Fujimoto Tatsuki 17-26

It genuinely felt like watching a master at work. Every segment carried its own weight, its own rhythm, like each story was a different room in the same vast mansion. One moment I was smiling at something soft and tender, the kind of romance that lingers quietly in your chest long after it ends. The next, I was staring at something completely unhinged, surreal to the point where it stopped trying to make sense and instead demanded to be felt. There was confidence in that contrast. The kind that only comes from someone who understands storytelling deeply enough to bend it without breaking it.

What impressed ... me most was the range. These were not variations of the same idea wearing different costumes. They were distinct worlds, distinct emotions, distinct obsessions. Cute did not feel cheap. Absurd did not feel random. Even the strangest concepts had intention behind them, like they were daring the audience to keep up rather than holding their hand.

I kept thinking how perfectly these would translate into anime. Each story felt episodic yet complete, like a short series you could binge in one night and still think about the next morning. Different art styles, different soundtracks, different opening themes. I would have watched all of them back to back without hesitation.

This review is written by two people; my watching partner's at the top, and mine (account owner) at the bottom.
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17-26 is an anthology series done by multiple animation studios with the goal of adapting fujimotos one shots from age 17 to 26. It is pretty rare to see this happen nowadays in anime, so I am glad that the industry’s love for fujimoto has yielded fun and varied results.

If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to show my writing from when I was 17 years of age, I would tell them to shoot. So from the start I think ... this anthology is pretty vulnerable in regards to that. Some works are rougher around the edges, with simple plots or a failure to empathize enough with female characters, but it is nice to see the stuff that an author likes, what themes and images appeal to them. This anthology is a very nice way to show fujimoto’s passions as an artist, and seeing him grow more confident (and weirder) in his work is a delight.

Since this is an anthology and it is not necessary to watch it in order, I’d recommend the three last ones, but there’s no harm in watching them all, so have fun!!
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Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26 is exactly what it is; an animated collection of Fujimoto’s earliest short stories, for better and for worse.

Each episode is done by a different set of staff, so animation quality differs from episode to episode. Overall, though, everything still looks great--it’s a Fujimoto adaptation afterall, and he doesn’t get badly animated ones. (Seriously, did he make a contract with the animation industry devil?) I have some qualms regarding character design for certain episodes and camera composition for others, but artistically, none of these are truly bad--just not as interesting as some others. The OST is alright.

Individually, the stories themselves range from meh to really good, as things in an anthology tend to be. You really really can tell that some of these are early stories, and some stories make it really clear why editors are important. It’s his early work, so obviously not all of them are perfect, but its interesting to see the threads and pieces of what would culminate into later works. It’s wonderful that the shorts get better as you go on, as Fujimoto becomes a better storyteller with practice. Things become less generic and more weird, in that deeply Fujimoto-way.

Fujimoto fans will definitely appreciate this collection, but I don’t think its a great recommendation to someone who isn’t familiar with his works. While the animation is mostly fine, the strength of the stories themselves aren’t strong enough for me to recommend to anybody who isn’t already a fan. We’re essentially looking at a high definition of Fujimoto’s sketchbook, and while that’ll interest a pre-existing audiences, new or unfamiliar fans will have a better time with his complete “paintings” (Chainsaw Man, Goodbye Eri, Lookback). Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26 is a wonderful romp through Fujimoto’s art, but it’s not much more than that.

If no one else is going to offer actual criticism, I suppose I'll have to do it myself:

Improv storytelling in an anthology of 8 completely unrelated short story animations. (missed opportunity for interconnected depth)

The source material stories feel like rough draft story ideas cranked out when the mangaka couldn't think of anything worthwhile to do with them, sticking them here with no narrative reasoning behind these being collected together, nor their ordering. As it turns out these were all completely separate one-shot publications from much of the author's earliest work starting from when he was a teenager, which were since republished in 2021 compiled together ... in chronological order (not because of their merit but to cash in on the coattails of successful publications by the mangaka). It's no wonder the source material mangas aren't popular: juvenile quantity over quality.

The art/animation is high budget, far in excess of what the stories merit. This is effectively throwing money at the wall for a dual-release ad to cash in next to the Chainsawman movie, both sharing contribution by MAPPA & mangaka. But of course high budget art/animation means: "10/10, I like it when the pretty colors go by."

There are some characters who serve no purpose in the story and would've been better off cut or given an actual role/arc: ep1 "It's not cause I like you or anything!" tsundere cliche, ep4 parents+maid, ep5 father. But the adapters are doubtlessly afraid of exercising any creativity to make obvious improvements on the source material with changes because as you k-no: "different bad".

There are a ton of overly cliched plotlines where it's effectively cringe otaku humor of most (non)comedy (shit-post) anime of just doing the cliched tropes because 'haha cliched trope is funny errytyme': ep1 baka shonen slop, ep2 hentai plot + 'naw, I'd win', ep3 the same shitty romcom (non)joke cliche on repeat, ep4 vampire cliche, ep5 artist's self-insert monster-guro harem VN, ep6 terf hentai plot, ep7 loli demon lord cliche, ep8 artist's anime-girl self-insert lesbian incest hentai plot. (no I will not give you the H numbers)

There's very little depth to any of these stories. What few morals can be gleamed are shitty lessons for bad people: megalomanic wishful-thinking, skip school for toxic romance, sexism, remember to beat your kids, revenge porn of children is totally fine and legal stop complaining to adults, communication is bad an' remember: fambily.

Aside from some mostly derivative pianistry in ep5, the musak was uninteresting and almost exclusively filler noise for the slow credits.

There's not much to be said about something so vapid. It's dumb fun spectacle over substance. Some of the shorts were okay despite their flaws. I'd expect them to be quite hit or miss for most people. For me Mermaid Rhapsody was best: 5>>2>8>4>6=7=1=3.

4/10 (where 5/10 is average)