Touka Gettan is part of the “WTF am I watching!?”-series. From the creators of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito comes an equally eccentric series that will have just about everyone confused as hell in the first five episodes. Its big selling point is of course that the episode aired backwards: it starts with the conclusion and ends with the introduction.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

In any case, it’s definitely an interesting and unique experience watching this series. The first five episodes are a complete mindscrew, with just about everything not making any sense because the lack of explanation that was supposed to have happened “earlier” on in the series. After that though, the series slows down and becomes episodic, and starts resembling your average school series with episodes like the Christmas episode, beach episode, et cetera, as we see the daily lives of the lead characters play out.

It might seem boring, but don’t worry, because the filler parts really manage to flesh out the characters, and the serious parts really give you the opportunity to try and connect everything that happened, watching the different characters develop backwards throughout time. The character-development is ranges from subtle to in-your-face, so you’re going to have to pay a lot of attention to get every single detail. Since you know how the characters are going to end up, it definitely has an interesting effect to see their past selves considering the sad and downright screwed up situations that they’re going to end up in.

If I had to praise this series for one thing though, then it’s its creativity. Let alone its idea to reverse the episodes, the cast of characters feels fresh and has a lot of original quirks (I especially loved the car jokes) and a lot of creative episodes (I especially liked what can be considered as the lost episode of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. It fits EXACLTY), but there also are episodes that take on the form of a theatre play and even an TV-show. From the outside, this series may consist out of a lot of boring fillers, but they hardly ever leave you bored or uninterested.

That’s not to say that Touka Gettan is without its flaws, unfortunately; it’s full of ‘em. It could have been much better paced and the continuity is pretty much a mess. The creators like to randomly let characters appear and disappear without any good reason, and some plot twists just seem to happen for the heck of it, rather than there being a good explanation for them. Considering how difficult it already is to keep track of the different characters in this show, an extra addition of plot-holes really DO NOT HELP.

Then there’s the excessive amount of fanservice in this series. I know that it’s there to add to the style of this series, but the creators really tend to take this overboard at times. The characters themselves also tend to lack background. While watching this series, you obviously won’t know which ones have proper background and which haven’t, but a lot of the characters could have been much better if we actually knew who they were in the end.

So yeah, Touka Gettan is too rough around the edges to really make an impact: it could have handled its unique format much better with a much tighter direction. Nevertheless, when it comes to entertainment and keeping its audience busy, it does exactly what it needs to do. It’s pretty much like Yamibou: it’s not exactly a great example of storytelling, but worth watching just for the character interaction and the ideas thrown into it.

Okay, so that play turned out to be utterly terrible, but then again that was most likely the intention of the creators. I don’t want to know how stupid I looked when I performed as a kid in the plays we had in elementary school.

Anyway, this episode starts with a little recap of what happened in the previous episode, with the play getting cancelled and Henderson temporarily suspended and all. Anne overhears this, and tells it to the others who are pretty shocked. Mildred starts feeling guilty, and when Micheal notes that it was indeed her whining that caused her mother to overreact, she really gets defensive.

Henderson then calls them to class, with the message that the play is getting called off, and she’s suspended. She then continues with some boring speech about morals and chasing your dreams that I don’t want to summarize.

The new teacher then arrives and takes over, though we never get to see him teach. After class, everyone is down because the play is cancelled. They’re thinking of throwing away the props they made, but that would be a waste as well. Anne then suggests that even though the play was cancelled for school, they could still perform it in order to show the adults that Henderson is right.

Meanwhile, Mildred tries to talk to Henderson but runs away a the last minute. Henderson tries to stop her, and since she knows that Mildred’s anger at the role decisions was what caused the play to be cancelled, she tries to make Mildred feel better, instead of scolding her. This doesn’t work however, because she never seemed to know that Mildred was jealous of how much attention Henderson gave to Anne instead of her. Mildred breaks down, and when Henderson tries to hug her, she runs away to her parents.

We then see Henderson as she drops by Eggman’s place, probably for moral support. What follows is yet another boring speech on morals that I again don’t want to summarize.

The next day, the kids are thinking of a place they can perform their play, since the school has become off-limits. Randolf then comes with the idea: at the church! Yeah. They quickly gather everyone and the necessary props and costumes. Anne runs off to Eggman to tell him about this plan, when it seems that Henderson has been bugging him again in her worries of what to do next. And so she learns of the plans to continue the play, even though it was supposed to be a secret for her to not get her in trouble.

At the church, everyone is in costume, but at the same time they’re too scared to go on stage. Nobody really has the courage when the moment comes there, but Mildred arrives and saves the day by announcing the play to everyone sitting in the church. Reluctantly everyone arrives, but everyone is way too scared to read their lines. Anne however is different and she starts reciting until Mildred’s parents arrive and see what’s going on.

What follows is YET ANOTHER boring speech on morals that eventually gets enough funds for the library, and I again don’t want to summarize it.

As much as I’m a fan of the World Masterpiece Theatre series, I do have to admit that they can be divided into two categories: First Tier and Second Tier. the first tier is everything the franchise is supposed to be: incredibly realistic characters and they stand on their own as unique and touching series. Examples of those (that I watched anyway) are Perrine Monogatari, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess Sara, Les Miserables and Porfy no Nagai Tabi. These are the series that made me fall in love with this wonderful franchise.

Then there is the second tier, which can usually be recognized by one thing: cheese. Perhaps the characters aren’t fleshed out enough, they don’t mix well with the storyline, or the direction is simply flawed. Either way, the dramatic scenes are very hard to buy and are laughable, rather than charming and touching. The Trapp Monogatari for example is a bit too full of teenaged angst (especially Hedwig delivered them with buckets at the time), Ie Naki Ko had its very generic finale and Anne of Green Gables unfortunately also belongs to this category after the Marysville arc.

And believe me, these series are nowhere near bad: they achieve things that a lot of series couldn’t even hope of achieving: Trapp, despite the angst, has some of the most realistic angst out there. Ie Naki Ko was incredibly heart-warming at times and did have its moment of brilliance, and Konnichiwa Anne had its first ten episodes. However, the standard for the World Masterpiece Theatre is high. These series are enjoyable, but nowhere near the masterpieces of the First Tier.

In this episode, it was Mildred who surprised me the most. I’m happy to see that she finally managed to completely cast her shell away as a rip-off from the Emily of the New Moon universe, and established herself as a character of her own. I also liked that scene in which Anne tried to tell Eggman about the play, while she didn’t know that Henderson was listening.

It would have been nice and all, but what really bugged me in this episode was that the moral lessons just WOULDN’T SHUT THE HELL UP. The creators really tried to shove their cheesy morals down our throats over and over. I know that it’s supposed to be a children’s show and all, but I doubt that even kids are going to appreciate being told these life lessons. What made it even worse was the downright cheesy reaction of all the adults who were at the church. I mean, people were living in a strict Christian environment, as shown in the early episodes of Anne of Green Gables. I find it hard to believe that the library issue would be solved that easily. It was of course awesome to see the kids trying to gather their courage, but they would probably just have been sent away before they would have been able to come up with that cheesy speech of theirs.

And it’s not like this series can’t produce good filler episodes either. The episode in the beginning of this series, in which Anne was invited to play with that rich spoiled little kid was downright awesome. Very witty and it had a great characterization. The past few episodes have just been dull and boring due to Henderson’s moral ramblings that just went on and on and on. And on.
Rating: - (Disappointing)