The Tamako Love Story was firmly suggested to me by Justin Brough. One day our conversation moved to it, and I mentioned how I dropped the Tamako Market TV series. Justin claimed that they fixed it all up in the movie. And yes, they did — everything that was possible to fix.

The animation needed no fixing to begin with, but KyotoAni went bananas completely with the best talent they had or borrowed, budget no object. In my humble opinion, they topped Disappearance. In this age of 2015, when son of Miyazaki is trying to destroy the anime with computers, this sort of thing is amazing twice.

And so, Dera was basically gone (with token appearances), thematic concerns completely erased, what else to ask? Unfortunately, other than the feast for the senses, there wasn't much in the movie for me. It is Tamako's love story, for crying out loud. Wonderful in its way, but I wasn't into it recently. Did not even bother to root for poor Midori properly.

The worst part was how big a role the retard moe played in the setting. The idiot-savant Kanna is one thing, but Tamako herself comes off as retarded more than naive or innocent, especially in contrast with her friends Shiori and Midori.

Liked: Kinda
Rewatch: A party movie among others