The Tatami Time Machine Blues

The Tatami Time Machine Blues was released in 2022 as an ONA series produced by the animation studio Science SARU. It serves as a narrative successor to the acclaimed 2010 series The Tatami Galaxy, based on the novel by Tomihiko Morimi. The project was commissioned to adapt the 2020 sequel novel, which itself was inspired by the stage play European Time Machine by Makoto Ueda, marking a unique cross-media collaboration between the author and the playwright to revitalize the story's surreal, loop-based exploration of student life in Kyoto.

The series was directed by Shingo Natsume, who aimed to maintain the frantic, verbose, and visually distinctive aesthetic established by Masaaki Yuasa in the original adaptation. The design process focused on translating the complex, layered perspective of the source material into a cohesive animated format while integrating new digital techniques. Upon its release, it was received as a thoughtful, low-stakes expansion of the original's themes, praised for its faithfulness to the character dynamics and the distinct, fast-paced literary wit of Morimi's writing.