Tamako Market Episode 11: Who Knew She’d be a Princess?

“Make sure your happiness comes first” -Mamedai Kitashirakawa

Summary: As news spreads throughout the market that Tamako is supposedly a princess, Tamako herself seems much more interested in collecting enough points to finally get a special medal than the fact that most of her friends and family are half-plotting to marry her off. When she looses her medal, the Prince finally makes his grand entrance and returns Tamako’s precious medal to her.

Impressions: I think the point has finally come where the sugary sweetness of this show has begun to rot my teeth. And by that I mean I have grown a bit bored with Tamako Market. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still really cute, and the animation is still being funded by that KyoAni money, but there’s only so much a girl can take of Tamako being obsessed with mochi, Dera being a smart ass, and just the whole heart-warming, cutesy atmosphere.

I have very mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I (for the first time) was a little annoyed at Tamako and all of the residents of the Usagiyama Market but on the other hand, some of the key points the episode was trying to make were very good. I can’t really understand why, with so much going on now that people think she’s a princess, Tamako’s more focused on getting enough points for the medal than she is in trying to stop everyone from just accepting the fact that she’s going to go off and marry the prince. It just seems to me that even though she says the medal is what will make her happier, she should maybe put a little more effort into actually telling people that she doesn’t want to leave. Her naïvety and single-minded devotion to mochi and the market have been cute up till now, but something about her refusal to deal with what was going in favor of focusing on something more trivial really rubbed me the wrong way.

I also don’t get why everyone, all the shopkeepers, Kanna, Shiori, Midori, and Mochizou, just accepted the fact that Tamako’s a princess, no questions asked. Like what? All Choi has to do is say something and it’s accepted as fact? And then they’re so gung-ho about letting Tamako marry and leave? I know the show tries to spin it as “Well as long as she’s happy it’s fine, we’ll have to let her go eventually, things change” (which are all good things) but they don’t even bother to stop and ask Tamako what she wants to do. It’s like all of a sudden all these people who love her and are close to her just start to ignore her completely in favor of getting wrapped up in this idea that she’s going to marry a prince. Even her friends start to do it. It’s very confusing and seems to go against how the show as set-up it’s characters so far. Between Tamako’s head in the sand approach to dealing with Choi’s announcement and the fact that everyone seems to be more than willing to let Tamako go (whether she wants to or not) it was a very weird episode for me.

I was glad though that the Prince, Mecha Mochimazzi, finally made his in-person appearance. I think now that he’s finally on the scene, things should wrap up pretty quickly, since I’m sure that he’ll be able to put a stop to all this “princess” nonsense. I’m hoping he’ll act as a catalyst for both Choi and Mochizou to confess how they feel, although if any series seems likely to skirt around resolving it’s romantic plot lines, I’m sure it would be this one. Even if I could guess at how the show will end, I don’t think that it’ll have any great importance. For all that this episode talked about change, I get the feeling that absolutely nothing has changed. The characters are just the same as they were at the beginning, and how I’m sure they’ll continue to be after the last episode airs.

Final Thought: Tamako’s dad, and his cute blushes are probably the best thing about this episode. I just wanna give him a hug.