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Digital
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Wednesday, 22 August 2012 18:50 |
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 The second noitaminA series of the season (along with Kids on the Slope, Tsuritama is a tale of fish, ducks, and alien mind control. Sounds strange? Yeah, it is. Not entirely in a good way, though.
Yuki is a high school student who's never been good at making real friends thanks to his abnormally poor communication skills. He and his grandmother Keito have just moved to Enoshima, the latest in a long line of moves - Keito seems to have a bad dose of wanderlust. Haru is the self-styled alien he meets there, who decides to teach Yuki to fish; Natsuki is an irritable born-and-raised local and one of Yuki's new classmates - who also is a keen fisher. While learning to fish seems like a normal enough pursuit, Yuki and Natsuki find themselves being drawn into Haru's true purpose on Earth: to find - and catch - another member of his race whose presence on the planet is about to cause major problem for Enoshima's residents. And all the while they're being observed by Akira, turban-wearing member of anti-alien taskforce DUCK...
My immediate reaction on watching the first episode of this was, "what the hell did I just watch..!?". Then, a more considered reaction: a new transfer student with panic issues meets two new friends, one of them a tad grumpy, and discovers a shared hobby? Wasn't noitaminA doing that already this season (and far better, too) in Kids on the Slope?? Well, yes, and no. First, jazz and fishing aren't quite the same thing, and second, while Kids on the Slope is firmly grounded in everyday life, Tsuritama is just downright strange. From the aquatic theme of Yuki's panic attacks, to Haru's talking fish (which later turns out to be his big sister, Koko - and yes, she's loco), to a mind-control water-pistol (I want one...), and a "Man in Black" whose turban makes him look less like an Indian and more like someone in a bad Indian disguise, there's a lot here that could be considered abnormal. While the setting is real-world enough, there's a large sense of the surreal about a lot of what the characters get up to that I found to be more offputting than endearing - at least until the series gets around to properly explaining what's going on.
Which doesn't happen quickly. The early half of the series sticks firmly to the fishing theme, with Natsuki taking Yuki and Haru under his wing and teaching them the basics. This gives us such "joys" as an entire episode devoted to learning how to cast properly - done in a suitably oddball way, of course, but not what you could really call exciting. Come the second half of the show, things start falling into place and the reason why so much time was spent on what seem to be trivialities becomes clear, but there's a fair chance you'd already have lost interest before getting to that point.
The cast don't exactly help. Haru is downright annoying for most of the show, a fairly major flaw when he's the one who'll have to save the world; Natsuki's reticence makes it hard to get any feel for the character and makes him unlikeable; and Yuki's panic attacks are portrayed in a way that's annoying to watch. Things are better on the female front - Keito is a veritable joy, bringing a large does of common sense to Yuki's life, there's something about Koko that make her fun to watch, and Natsuki's little sister Sakura gets a decent showing, too - but none of them get enough screentime to really make an impact on the story. It's definitely a show where the boys are the stars.
In a way, the highlight is Akira, his duck, and the maneuverings of DUCK to prevent what they see as imminent disaster. When you're used to the Men in Black being portrayed in the style of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the garishness, flamboyancy and undeniable silliness of DUCK - even when compared to the rest of what goes on in Tsuritama - is like a breath of fresh air.
Ultimately, it's fun as far as it goes, but never really grabbed me enough to make me ever want to see the next episode. It's one of those shows that you'd be happy enough to sit and watch if it was on, but probably wouldn't make the effort to specifically hunt down - which is okay if you're watching on TV, but when you have to go and fire up the stream each week doesn't work quite so well. Moderately enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable.
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