Tsuritama is a show about a young teenaged boy named Yuki Sanada who has just moved with his moderately attractive grandmother to a small island called Enoshima.  Yuki has some social problems where he gets really nervous when in front of large groups to the point where he freezes up and has a facial expression that makes him look like Carrot-Top and often ends up running out of the room crying (again just like Carrot-Top).  They aren't the only two people to move into town as we also have Haru (last name unknown) who is a self proclaimed alien that carries around a fishing rod but sadly Haru has nowhere to stay.  While walking around he manages to run into Yuki's moderately attractive grandma while she is unpacking and asks if he could move in with them.  She accepts but Yuki is unaware of this as he is at school while this conversation was taking place.  Haru arrives late and sits next to Yuki in his nervous Carrot-Top state and sprays him in the face with his water pistol that he carries around. After Yuki awakens from getting sprayed he finds that time has suddenly flown by and he is dancing in front of the whole class and gets sprayed again.  Yuki gets freaked out wondering why he keeps passing out and gets sprayed again.  Turns out that Haru was telling the truth and is in fact a real alien and he uses water to control people.  The reason he is on Earth is to find someone to go fishing with but doesn't tell Yuki why fishing is important for Haru's mission.  Sadly Yuki and Haru are very clueless about fishing so they go to the bait shop and run into one of their other classmates named Natsuki Usami who is an expert fisherman to the point where he has the nickname "The Fishing Prince".  Yuki and Haru ask Natsuki to teach them to fish and thus begins our adventure in what I like to call "Fishing With the Alien" (a title that parodies the classic album "Surfing With the Alien" by Joe Satriani).  Did I forget to mention that Haru is also being watched by an investigator with a pet duck (like the Men In Black but with a duck) called Duck?  Looks like Haru is going to need a bigger boat.  (Click "Read More" to read the full review). 

As you could tell from the description that the concept for this show is very out there in terms of weirdness.  This show also takes a gamble and while it sounds bizarre on paper it can easily be executed very poorly to the point of being very dull and boring.  Thank goodness this show did enough right to be considered pretty exciting although it does start off pretty slow to the point where they should've squeezed episode two-three into one episode (hence why I used the word "enough").  This show also has you guessing to what on Earth Haru is after and it surprisingly builds up suspense really well.  The characters in this show are decent but they too start off very rough with some very annoying personalities but they do grow on you and become less annoying.  I did say before that Yuki has social problems and when anime portrays social problems and especially when it comes to the main hero it normally comes off as very unrealistic, in this show however they do this in a much more realistic way where the type of problems he is going through are just like how any one of us would go through it.  This is a nice breath of fresh air to see a character with problems that I can relate to.  One thing about this show I do find a bit iffy is how people easily accept stuff in this without being somewhat suspicious of it being a hoax.  Like I can accept some character accepting this "alien" situation and especially the people that Haru has proved himself too but everybody believes Haru to be an alien without him proving himself.  Now they could just be acting polite so they won't offend him but they don't even have to listen to him to be convinced that he is an alien and it comes off as very unnatural and weird.

Artwork is pretty decent with nice solid character designs and some very colorful scenery that looks very beautiful.  No problems with the animation here as it is very smooth with nothing awkward going on with it.  English dub is okay but it can get annoying and obnoxious in some scenes but nothing too bad that will ruin the show for you.  Soundtrack was very nice with a very wacky and cool sound that helps add to the shows "far out" setting and atmosphere.

Not much in terms of special features as you only get text-less opening and closing credit sequences.  The opening credits was very nice to re-visit as it has some good visuals and a nice song to go along with it.  There isn't much going on in the closing credits but it also has a nice song which will be the main reason for you to re-visit that particular part of the special features.

Overall this show took a very boring concept (fishing), spiced it up and ended up being a very solid program.  I do recommend checking out this anime at least once.  Fairly solid viewing.

Title: Tsuritama