TARI TARI - 04 & 05

Episode 6 finally sheds some light onto Wakana's past, but before that, we finally see Sawa lose her cool!



Sawa was understandably upset when Konatsu threw away their chance to sing onstage in favor of letting the Condor Queens, a favorite of her grandfather's, take their spot.  But Sawa, being the good friend that she is, didn't dance around the subject or mince words; she let Konatsu know right away what her feelings were, and once the issue was resolved, she didn't hold a grudge.  The rest of the episode focused on the Condor Queens, who were acquainted with Wakana's mother.  The letter that one of the members gave Wakana at the end finally gave way to Wakana's memories, allowing us to see how her mother had passed away.

I'll admit, they did it well enough to have me shedding a few tears.  However, I'm somewhat confused by a number of things.  Wakana used to be a music student, but then gave up music.  Presumably, she gave music up when her mother died, but I'm not sure the timeline makes sense.  Her mother gets sick, but doesn't let Wakana know because she's going through entrance exams.  On the day of her exams, her mother passes away, yet Wakana still gets into the school of her choice...as a music student?  Or is becoming a music student something that came later?  She obviously didn't care much about music during her exams when her mother tried to sing with her.  Does she give up music right away, or did she give a try first?  Why is she still wearing her music uniform if she gave it up?  The way they portrayed Wakana's guilt over the way she treated her mother was well done, and it convinced me of why she'd give up music.  However, I'm fairly detail oriented, and a lot of the tiny details aren't adding up for me.  I hope they'll clarify sooner rather than later because it's driving me crazy!

I'm still having some problems with the pacing.  With a show like Hanasaku Iroha, P.A. Works faltered because they didn't have enough material to pull the show through the slow middle parts.  With TARI TARI, it almost feels like they have too much material and too many characters, causing the speed to be on fast forward.  Therefore the characters aren't very well developed (I'm still not seeing the connection between the intro memories of each of the characters and the present time) and the plot itself doesn't have as much of an emotional impact.