Tamayura: More Aggressive is a follow-up to Tamayura Hitotose. This anime continues the story of Potte and her friends where we left them.
If you did not see the first season, Potte is a young girl who recently lost her father, she and her family goes back to his homeland, a peaceful island where Potte lived when she was younger. There she tries to cope with her loss with the help of her family, her friends and her hobby: photography.
I initially picked up Tamayura Hitotose because I love photography as well, I then picked up Tamayura More Aggressive because I loved the atmosphere of the first seasons which somehow managed to become a light-hearted show while dealing with death.
I do not think there is any plot in this slice of life aside from following our main characters. The only leading threads are photography and how it helps Potte grow up and become more “aggressive”. In a way, the title was fitting, Potte is now searching for herself and to develop her hobby even more aggressively.
I love how our journey through photography is also a journey through the memories of her dad. If anything, I guess that this is what I found the most interesting thing of the whole anime. I like how it is not shown how sad everything is but how Potte transforms that sad event as an inspiration to grow her art and become a better photographer and a better person.
More than anything, this is an anime about searching oneself. I have found it very inspirational. I always wanted to take my camera and go out whenever I saw an episode of this series. And it is not only because I am a photographer as well, it is because the anime shows that every hobby is worthwhile and it is not because you have several of them or that they do not go well together that you have to stop pursuing them.
Always try your best in everything you do, that would be the moral of the story.
As in every slice of life, the really interesting thing or at least the thing that should get focused on are the characters.
The good thing in Tamayura is that no one is evil, that makes it one hell of a nice feel-good anime.
I find it a bit sad because not showing evil also means not showing all the real aspects of life, but at the same time, it would not be this good if it did.
Anyway, our main character’s name is Potte. Potte is a very shy girl and that is why she tries to become “more aggressive”, hell, she even tries to start a photography club. I have found her to be more focused on her dad and her memories of him in this season than in the first. I also think it is a good sign of her evolution and pretty realistic. That is another reason why I tolerated and even liked Potte, her shy and quiet personality is not exactly the kind of character I usually like.
As for the rest, well, I am lumping them together, not because they are similar but only because they are used almost only as tools to develop Potte. It is not completely a bad thing, everyone has their own personality and, it was especially true in the first season, everyone has been given some screen time despite them not being really deeply developed.
In short, you should watch Tamayura: More Aggressive if you are up for a nice feel-good anime.
