I guess I was right…
While the prince finally makes his appearance last time, I knew Tamako wasn’t going to do it. At this point, the market place is her home and she doesn’t want to leave. I just think Choi embarrassed herself by basing her decision on Tamako’s smell that came from the flowers. Not to mention, she possibly has the mole in the same spot from the looks of it. At least the Prince caught on to it after he receives one from Kaoru. So yes I don’t have to eat crow now!
As for the rest of the episode, at least Mochizou remembered Tamako’s birthday and surprisingly finds a Dera inside it. I knew he couldn’t return home that easily given his plump appearance.
Final Thoughts
While there weren’t any overdramatic moments this time around, I find Tamako Market rather enjoyable despite its flaws. It was a mostly a cute girls doing cute things in a market place, but just not as memorable. Tamako was an enjoyable character along with Dera, but the others are pretty forgettable.
At this point, Kyoto Animation has improved a bit with original productions, but yet so far away compared to their animation quality, which is outstanding. While the shows PA Works make can be a hit and miss, at least they have a memorable quality to them (like the infamous bondage scene in the third episode of Hanasaku Iroha). If Kyoto Animation really wants to make a good original production, just learn from them. Otherwise, they may as well stick with adaptations of source material.
Overall Rating: 8.2/10, B-, Good
Tamako Market was an average SoL, a mediocre rom-com and failed to satisfy me. Midori’s Quest was the only thing that kept me going and with it having a predictable rom-com conclusion (Nothing was resolved in the end), I was not as enraged as I thought I’d be. I thank Midori for keeping me interested, at least.
I agree that its kind of weak on the slice of life department as the story is not as rememberable, especially compared to K-ON, Hyouka or even Chuunibyou. The problem is that it has no source material to fall back on and they only developed on the characters briefly with an unresolved ending.
Unresolved endings can kinda work…if the characters are likable and when the only character that is, imo, remotely interesting, is an ambiguously gay girl and her journey to POSSIBLY confess, something is wrong. Like I said in my own review, cuteness alone is sometimes not enough. K-ON, Hyouka and Chuunibyou are excellent examples.