Warm and a bit spicy: A review of Komada – A Whisky Family

I buy my whisky from Masters of Malt (which has an excellent whisky Santa, btw) and they’re an English company. I’m Scottish.

And yet, I’m not sure I recall Scotland getting mentioned once in Komada – A Whisky Family. Despite several characters being, you know, whisky fans.

It looks like I can forgive Masayuki Yoshihara and P.A. Works for not giving my home enough love, and even for persuading me to pour a glass or two tonight when I shouldn’t because I enjoyed the slice of life that is Komada – A Whisky Family. This feature-length and Annecy Festival nominee finished the Saturday line up of anime at Scotland Loves Anime.

Plot

We start with a mopey-looking Kotaro Takahasho as the uninspiring and frustrating youth autopilots himself to quitting a good job.

Somehow, this slug has landed a job as a reporter for an online news site (you can tell this is fantasy if news sites have money to hire people), his 5th job in as many years, gets assigned to write about whisky and thinks about quitting instead.

He botches the interview he’s given, and does this without even needing to ask any questions because his too-good-for-him boss lines up an expert for him to ask those questions.

That expert is Rui Komada.

Rui is or was a whisky darling who came up with one good blend, making news. As the plot develops, we find that Rui has picked up her struggling family distillery and a battle to make KOMA, the distillery’s once-abandoned signature label.

Yep, you guessed it. Kotaro finds the motivation in this story and the people involved to grow a spine, think about other people, and do something good. It turns out you do good; you feel good.

However, it’s not easy, and whisky-making is an art-meets-science.

Look and Feel

Have you ever noticed how the food scenes in anime always look great? Komada – A Whisky Family avoids the temptation to do whisky splash porn or other visual gimmicks. In fact, the illustrated and animated whisky looks rather vanilla.

The characters, though, look blockbuster. This slice of life could have gone for a cheaper style but instead illustrates the quality you’d expect from a Gundam blockbuster. In particular, the scenery, architecture and machines look great. I wonder if the distilleries featured are real places in Japan, perhaps even helped fund the film, and therefore had to be illustrated with the care that whisky is blended.

There’s some tension in the Komada family. Families are, after all, a blend. Sometimes, we compliment each other; sometimes, we clash. Perhaps it takes a mixer to offset the two and find harmony again?

Overall

Komada – A Whisky Family would be a good wholesome story to show young adults had it not been for, you know, the high volume spirits.

As an advert, I think it breaks some UK rules (associating young people with booze for one) but as a story, the Whisky Family is safe and steady. You won’t be surprised as the story unfolds, but I think you’ll be satisfied. I was.

Overall? Recommended, but perhaps not one to go out of your way for.