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Acting
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Directing
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Story
Starring: Aya Suzaki, Atsushi Tamaru, Takumi Yamazaki
Director: Naoko Yamada
Running Time: 83 mins
Tamako Love Story is a Japanese film about a high school girl who is shocked when a friend of hers confesses his love to her.
This was a surprisingly entertaining film. Although it’s very simplistic and fairly cheesy in its approach to an high school romance, it’s a sweet and light-hearted enough film to make you smile and give you a good time.
Let’s start with works best about this film. Above all, it’s a very simple and sweet movie from start to finish. Although it’s not something that kids should really be watching, it’s bright, comical and pretty fun-loving from start to finish.
The central story is the generic trivial affair of high school students on the brink of confessing their love etc, but it isn’t actually as painful as normal.
Although I must say that there are a few eye-wateringly cheesy moments where the two main characters stand awkwardly opposite one another in a way only high school romances manage, the general atmosphere of this film is much happier to have fun with the high school story at hand.
As a result, it doesn’t place any importance on the tedious social consequences of the romance at hand, but instead lets that central story play out as a simple and sweet tale, ultimately making for a generally pleasant watch.
As always with Japanese anime, the animation is delightful throughout, and although it’s not quite the storybook style that I felt could have suited this story better, it continues on from the TV show on which it’s based. (Don’t worry, you don’t need any prior knowledge to understand it).
In terms of negatives here, I definitely could have done without some of the more sickly love scenes, whilst I can’t say that this film is ever quite as funny as it wants to be, only really making good laughs in its slightly separated opening and final scenes.
That said, this is a generally pleasant watch. Simple and not as annoying as its premise would suggest, you can have a nice little time with Tamako Love Story, and that’s why I’m giving it a 7.4 overall.
