Tamayura – 02

「水色の小さな切符、なので」 (Mizu-iro no Chiisana Kippu, Na no de)
“The Tiny Blue Ticket”

I’m glad that I have no limit to how much slice of life I can take in at one time. I know that some people find this genre terribly boring, but Tamayura rectifies this problem by being super, super short. Unlike the first OVA, the second OVA gives us an additional five minutes, coming to a grand total of 20 minutes and 46 seconds. Almost the length of a full anime episode, but not quite there yet. With the second OVA finally here, everything that I wanted from Tamayura, namely more character development and more interaction between Fu and her friends, came through and then some. There were a few key moments that had me giggling and one that had me falling out of my chair. For some reason, Fu’s air-headedness went up about 50%, causing her to look like this half the time. At the same time, instead of losing only some of her common sense, all of it disappears when she tries to take photos. Leading to positions like this or this. However, the joke of the episode is when Fu attempts to capture the “feeling of spring” by taking a photo of her friends with their skirts blowing in the wind. The problem being, with her angle, she fails to notice that the picture would have all their panties in it as well. As she realizes her dumb mistake, Kaoru follows up with literally “You Fail.”

Besides the jokes, our two other main characters and the mystery girl from the ending finally get some screen time. Okazaki Norie (Iguchi Yuka), Sakurada Maon (Gibu Yuko), and Shihomi Riho (Hazuki Erino), respectively. For a while, I thought that Maon was only capable of communicating through whistling, as since she never spoke but just whistled when she wanted to say something. Surprisingly she can talk and she has a surprisingly cute voice. In a real life situation, she is like the friend who finishes the tail end of a joke. For example, if you were so depressed you felt like you were going to die, she would be the one following up with “Don’t die!” literally hoping that you don’t die. Norie on the other hand is a complete and total spaz. Don’t get me wrong though, she’s still super funny. And I think it’s her crazy personality that helps make her so funny. Once something triggers her cute sensor, it’s game over. She goes as far as saying “Is Fu’s family going to kill me with the power of moe?!” She also tends to add “-tan” to everyone’s name as well, effectively pissing off Kaoru every time she calls her “Kao-tan“.

In terms of air-headedness, Shihomi Riho might be equal to Fu. While Riho is speaking to her old teacher at an art gallery featuring her photography, she turns from a respectable person into this as she goes to greet Fu. It feels like that in terms of personality, Fu would become like Riho in the future. Still air-headed, but a little more refined and confident. At the same time, Riho is also quite philosophical. Remember that ticket that hangs off of Fu’s camera case? A gift from Riho, it was a ticket that has no destination. The meaning behind it being that it’s okay change your path everyday. Since there is no set path in life, if one’s dreams are still fuzzy, it’s okay to freely move around and try new things. Changing and changing until one day, one finally ends up at their final destination. From that small little ticket, I never expected such a big meaning to come from it. The problem of deciding your future is a problem that many of us deal with in real life. Since almost no one is sure of where they exactly want to go, having something that makes figuring out that path a little easier is such a great idea.

With the third OVA not coming out for quite a while, it makes me sad that I won’t be able to watch more of Fu, Norie, Maon, and Kaoru. Like I said in the previous post, Tamayura is a series that is labeled by its director as a “Healing Anime”. By healing, I think its more along the lines of helping people get through the typical everyday struggles that we all face. In my mind, the whole ticket idea this episode was really profound (especially coming from the girl who could look like this). It really made me stop and think about the future, and that I’m going to have to eventually figure out what I want to do :|. Unlike the first OVA, there was a lot more scenes with everyone having those emoticon like faces and Fu just being super happy and out of it. With all the main characters finally getting some proper screen time, it’s a lot easier to grow closer to them (I didn’t enjoy Maon in the first OVA, and now she’s about to take the spot of favorite character just because of her voice ._.), and in turn, enjoy the OVA that much more.