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Tsuritama is drastically different form the two previous series by Kenji Nakamura that I’ve looked at. It was created with an entirely new team of incredibly creative and talented minds for Kenji to bounce off. It was also created at a new studio, the not yet incredibly inadequate and creatively bankrupt A1 pictures. And it was seemingly created with an entirely different mindset.

Tsuritama accomplishes something that, despite having their moments, Mononoke and Kuuchuu Buranko where never able to do. And that’s be an exceptionally uplifting experience with a tremendous amount of heart. Mononoke was a mesmerizing moving painting with a suffocating atmosphere, constantly keeping you dreading more so than guessing. Juxtaposed Tsuritama has majestic rural landscapes exploding with brilliantly bright colours. If Nature is a panacea, then Tsuritama revels in this universal remedy.

Where Kuuchuu Buranko was an esoteric exploration of the human condition happy to indulge in the ugly side of human nature with an adverse nature of its own. Tsuritama looks to welcome you to Enoshima much like its protagonist. in tackling mental health issues and personal problems, Tsuritama looks to showcase a far less clinical manner of how we can embrace ourselves and accept help form the people around us who truly care.

Throughout Mononoke and Kuuchuu Buranko there is almost no attempt from either series protagonist to form any true connections with the people around them. In fact both Kusuriuri and Dr Irabu barely have a connection to are perception of the world and definitely don’t have a care for the rules your everyday mere-mortal has to abide too. Once again in contrast Tsuritama is all about making connections, strengthening bonds and finding purpose. Tsuritama is practically the complete opposite of Kenji Nakamura’s previous series, but nonetheless is still an intrinsically stylistic experience with an immersive atmosphere that meets the exceedingly high expectations I had personally placed upon it.

Island of the bay
Before I get to the story and more importantly side-character’s of Tsuritama I have to discuss the main character and the absolute show stealer of Tsuritama, Enoshima. The detail rich recreation of Enoshima is a phenomenal setting. The sparkling oceans are dazzling. The reflected blues are remarkable, paying the greatest compliment to the boundless skies they mirror. Another essential element in supporting Tsuritama’s soothing atmosphere is the abundant but simple use of colour. Tsuritama creates depth by utilising a similar method of shading as the sensational Seizou Watase. Seizou’s art, whilst overtly commercial, is distinctly stylistic and captures a certain aesthetic, another artist in a similar vein would be Eizin Suzuki’s. Suzuki's Japanese Americana art style undeniably and rather ironically has a massive impact on this overtly Japanese series. It also features as cover art to many a great City Pop albums such as, Tatsuro Yamashita-For You.

The labour of love and extraordinary craftsmanship that went into replicating Enoshima goes far beyond the environment. These landscapes are filled with some meticulously designed and memorable destination’s that really brings Enoshima to life. Every building and subsequently every room in said buildings are overflowing with life. There’s a term I use to describe how favourable the interior design of a building is, it’s “The Kyoani Room.” For instance when you start K-on! You get a detailed view into exactly who Yui is without having to hear her say a word. The room says it all as it should. It’s not just where someone happens to sleep, it should incapsulate there being, it’s a goddamn extension of their personality. A display of who they are, it’s really flipping important and nothing annoys me more than blank rooms in anime. Thankfully the Tsuritama team seem to agree with me because these rooms rank a strong 8 on The Kyoani Room scale. It’s not just personal abodes that get the extra touch there are many businesses across Enoshima that the character’s regularly visit and the Tsuritama team decided there should be enough personalised logos for every little business to make the world’s least intimidating battle jacket. It’s such a minor touch but it amazed me, I was pausing the show to look and absorb the unique branding of each shop.

Something else that is very special about Tsuritama is the addition of Cencoroll creator, director, character designer, script writer, and editor Atsuya Uki. Tsuritama as of now is the only Television series Atsuya has done designs for. This is a massive shame and hopefully, but probably not, something that changes in time. His designs are so special yet so simple yet so singular. Thanks to this design philosophy the character acting is amazing, even Naoko Yamada would be impressed. But those designs would amount to nothing if the character’s themselves weren't equally as special.

People of the Bay

Tsuritama has the 2nd best grandma in anime history, the 2nd best duck in anime history and the least offensive Indian in anime history. So yeah, pretty good going. All that aside this is a great cast of characters ranging form side character’s all the way to the mains and I think it’s only right to give each of them their own spotlight.

__Yuki Sanada
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Yuki is our protagonist who suffers from social anxiety due to being moved around constantly growing up. Yuki see’s moving to Enoshima as hopefully permanent fixture. This also sparks an interest in forming meaningful relationships something his life has been devoid of outside his grandma, Keito, who he lives with and is the best and I love her. At his core though Yuki is extremely sweet and caring it’s just channelling his true nature he struggles with. The manifestation of Yuki’s anxiety is drowning, Yuki struggles to navigate the emotions of his heart through the storm in his head. This quite sadly causes Yuki to become visibly frustrated at himself which Is often interpreted as being angered by those around him. Thanks to the way his face contorts into that of a demon, and I mean a literal demon the animator’s really showcase the flexibility and fluidity of Atsuya’s design’s during these sequences. Yuki’s struggles are wholly relatable and I was invested in him and his story almost immediately. Thankfully for Yuki and the audience an unbeknownst force of self-proclaimed extra-terrestrial origin is about to burst into his life.

Natsuki Usami
Natsuki is Yuki’s fellow intimidating classmate. Natsuki is extremely stern, he’s more standoffish than Clint Eastwood as the man with no-name but with far less wit. We learn that Natsuki has the potential to become a pro angler and also no desire to do so. In fact, he’s quite embarrassed by his talent and his title of “Ouji.” The obvious question with Natsuki is why? The only time he seems to smile or even be relatively happy is when talking to his Imouto.(BigSisconEnergy) Unfortunately Natsuki doesn’t share the same love for the rest of his family struggling to cope with his mother’s passing and the continuing emotional effects of losing someone he loves. Natsuki finds himself only becoming increasingly agitated by his father’s silver lining outlook on the matter it’s especially painful when his dad is looking to change the family restaurant for the sake of his new partner, Mariko. Now Natsuki’s emotional distress isn’t invalid, and neither is his emotional distancing form his father. This is a complex issue and is treated so accordingly. Tamotsu is presented as a loving father who want’s the best for his family, he isn’t forcing his partner Mari-chan on the family and neither is she forcing herself upon them. It’s an awkward situation where no one is in the wrong. Thankfully for Natsuki and his family A uncontrollable bright bubbly ball of unrelenting positivity and brutal honesty is about to burst into their lives.

Akira Agarkar Yamada
The mysterious and stoic Akira is very different form the other two mains of the series. Firstly, he’s not a student but a secret agent working for an equally as secretive and all powerful organisation D.U.C.K. Secondly what set’s Akira apart is the small fact that he’s 25 years old, but thanks to his connections he’s still able to attain a placement at the same school as Yuki, Natsuki and X. Not only that he’s able to land himself in the same class which I’m sure is just a coincidence. Thirdly Akira is actively stalking and having the main cast heavily monitored. So, whilst he’s part of the main cast he is by far the most distant member. At first a cool collected ominous workaholic, we learn that despite his obligations Akira isn’t particularly fond of his superiors nor the action’s they have him taking. We also get to know a soft, more genuine side of Akira especially though his interactions with his pet duck and secret best character Tapioca. I love Tapioca and Akira’s bond, and it might unironically be my favourite in the show, which is saying a lot, like a Pacific Ocean sized a lot. The interpersonal relationships of the cast is Tsuritama’s greatest strength but seeing Akira confide and have active conversations, meaningful conversations, heartfelt conversations with his pet duck is so endearing. They love each other so much and I love them. But even with their indestructible love the inner power struggle happening within D.U.C.K is damaging not just too Akira but the whole world and more importantly Tapioca too. Akira is the one facing the adverse effects of his superior’s actions but thankfully an exceedingly stylish target and avid lover of fishing with the fate of the world in his hands is about to burst into his life and his name is…

Haru
Haru is the knot that keeps the rod fishing. He’s the confidence boost Yuki needs, the honesty that the Usami family needs to share and the target that Akira needs to catch. His efforts can be certainly misguided, but there always his best efforts. His actions can have server consequences but there always his independent actions. He often misunderstands what others are feeling, but he always cares about what there feeling. He’s a trigger-happy mind controlling alien with his mission on his mind and he’s a caring friend to all constantly wanting to help and incessantly trying to make them smile whilst always being willing to listen. Haru and his sister Coco are undeniably invaders of Enoshima and undeniably force their way into Yuki’s life with a singular goal in mind, but Haru stays in Enoshima because of the friends he makes and especially because of his best friend Yuki.

Hell yeah friendship.

Now that the big hitters are out the way I’m going to quickly go through the side character’s that enrich the Tsuritama experience and add to it’s heart melting nature.

Keito Sanada
Full time punk rock grandma and part time hospital patient, Keito is Yuki’s loving and wise grandma. She is often a beacon of light for Yuki, Haru and even the audience if you want to listen. She gives some amazing life advice and many scenes involving Keito got me doing some thinking/reflecting. Unfortunately, Keito suffers from a bad case of “non-descript anime illness” but this is worked cleverly into the script and boost the emotional impact of one the series best arch’s. Overall, her presence is a massive positive and she’s also a gardener.

Hell yeah gardeners.

Coco
Coco’s design is phenomenal. she has the same groovy hair as Dr Irabu. She is cool. That is all.

Misaki Shimano
Misaki is awesome, the collective cool onee-san of Enoshima. She’s the day manger of a local fishing equipment/coffee shop that I would very much like to visit hopefully it’s not to faraway form Café Alpha, might be able to do both in the same day.

Ayumi Inoue
Ayumi has a crush on Misaki and it’s super kawaii, he’s gets super jealous of Akira and it’s super kawaii, he’s the stern owner of a fishing vessel and gives the boys not only a summer job but some great life advice and it’s super kawaii because he’s super kawaii. He also has a sick facial scar which is not super kawaii but super cool...

Story of the bay

Tsuritama is a retelling of the Enoshima Engi, because It’s Kenji Nakamura and you best believe Buddhism is going to play an essential part in the story. Another essential part of the story is fishing as this is how the water deity, Benzaiten conspired with the terrorized villagers of Enoshima to catch The Kami Ugajin. Whilst this doesn’t necessarily spoil Tsuritama it does give you a clear indication of how the story is going to play out. This overarching plot is what stops Tsuritama form becoming a full-on Iyashikei. Although I do believe that Tsuritama is an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to dip their toes in the Iyashikei waters because whilst the story builds to a multi-layered race against the clock and secret agencies to save Enoshima, the series for me is at it’s best when it’s simply focusing on Yuki, Natsuki, Haru and Akira growing closer as buddies and stronger as individuals.

I find the choice of fishing an interesting one, fishing is often viewed as a calming holistic hobb and a quintessentially escapist hobby and that’s why it’s the perfect hobby for Yuki, Natsuki, Haru and Akira. Moments such as Yuki dedicating himself to getting his lure into a bucket set up by Natsuki are incredibly personal and leads to possibly the best episode of Tsuritama. You can see him going through the motions questioning why’s he’s even bothering the only reason he started fishing was to appease Haru so why does he keep going? He keeps going because he’s found a purpose, something he can dedicate himself too. He’s found someone he not only wants to impress in Natsuki but also someone he wants to become equals too. He’s found something he can share with others and something they can grow closer through and that was exactly his goal in moving to Enoshima, and through Fishing he’s achieved that goal. This is just one of the many great and admittedly inspirational arches of Tsuritama. Tsuritama has so many high points:

• Yuki leaning to tie his first knot
• Haru promising Yuki to stop using his water gun, in doing so making his first compromise for Yuki
• Haru and Yuki having to learn to live together/Haru having to learn to live on Earth
• The boys getting a summer job with Ayumi so that Yuki and Haru can buy fishing gear
• Keito teaching Haru the meaning of personal space so that he can give Yuki time to think leading to them discovering how much they’ve grown to care for one another

These are just a few of many high points. Although I must add that Tsuritama isn’t a perfectly told story there are some elements especially towards the end that I wasn’t personally fond off. But I discovered when I finished Tsuritama that in the grand scheme of things they were mostly pretty inconsequential, except for something that Natsuki does in Ep9 that kinda goes a bit too far, writer’s probably should have thought his actions through a bit better. Overall Tsuritama is a another amazing one of a kind experience form Kenji Nakamura, that left my heart thoroughly melted.

That's the end of my Kenji Nakamura retrospective thingy. I've come to find that he is easily one of the most quintessentially overlooked director's in the medium. The man has firmly established a legacy of deeply intriguing and multi-layered shows laced with interesting psychology and a healthy overdoes of Buddhist imagery. He has also fostered and worked with a great deal of massive talent. So おめでとう!!! and ありがとう ございます!! Kenji Nakamura.