Blogtober Day 20: Tamako Market

I love Blogtober! Don't you? It means we get to delve into spooky and haunted-themed movies and TV shows every day for all of October, and I've included Halloween specials from popular shows as well as episodes that aren't necessarily Halloween or October related but still fit the spooky theme.


This one's from a show I've been watching lately that's really keeping my spirits up and to be perfectly honest, giving me a lot of feels I wasn't expecting when I started watching. Really, I only knew it as "the birb anime" before but now I'm hopelessly into it.
Of course now I'm almost down to the bonus episodes, having binge watched over the course of a few days, but it's probably something I'm going to re-watch periodically as a mood booster. I mean, just look at that aesthetic. 

It revolves around a middle-school student named Tamako who lives and works with her family in their mochi shop in a vibrant and lively shopping plaza, the Usagiyama Shopping District. While the plaza is lively with those that run the shops, friendly and caring people who are always popping their heads out of the shops to greet Tama on her way to and from school and offer her a fresh-baked good or a flower, there is always a struggle to keep new customers coming by, and Tama is always coming up with fun new ideas to draw customers in. 

The community within the plaza is very tightly-knit. Though they don't openly talk about their feelings much, they try to be observant of their friends' moods and circumstances and help where they can, sometimes getting in the way or stepping on someone else's toes in the process. It's also a beautiful look into Japanese life within such a community, with many scenes of people visiting the bath house, stopping into the coffee to shop to hear a record (or the record shop for a coffee, I'm still not sure which it is), and interacting as they stop by this place and that for fish, vegetables, and so on.

It's at the incredibly aesthetically pleasing flower shop that Tama meets the notorious talking birb of this anime, Dera Mochimazzi (though he's a trim and small bird to start out with). Living above a mochi shop with such generous people as the Kitashirakawas, he quickly turns into a round birb with an adorable and simple design that screams "Draw me in fan art!!"

   
In this episode, Ep, 6- "I Felt Chills Down My Spine Too",  it's summer and since everyone would rather stay inside fanning themselves and trying not to move, business is slow and Tama wants to find a way to bring more people to the plaza while also cooling everyone down. 

Apaxtla, Mexico

Tama visits her neighborhood shrine on her way to school, another beautiful look into Japanese culture and reminded me of the little Catholic shrines I saw on almost every street and in the sides of buildings and drainage holes unexpectedly in Mexico. Here's a picture of a rather nice one.

As an American it's both neat to see, because having such a strong community element evokes a warm feeling, and thought provoking in contrast to what we have because it reminds me that here, at least on paper, we aim to separate church and state and while that means less communal support of one specific thing and the absence of such shrines, it means there is or at least should be an option for those who don't feel comfortable with, drawn to, or even just interested in those beliefs.



Explaining Japanese beliefs and superstitions to to Dera gives Tama the idea of spooky curses. According to Tama, scary things are fun because they're chilling. And chilling things are just what they need to bring in customers!

So Tama and her school friends decide to set up a haunted house in the shopping plaza, and the local shop owners are all excited about the idea and offer what they can to help make it. But after some spooky events happening, the shop owners become more concerned about an actual curse and offering Tama ritualistic gifts to keep her safe from evil spirits.

The haunted house is a huge success, and it's because of the curse hysteria that so many people are interested in the plaza. The lines for the haunted house are out the door and it's swelteringly hot out, so as customers wait they trickle into the other shops for a bite to eat or for some flowers, and visit the bath house after their fright to get rid of the sweat and scares. Tama's plan worked, and everyone is happy!