Heinzes' 2010s Anime Cleanup Series #4

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minor spoilers within, consider yourself warned

>Have we had this conversation before? Aesthetic efficiency is the name of The Tatami Galaxy's game. From the simple and bold lines of the character designs, to the absolutely information and object-laden backgrounds and setting, the series wastes virtually none of it's allotted screen space to convey its thematic information. The character art being so simple is a brilliant touch, as it not only means that everything you need to know about them can be absorbed with a quick look without needing to distract heavily from the constant deluge of information hitting the eyes and ears at all other points (and it's a hell of a lot), but also that it allows them to hold some sense of universality.

Our nameless male protagonist (often referred to as Watashi, literally "me" or "I" in masculine form) becomes so identifiable to anybody because we've all had an event or time in our lives we fear we didn't "do it right," and so we wish we could go back and do it all over again, even if the fantasies of redoing always circle back to us within ourselves, dissatisfied (ouch that's me). We may not know a literal god (dependent on your faith, I suppose), but Seitarou seems a stand-in for any older adult or mentor figure that gives us that nudge to do the thing we've been hesitating on, whether we want that nudge or not. We've practically all had that one friend at some point whose ridiculous antics and questionable loyalty make us wonder why we're even friends at all, much like Ozu. Akashi seems to represent - in broad strokes - the connections and friendships we make, not exclusively romantic every time, the ones that shape us and push us into those rewarding scenarios that give our lives their fulfillment and purpose.

The Tatami Galaxy may have a reputation as a philosophically-rich and densely meditative series, and it does deliver on that promise when all is said and done. However, the experience of watching it in the moment, while still obviously dense with its breakneck pacing, feels more like partaking of a madcap comedy that is uproariously funny while also containing these appeals to universal truths, as a kind of happenstance. The comedic roots of the style the series partakes in run deep, resembling something near-Vaudevillian in its gleeful play with phonetic structures and linguistic games, almost like a protracted Groucho Marx routine. It isn't the only series to do this, though, see also most anything adapted from any of the numerous novels by Nisio Isin, particularly the Monogatari series.

At its core, The Tatami Galaxy is a series unafraid to play with the Herculean repetition of attempting something again and again until it turns out perfect, or at least, the best it can.
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Final Grade: A