Tatami Galaxy Review

Overall rating - 6.0/10 - Semi/pseudointellectual anime

Somewhat watchable: not like the others, has some ideas here and there.

This is one of the lesser intellectual anime, that perhaps preaches more than intellectualizes. However it is not all bad and can be enjoyed to a level.

Tatami Galaxy is ultimately a story about a poor student in a cheap dirty dorm, with high hopes for future and outside of the box thinking. Art style that represents dirtiness of a student life in cheap dorm here. Makes it more relatable to all other students just like him.

It is structured like A Groundhog Day. Each episode a protagonist, originally names Watashi (just means I in Japanese), tries to live his uni/college life in a different way from the previous attempt. At the end of every attempt he always gets disappointed and decides to wind back time to the very beginning and try it again in a different way.

He tries variety of stuff, but nothing brings him satisfaction and some attempts lead towards ruin. Eventually he just gives up, locks up in the preverbal 4 and a half tatami mats room and refuses to try anymore. He eventually gives up on that as well and in the end he finds satisfaction in relationship with a girl. That somehow changes him.

Protagonist has a sidekick named Ozu who plays a dual role of both his assistant in endeavors and somewhat a nemesis who ruins them from behind the scenes.

Each of the attempts at campus life, involves protagonist with variety of people and exposes to variety of different stuff. Some of these stories and events are more interesting than the others. Some of this stuff even insightful to the extend. In that regard it is somewhat similar to Planetes, though I would say that Planetes are deeper and smarter.

It has 'unique', deliberately ugly, art style. It does creates unique feel for the show. Sometimes it is able to produce uniquely interesting and even aesthetically pleasing scenes, like the one with Higuchi's song (ep 4 or 5 I think). Other times it is just ugly.

I guess the core message of this show is relationships make you happy or something like that. Not so simple I would say, that I why I called it a lesser intellectual anime.

Overall I can recommend it as entry level pseudo-intellectual anime, or to people who just what to try different thing for different sake.