Name(s): The Tatami Galaxy / Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei / Yojo-Han Shinwa Taikei / Yojou-Han Shinwa Taikei / Yojohan Shinwa Taikei / 四畳半神話大系
Format: TV series (11 22-minute episodes)
Release Date(s): April 22, 2010 – July 1, 2010
Studio(s): Madhouse

The Tatami Galaxy is incredibly frustrating to me. I want to go into more detail sometime, but what should’ve been a show perfect for me on paper ended up being a disappointment. I found the presentation to be overbearing and obnoxious, and the neuroses of the main character‘s narration was taken too far for me to relate to. It’s all a bunch of extremes in images and characterizations, a lot of random imagery, and empty metaphors . It all ended up being very alienating to me, as well as mostly unmoving. I’ve had the shell of a lot of these experiences, but it doesn’t capture what my heart went through.

The pacing of the dialogue and subtitles were a goddamn headache to keep up with. Yes, I know it’s intentional. I’m not an idiot. But the intended original effect of only being able to keep up with small parts of the script just does not work in a written format. When someone’s talking very quickly at you, you generally process bits and pieces of what they’re saying. If you’re told to read something but only have a limited time to do so, then what you retain can necessarily only come from what you were able to read.

There is a major difference from picking up certain keywords in speech and constructing an abstract idea of what is being expressed, and only being able to read the first part of a sentence. The former has all of the information but it’s difficult to process, whereas the latter is missing information and cannot be processed. I suspect the language barrier factors into this somewhat as well, as English and Japanese sentence structure differs when it comes to when subjects are introduced in a sentence, as well as the amount of context they’re provided. English sentences often contain more words, likely increasing the challenge of keeping up with the subtitles more than what was intended with the original Japanese audio.

There are defenders of this series that will retort with ideas like “you’re not meant to completely read every subtitle” (see above as for why that doesn’t work in English), or “I had no problems reading every subtitle.” These are irreconcilable when it comes to establishing artistic intent. If you kept up with them, good job. Regardless of whether or not I believe you, however, does it not mean you didn’t engage with the material as was intended? If you believe you did, do you think those claiming you’re not supposed to read all the text are wrong?

I don’t think anyone could reasonably argue that the ultimate goal of the narrative isn’t to put you inside the mind of its narrator, and if you’re doing so in a way that adequately organizes and processes all of their thoughts, then you’re incongruous with what the delivery seems to be implying, which is that the main character’s internal monologue is neurotic, nervous, and hung up on inconsequential details.

Neither approach seems ideal to me. Something is always lost. Until that’s addressed, I believe there’s at the very least some flaws intrinsic to The Tatami Galaxy due to the compromised way it has been brought to English audiences. A dub could address some (or even all) of these issues, but to my knowledge an English one wasn’t made. So that sucks.

Regardless, I respect what its trying to accomplish, and that it’s a daring, original show. But I disagree with much of its execution. Maybe I’ll give it another shot some day.

Oh, and just for the record: the three bonus specials are fucking horrible.