Review of Taisho Otome Fairy Tale
This anime is the story set during the Taisho era of a young man named Shima Tamahiko and his fiancé, Tachibana Yuzuki. The anime begins with Tamahiko having lost everything and fallen into despair. However, thanks to Yuzuki he’s slowly able to regain his happiness, and more importantly he’s able to regain the strength of will to seek his own happiness and the happiness of others. Yuzuki was originally only someone that was forced into being with Tamashiko, but over time they form an incredibly powerful bond that withstands several major trials. This anime is an adaptation of what is one of my favorite manga series.And although this anime is good in and of itself, compared to the anime I can’t help but be disappointed. The manga is five volumes long and this anime kind of adapts the entire thing. I say kind of because it skips quite a lot including almost the entire final arc. However, the writers of the anime forced a key character beat from the climax of the final arc of the manga, into the climax of what is the final arc in the anime. As such, there is an element of finality here.
That certainly isn’t the only thing moved around however. Rather, there are two especially intense arcs in this manga. One about halfway through, the earthquake arc, and another as the finale. The anime moves things around so that the earthquake arc is shifted to the end of the anime. As such, the anime has all of the less intense and more light hearted parts in one straight shot. This significantly hurts the pacing. Furthermore, the earthquake arc is supposed to set the stage for what follows in terms of Tamahiko’s character arc and Tamahiko and Yuzuki’s relationship development. Moving it to later in the anime results in having to write around a bunch of character beats and the end result is always at least somewhat worse.
On top of that, leaving aside the entirely skipped final arc, there are a lot of omissions throughout the anime. Ultimately, it feels like the anime was focused only on one thing and was willing to completely restructure everything in order to emphasize that one thing. And that one thing is how great Yuzuki is. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Yuzuki as a character. She’s incredibly sweet, loyal, and dedicated and brings out the best in others, especially Tamahiko. And this anime managing to convey how amazing she is is well enough to make it an enjoyable watch.
However, that’s nowhere near all the manga had going for it, and everything else in the anime is lacking. While you do get some of Tamahiko’s character arc, the anime almost completely skips over his relationship with his family, the impact that has on him, and how he overcomes it. While most of that was concentrated to the final arc which was completely skipped over, there’s a lot of small stuff throughout that was skipped as well. For example, Tamahiko making up with his sister, Tamako, wasn’t fleshed out nearly as well in the anime. The final arc is also where all of Yuzuha’s growth is in the manga, so due to that being skipped she doesn’t grow at all in the anime despite being focused on so much.
The stories of the other friends that Tamahiko and Yuzuha make are also incredibly underdeveloped and often really messy. For example, the arc focused on a girl named Ryou involves her doing some pretty terrible things to Tamahiko and Yuzuha. In the manga this arc occurs right before the earthquake arc, and that arc serves as the foundation for her being forgiven. But in the anime the earthquake arc takes place much later but they still need to get them back on good terms for the arcs that should happen after the earthquake arc, so she gets forgiven way too easily.
The arc focused on Tamahiko beginning school again and becoming friends with a groups of twins, Kotori and Hakaru, is incredibly rushed and doesn’t hit nearly as hard. It also doesn’t fit as well with Tamahiko’s character arc because originally in the manga it occurs after the earthquake arc and it requires character growth he gets from the earthquake arc. However, in the anime it takes place before the earthquake arc, so the writers kind of have to force it in. As a result, because this arc essentially shows the Tamahiko who has already gone through the character growth that should come about as a result of the earthquake arc, Tamahiko’s actions during the earthquake arc that should be where he first demonstrates character growth have less of an impact.
The anime also skips or rushed through a lot of the scenes focused on Tamako, Ryou, and Kotori independent of Tamahiko. Each of them have their own stories, which although not all that complex or deep, do help flesh them out. Without those scenes they lack depth as characters. On top of that, the three of them also become great friends with Yuzuha and each other, but the anime skips over most all the time they spend bonding. As a result the anime overall just feels more hollow.
With all that said, I would like to reiterate that the anime is still good. While Tamahiko’s character arc isn’t as good as in the manga, it is still an excellent story of a man who has become a complete loser picking himself up and trying to make something of himself. And as mentioned, Yuzuha is absolutely amazing and the relationship fluff there is between her and Tamahiko is adorable and really sweet. And while the ending may certainly be messy compared to the manga, it is still a pretty satisfying way to end.
The art is pretty good and the designs are nice if you like the Taishou era. I think the art in the manga was better though. The OP and ED are both solid enough in terms of the songs and visuals. The soundtrack was also mostly just decent, but the insert songs and how they were used was great.
tl;dr: A romance manga where the protagonist has a great character arc, that although not as great as the manga is still very good.