The Great Passage
a review by Nagas
a review by Nagas
Our journey begins with Mitsuya Majime working in a sale's department for a publishing company called Genbu Shobō. However due to his personality, he's very shy and lacks the presence that a businessman would therefore he has a hard time performing his job and gets called out by some fellow coworkers for it. This is until he meets Masashi Nishioka a fellow worker of the publisher working in the dictionary department that ever so happens to need an extra hand...
Retirement, dictionaries and work ethics, if those works don't turn you on, i don't know what will.
The story begins with Mitsuya Majime, a somewhat odd men that sells all sorts of written products such as journals, magazines, books, and several other articles of the sort. Now, Majime is your typical case of an introvert, he has an awful time going from place to place trying to sell his company's products, his posture when dealing with clients is completely off and overall he can't get his act together and adding that to the fact that he can't talk to people, he tends to close himself in his room and has an insane book collection that he loves. The future isn't looking brightly for Majime...
One day on his routine he is noticed Majime is scheduled to go trade his goods at a local library, as usual his performance is lacking so very much so that a fellow coworker from the same company sees this, Masashi Nishioka. Nishioka takes pity on his fellow coworker and decides to walk with him and teach him some tips that might improve him, however Nishioka realises that Majime isn't exactly... normal and starts asking him questions about meanings of words (a habit he picked up at his department) but to his surprise Majime was amasing at it... at the end both of them split and go into their normal life's...
In the meantime the dictionary department at Genbu Shobō is facing a big issue, the department only has 4 employees, one being part-time, the responsible, Kouhei Araki is going into retirement, and he needs to find a suitable candidate to take over the new dictionary project that is under way. But this is more of an issue that one could imagine since such a person would have to critically understand a word before s/he could describe it also it's not a job most people want due to a lack of reputation, the pay and very to no space for career flexibility.
However after a brief routine discussion between Araki and Nishioka they bring about the meeting between the former and Majime. Fire spreads through Araki's eye's as his realizes the potential in this young man, he brings Nishioka with him and rushes to recruit this young man into his department. A task that was achieved and this is pretty much where the entirety of the show starts.
Now, this does not to mean that there won't be any meaningful moments which is nowhere near the truth but now the story is set in motion and most of the characters have been introduced at this point. I feel obliged to tell you that this show is a down to earth story, it's an adult drama that depicts reality, there's no character used to balance off the story or bend it into some morality question as i often see. It's a pure tale of a group of people learning to live in their world more than making a dictionary, the strength of this show is the relationship between the characters and the love they commit in work. Don't expect any effects or plot twists, the studio decided to flow threw a very thin line that could throw many people off for the slow paced and lacking interest points HOWEVER it did so perfectly, every moment, every line is delivered at the right moments with the right impact, you better get your tea ready for this one.
The show truly goes around these characters and their interaction with their life. That is not to say the other characters lack content. One of the things i loved about this show is how they use the characters to jump of each other and grow with each other. I would have loved for some characters to have a bit more background and entity but there's only so much you can do with 11 episodes. Other than that I'm fairly sure every single one of them will grow in your heart as time passes it's an wholesome experience.
OK, I'll just go over the music real quick. It's not.... what it could be. The music here only servers as an ambient setter and most of the times it does so accordingly but there were some times that it kinda wasn't appropriate and it kinda turns into out of the ordinary moments.
Other than that, the art is what you'd expect from a adult drama, it's standard, and regular, the landscape is pretty and it created this mindset of peace and meditation that works amazingly with the show.
The animation was well, normal. With a few exceptions, it takes you by surprise and throws a massive wind gust at you from nowhere. It's just like when you're going to the beach, you know what's there, and you know where you're going, but when you step over that hill and the sea air and smell hit you. You just have to stop and take it all in. That's how good it is.
WORD
noun
a single unit of language that has meaning and can be spoken or written.
This is what a word is according to the Cambridge Dictionary...
But as you'll find in The Great Passage, words are more than units, they're people, they're feelings, they're places, they're time, words are everything.
And that's essentially what this show is about, it's about exploring who we are and finding ways to convey it into words. It's about giving words the meaning they deserve, so that the people who need to tell a story or share a message won't be stopped just because of some letters combinations.
In a way, it's a bit like mecha shows, sure, you're interested in the big object they present to you, like the robots, the magic or the dictionaries and if not it managed to take your attention. However later on you realise that all that really matters is the people and that's what makes it wonderful.
51.5 out of 53 users liked this review
