Tamako Market — BrandWiki

Tamako Market

native name	たまこまーけっと Tamako Māketto
genre	Comedy‡R1R‡
creator	Kyoto Animation
animator	Kyoto Animation
company	Kyoto Animation Pony Canyon TBS Usagiyama Shopping District
director	Naoko Yamada
producer	Riri Senami Shinichi Nakamura
writer	Reiko Yoshida Jukki Hanada
developer	Yukiko Horiguchi Reiko Yoshida
voices	Aya Suzaki Atsushi Tamaru Takumi Yamazaki Rina Hidaka Yuki Kaneko Juri Nagatsuma Yuri Yamashita
music	Tomoko Kataoka
open theme	"Dramatic Market Ride" by Aya Suzaki
end theme	"Neguse" by Aya Suzaki
country	Japan
language	Japanese
executive producer	Hideaki Hatta
cinematography	Rin Yamamoto
editor	Kengo Shigemura
runtime	24 minutes
first aired	January 10, 2013
last aired	March 28, 2013
num episodes	12
network	Tokyo MX Sun TV KBS TV Aichi BS11 Animax
list episodes	List of Tamako Market episodes
related	Tamako Love Story

Tamako Market is a Japanese anime television series produced by Kyoto Animation, directed by Naoko Yamada, and written by Reiko Yoshida. Tamako Market centers on a young girl named Tamako Kitashirakawa, the daughter of a mochi shop owner located inside a shopping district in Kyoto's Kamigyo Ward as her life becomes complicated with friendships, rivalries and the arrival of a peculiar bird, named Dera Mochimazzi, from a nearby tropical island.

The series aired in Japan between January 10 and March 28, 2013. The anime has been licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks and adapted into English. A film sequel, Tamako Love Story, premiered in Japan on April 26, 2014, paired with a short film titled Dera-chan of the Southern Islands. In 2023, Kyoto Animation announced a new project to celebrate the anime's 10th anniversary.[2] The Tamako Market series and the Tamako Love Story movie were later screened in theaters in June 2023.[3]

Plot

Tamako Kitashirakawa is the eldest daughter of a family which runs the Tama-ya

Characters

Main characters

Tamako Kitashirakawa (北白川たまこ)
[4]
The title character and the main protagonist of the series, Tamako is a kind, cheerful and somewhat clumsy first-year in high school whose family runs a mochi shop in their town's shopping district called Tama-ya. She enjoys her high school life and the baton club with her friends Kanna and Midori. She helps her family run the shop and invent new kinds of mochi. Her birthday is on New Year's Eve and is often forgotten due to the busy schedule, but Tamako devotes herself to helping in the shop. Tamako is nervous about public speaking and has problems swimming in addition to being somehow clumsy. Tamako is shown to be rather slow in catching up with some things, particularly regarding people's feelings about love. She is one of the few characters that does not know Mochizō has a crush on her, and she fails to pick up on her sister's crush. Tamako feeds Dera mochi on a regular basis, and she feeds him too much for his size, making him bloated and unable to fly properly.

Mochizō Ōji (大路もち蔵)
[4]
Mochizō is Tamako's childhood friend whose family also runs a mochi shop called Ōji-ya or in the new name Ricecake Oh!Zee, a mochi shop located across from Tama-ya. Though their fathers are not on good terms due to business competition, he and Tamako are good friends. He is in love with Tamako, and has been in love with her for a few years. Since their bedroom windows face each other, Mochizo and Tamako often talk via a "cup and string" system that he made when they were kids. He is shown to be nervous with public speaking, despite telling Tamako to let him take over speaking in the shopping district meeting. His name comes from the fact that he was born on Mochi Day (October 10).

Dera Mochimazzi (デラ・モチマッヅィ)
[4]
Dera is a bird that speaks Japanese, with a little bossy tone, that ends up staying at Tamako's house. He is a noble attendant for a royal court from a tropical island and was on journey to find a bride for its prince. However, after gaining an affinity for mochi, he has put on a lot of weight and thus cannot fly properly anymore, only being able to manage short distances before he runs out of breath. He is often just referred to as "Bird" (鳥) by Tamako's family, or simply "Dera-chan" (デラちゃん) by Tamako, as his surname sounds very similar to lit. "bad tasting mochi" (もちまずい). Dera maintains that he is rather versed in the ways of love, sometimes giving Mochizō and Midori love advice on their respective crushes on Tamako. Dera is rather full of himself as well, which usually stems from a series of misunderstandings. He believes anyone that sneezes in his direction is in love with him, he himself having a crush on Shiori. His body contains a communication system used by the prince to communicate with him, although it only works when Dera is unconscious, thus he has no memories of any time the prince attempts to contact him. In his unconscious state, he can also be hooked up to video devices and used like a projector.

Dera makes a cameo appearance inside a claw crane in the 2018 film Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Take on Me, set in the same universe as the anime series.[5]

Midori Tokiwa (常盤みどり)
[4]
Midori is Tamako's classmate and childhood friend, as well as captain of her school's Baton Club, which Tamako and Kanna are also members of. Her grandparents own and run a toy shop in the town's shopping district called Tokiwa-do. Midori loves and cares about Tamako so much that she gradually begins to think more and more about the nature of her feelings as romantic love. This ambiguity only intensifies towards the end of the series, when the plot begins to imply her equality to Mochizo in terms of attachment to Tamako.

Kanna Makino (牧野かんな)
[4]
Kanna is a high school student in the same year as her friends, Tamako and Midori, and is a member of the baton club. She is the daughter of a carpenter who works in the same shopping district as Tamako and her family. A relaxed and laid back girl, Kanna does not care what anyone else thinks and is not easily swayed, however she does have a fear of heights and appears to have an allergy of birds. Kanna is often portrayed as rather eccentric, and usually wears a straight and expressionless face despite being fun and a good friend. Kanna is the only character who knows about Midori’s potential feelings for Tamako, which she comments on with the words “everyone can love who they wants”.

Shiori Asagiri (朝霧史織)
[4]
Shiori is one of Tamako's classmates and a member of the badminton club. She is a knowledgeable and resourceful girl, with a serious, cool personality. However, it is shown that while she is quiet and often mistaken as distant, she is actually extremely shy and later becomes good friends with Tamako. Dera has fallen for her, though she does not reciprocate his feelings.

Kitashirakawa family

Anko Kitashirakawa (北白川あんこ)
[4]
Anko is Tamako's younger sister, who is in fourth grade. She is less practical than her older sister, and is a more fashion conscious girl. She often demands that she be called just "An", as she feels "Anko" is too childish. She is named after red bean paste.

Mamedai Kitashirakawa (北白川豆大)
[4]
Mamedai is Tamako's father, who runs the family's mochi shop. He has a rivalry with Gohei Ōji, and they are often seen in front of their shops arguing, to which Tamako and Mochizō have to resolve. Tamako's father is a traditionalist, and does not care much for special mochi. He often mocks the sign of Gohei's shop, Ricecake Oh!Zee, commenting that it is ridiculous.

Fuku Kitashirakawa (北白川福)

Ōji family

Gohei Ōji (大路吾平)
[4]
Gohei is Mochizō's father, who runs the Ōji-ya shop. While Tamako's father sees Mochizō as a spy whenever he enters his shop, Gohei is on friendly terms with Tamako, as they both greet each other normally whenever they meet. Tamako does not think that his shop's name is ridiculous, and she praises his new sign above the shop when it is installed. Gohei is highly inventive with his mochi, taking advantage of non-Japanese holidays such as Valentine's Day in order to make different types of special mochi. This is one of the main arguments he has with Tamako's father.

Michiko Ōji (大路道子)
[4]
Michiko is Mochizō's mother, who helps run the Ōji-ya shop. She is fully aware of her son's crush on Tamako.

Usagiyama shopkeepers

Kaoru Hanase (花瀬かおる)
[4]
Kaoru is a florist at a flower shop in the Usagiyama Shopping District.

Kunio Yaobi (八百比邦夫)
[4]
The owner of the record store in the Usagiyama Shopping District, who has a habit of putting on fitting records at appropriate times. He was once in a band with Mamedai.

Chōji Yumoto (湯本長治)
[4]

Mochimazzi royal family

Choi Mochimazzi (チョイ・モチマッヅィ)
[4]
Choi is a fortune teller from the southern island that Dera comes from who is sent to check up on Dera and help him search for a bride for the Prince. She ends up staying with Tamako until Dera's communication function can be fixed. She assumes that Tamako is the Prince's bride due to a mark on her neck. It is hinted that she has feelings for the Prince. Despite this, she is very diligent in her search for the Prince's bride.

Mecha Mochimazzi (メチャ・モチマッヅィ)
[4]
Mecha is a prince from the southern island that Dera comes from. He communicates through a projector that comes out of Dera's eyes, which usually goes unanswered as Dera's projections only work when he's unconscious, thus having no memory of the communications.