 1 manages to keep this narrative consistent, and gives a similar vibe to a classic Tom and Jerry episode. Although some people may find the segments repetitive after watching a few episodes, the interactions Takagi and Nishikata have leads into the most important aspect of the series, their relationship.
Season 1 focuses on establishing their relationship, how they met, and how they grow closer to each other. In a relationship, this is the initial stage. Nishikata sees Takagi as a rival at first, but as time goes on, he notices that he spends a good amount of time with her, and even though he loses most of the time, he is able to learn and slowly grow thanks to her. The interactions the two have feel natural and organic, and I love how the anime paces itself and its dialogue when it comes to fast paced comedy and slow paced intimate moments.
This in my opinion, is what highlights the series’s charm, because it emphasizes one of the main love languages, quality time. You get invested in how these 2 characters slowly start to think about each other throughout their daily activities, talking in class, going bicycle riding, playing games, walking together, all of which show the natural progression of how a friendship is formed, and only then do these two eventually start to see that they enjoy each other’s company, and later see each other as something more which is something the later seasons start to focus on. It feels organic, it feels natural, its well paced, it has this nice sense of flow when the episode transitions into their next segment. You start to see the relationship change bit by bit, and while Seasons 2 and 3 show this development more evidently, Season 1 has some nice small moments that often go unnoticed, which makes the finale of this season all the worthwhile, opening the door for what’s about to happen in the next stage of their relationship.
B-Trio Story:
The secondary plot revolves around 3 best friends being Yukari, Mina, and Sanae, who i will refer to as the B-trio. Their segments consist of the usual slice of life parts that serve as a nice comic relief away from the Takagi and Nishikata segments. Now to be fair, if I had to pick one criticism people have with the series, it’s that the B-trio segments don’t often serve too much to the overall story, and often times their segments can be seen as fillers, which could of been used to develop Takagi and Nishikata’s relationship. Personally, I enjoy these segments and I don't mind their presence in the anime because I find them to be solid comic relief characters, and their segments also expands on the SOL middle school life, plus their segments don't go on too for long so its not that big of a deal, at least to me. If you don't like these segments, then its perfectly fine, because I agree that these 3 as standalone characters wouldn't work, hence them being here helps to serve as a breather to give a quick laugh before transitioning back to the main plot.
Season 1's overall narrative focuses on the starting stage of establishing the main lead's relationship, and focuses more on the slice of life/comedy aspect with small bits of romantic interest. The romance is definitely on the slow burn side, but it does manage to pace itself in giving subtle hints of development worth investing towards which will then be expanded on in the later seasons.
Characters: Takagi and Nishikata may be your typical middle schoolers, but their dynamic is what makes the series enjoyable to watch.
Nishikata is a fun character. I love how expressive he is and his reactions always give me a good laugh, even upon rewatch. His development in Season 1 may not be as impactful to some compared to the later seasons, but he does slowly improve himself after some of the losses he takes, and he slowly starts to learn more about Takagi, not only as a rival, but eventually as a friend.
Takagi is also a fun character. I enjoy her fun teasing side since her teasing isn’t seen in a mean spirited way, but rather showing her affection towards Nishikata. Granted we don’t know too much about Takagi since we mostly see the story through Nishikata’s perspective, so it leaves both Nishikata and the audience having to use visual cues such as tone and expressions, especially with how each encounter with Nishikata slowly strengthens her feelings for him.
Yuki Kaji and Rie Takahashi do an excellent job at making their interactions feel very natural. The dialogue is smooth and well paced, talking at a speed where it’s easy to pick up some of the basic Japanese language.
The B-trio and various other side characters in the series are also your typical middle schoolers and most don’t serve too much importance to the overall plot, just people Takagi and Nishikata interact with if they aren’t hanging out together.
Soundtrack: The soundtrack for Takagi is interesting as it doesn’t follow the standard 1 opening song, 1 ending song, for a 12 episode series. Instead it does 1 opening, sung by Yuiko Oohara (who also does the songs for Mushoku Tensei), and has multiple ending songs (this season has 7) that change every 1-2 episodes, all sung by Rie Takahashi. The songs are wonderful to listen to, and I recommend looking at the lyrics as it does give more insight on Takagi’s feelings.
Enjoyment: After rewatching Season 1, I found it to be pretty fun to watch, even if Seasons 2 and 3 are a definite improvement. A good amount of the iconic jokes were in this season, and the development was pretty subtle. I still got a good laugh from Nishikata’s reactions and I appreciate his motivation to better himself once he starts learning more about Takagi. I also saw the B-trio plots to be fun as well, even if they didn’t serve too much to the story. Finally, rewatching most of the segments in Season 1 helped to see how much the relationship has changed, as there are parallels that correlate to how Nishikata from Season 3 is a different person there than he was in Season 1. He acts less flustered and is starting to become more aware of his feelings for Takagi. All of those small moments of development he had in Season 1 were foundations as to how his character starts developing in the later seasons.
Conclusion: Takagi-San Season 1 isn’t a perfect season, it’s a simplistic plot with a premise that repeats itself, and development that may not be as noticeable compared to many other series that have an overarching storyline, fleshed out characters, and complex themes. However, not every story needs to have this layer of complexity, and simple stories like Takagi are needed to help give the audience something to relax to, a story that invokes happiness, and a story that’s easy to follow but still make it engaging for the viewer to feel interested.
In my opinion, Takagi is a simplistic story that works. It gets the job done of the story it’s trying to tell, and the later seasons manage to improve the qualities the first season had, making the series definitely worth the time investing in. If you’re looking for an anime with good romance, or something to relax your brain with, then I definitely recommend this one.
