"The vast ocean of words. Without a means to cross the ocean, we can only stand and watch, keeping the words inside we desperately want to express. A dictionary is a ship that is able to cross that ocean."This is the beginning of the 2016 anime "The Great Passage." Anime is known for adapting an incredibly wide variety of stories and scenarios, from escapist fantasies and science fiction epics, to portrayals of everyday jobs and relationships, with a very Japanese perspective of appreciating small details and conveying them with intense emotion (all in a cartoon, no less). This can lead to inspired but unusual choices. In this case, "The Great Pasasge" is a drama set in everyday modern Japan, about a small team at a publishing company, setting out to develop a new Japanese dictionary. ... a dictionary. In 2016, that seems especially antiquated, in an era when most people search the word they're looking for in Google.com to check its meaning and spelling. Even as a kid, when a dictionary was an important part of any home library... a thick text of millions of words, definitions and pronounciations is incredibly dry, and a horrible topic for a compelling story. So why is "The Great Passage" so darn good?The series is based on an award-winning 2011 novel by Shion Miura, which had already been adapted into a live-action film, so the show's writing comes from quality. The anime also makes good use of abstract dreams that convey the thoughts and hardships of main character Mitsuya Majime, taking advantage of the medium in a manner that makes it difficult to imagine the story being as effective elsewhere. And as expected, Japan has a great appreciation in all things, especially objects of tradition and function; the show has a great love for dictionaries. Even though it's specifically about Japanese dictionaries and words, complete with anedotes about famous historical publications in the "genre," I was still captivated enough to follow along (being about dictionaries in a foreign language was one of my biggest concerns, but this fear was unwarrented). The series was originally regulated to Amazon Prime, a streaming service competing against Netflix, at a time when anime seemed to be getting a lot of attention from mainstream companies for it's growing appeal and acceptance (or at least, for proven market research of its resiliance within dedicated otaku-fans). Virtually no one subscribed to Amazon Prime's video library, so virtually no one had seen the series, and like most "exclusive-to-one-streaming-service" shows, it seemed doomed to never be released outside, be it on home video or otherwise. Miraculously, Discotek released the series in North America on Bluray, being one of the only American distributors without ties or agendas towards an existing streaming service, and thus being one of the only companies who'd see value in a small physical print-run without being coupled to a streaming license (without further evidence, this is assumed to be the main reason why companies rarely bother to license anime solely for a physical release anymore). Discotek, I love you, and hope you never go away.It helps to understand some appreciation towards dictionaries in Japan, although the series introduces all of this for new viewers. Unlike other countries, Japanese dictionaries aren't sponsored by public institutions, and have multiple well-regarded reference-books by independent writers and publishers. There are multuple famous example texts, well beyond the generic pocket book a child might get for school. Some are old, with words and definitions long out of date to modern culture. Some focus on defining new words, some on modern slang, some on cultural phrases... language is constantly evolving, and new dictionaries are necessary to suit the times. Even that old "Merriam-Webster" English dictionary needs a revision every now and then. In this way, many Japanese publications are considered to have their place, each with a unique tone and personality in the words they choose and how they define them."The Great Passage" is about an editing team, dedicated to writing a new, complete, but efficient dictionary for modern times. It's a small team, considered a nusance by its publishing house, for the amount of time and money required to publish yet another dictionary. At the start of the show, it consists of four members, one of whom is a contract worker/secretary, and two are senior members on the verge of retirement. This is when Majime is discovered and brought in: originally on the marketing team, his awkward and literal personality makes him a horrible fit for it, but an oddly perfect fit for editing dictionaries and its vocabulary. Nishioka is the only other full-time employee his age, and slacks and complains about the mundane work, but also has a talent dealing with external managers and marketing. The pair make a great team, and are the main characters of the ensemble cast. 
This new dictionary is compared to "a new ship that will help guide readers across the ocean of words." It's not an easy task however; already part-way through when Majime joins the crew, they understand the project could take over 10 years to complete. In fact, it takes over 13 years, and thanks to a time-skip midway through the series, the viewers see the final result. There are a few scenes that convey the thought process of the details that go into the dictionary: choosing the words, defintions, what words to leave out, and even things like page layout, column size, and paper (a custom paper is developed, specifically to increase the amount of words by about 5%... Majime is picky though, about the texture, weight and strength, much to the dismay of the manufacturer's representative). However, most of the story in "The Great Passage" is about the drama, relationships, and even romance, that the cast goes through in their daily lives, over the course of a decade. Majime, normally a bookworm and shut-in, is good friends with his elderly landlord, who happens to have a granddaughter his age that he makes a connection with. Nishioka has a secret lover in a different department of the same company, whom he teases (perhaps too much so, but lovingly). They talk about their lives, their work, and their struggle to justify the dictionary's development within their company. It's all somewhat by the numbers and predictable, and doesn't go into some details of the industry as much as I'd like (for example, the struggles of a publishing house in the age of the Internet, or the relevance of dictionaries after Google and Wikipedia). But having likable and relatable adult characters, as well as such great writing within the context of the story, elevates it all. I enjoyed watching the series to see how it'd play out.... again, this is a story about writing a dictionary. Of course it isn't as fun as most other anime, but I was blown away to have felt invested at all! Workplace-drama anime can struggle to keep a viewer's attention or interest, even when discussing industries of great interest to the specific viewer (I'm looking at you, "Shirobako"). By any measure, "The Great Passage" is an achievement. It helps signifcantly that the production values are as solid as they are. You'd think there'd be nothing to animate in a series about salarymen editing text at a desk all day, but on the contrary! A handful of scenes, boh in the office and in dream sequenecs in Majime's mind, are animated with great detail and care, sometimes with enough abstraction to feel artful. It's rare to see anime that doesn't feature teenagers in sailor-school-uniforms, so the more mature character designs were well appreciated, as well as how they weren't designed to be overtly handsome or pretty (especially in the case of unlikely main character Majime). Offices and environments are detailed and feel lived in, with attention to lighting and layout. The music is pretty good too, with a catchy opening and ending theme, and a couple memorable main themes that play in the score. It's worth noting that Discotek's release comes on a single Bluray disc, with Japanese dub only (no English dub), and English subtitles that can't be removed upon viewing. The acting is good, so I have no qualms about it, and for a series about Japanese words and contexts, it'd seem silly to translate to English speech. The video quality, despite being squeezed on one disc, is also fine. However, the subtitles have a major bug where, more than once, a long line of text isn't correctly separated into two lines, cutting off both the beginning and ending of the text from the screen. It's a pretty massive blunder, especially from Discotek of all companies (otherwise known for attention to detail in their disc quality). I don't know if Amazon's original stream had this issue, and don't know for certain if the text is "burned in" to the disc's video, making it truly inseparable even by savvy tech specialists. Anyway, the issue is like catching a handful of spelling mistakes in a dictionary of millions of words: it's noticable and important, but mostly just embarrassing, and doesn't completely ruin the viewer's ability to follow the story. Anime about everyday life, especially about everyday jobs, can be purposely mundane, despite the passion and emotional attachment the creators attempt to weave in. Among them, I'd recommend "The Great Passage" as an example of the genre done right. Not just for being a successful and engaging, mature drama, but for being so against all odds; who says writing a dictionary is boring?