DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA DramaKono Oto Tomare!
ANIME DramaKono Oto Tomare! 2

REVIEWS

• 

  Whom

  50/100
  This is not my tune, but it's mine to use...

  A decent seasonal which never meets its full potential.

  Kono Oto Tomare could've been a heavyweight of last season (at least in retrospect) if it had a solid production backing and if it trimmed itself out so we didn't have to tread over the same territory over and over. The lackluster visuals are particularly hard to stomach in a music show of this kind...the musicians are not animated while playing their instruments, a thing which happens often in every episode. This is brutal, to say the least. It's not that this show glosses over the music, either. This isn't White Album 2 where music is primarily a backdrop for heavier drama. While this show certainly has other drama going on, the music in the front of the show's priorities. So much time is spent at performances, practices, planning what pieces to play, etc. It's an essential part of its soul, but it lets us down. Instead of fully animated playing, we get still frames with the camera shaking around. Instead of communicating the quality and emotional content of a performance through the music itself, we get constant sports anime style interruptions explaining why a character's tone is so good or saying "wow, they play so fast!" It's grating as hell and will take you out of it every time.

  Most of the potential conflict and drama is sorted out pretty early and that's fine in principle but this show doesn't seem to realize that's what happens. It doesn't settle into a calmer slice of life groove, doesn't introduce new conflict, nor does it meaningfully raise the stakes to test the extents of their growth. It makes no attempt to move into anything new after wrapping up its initial ambitions. Instead, the characters face trials that are...not all that different from their original ones. At the least, you would never have a sliver of doubt over how the characters will respond. All characters are strong personalities who are all fully set in stone within an episode or so of their introduction.

  My complaints are pretty severe, but I was telling people not to sleep on Kono Oto Tomare, and I still somewhat stand by that despite my overall impressions not being more than somewhat positive. When it comes down to it I always appreciate a show that's about good people who genuinely like each other. Not that friendship is foreign ground for anime to cover, far from, but friendship in Kono Oto Tomare is a sweet and gentle thing. All characters treasure it, nurture it, and put in the work to keep it alive. It's coming from a purely positive place, and I appreciate that. As time goes on I am more and more turned off by the cynicism and toxic irony which overflows from a lot of art, and anime is no exception. Kono Oto Tomare goes strongly against that and is almost overbearingly sincere and earnest. This show didn't live up to my expectations, but it's still something to appreciate. I'm happy I watched it.

  I'm also not sure what's in store for the continuation this Fall season. I don't see there being much more to work with, but I may well be proven wrong. I'm in for more anyway, they've earned that much.

  Strong 5/10. Let me do my own scoring system for reviews, cowards.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  chiyorinnn

  70/100
  "...a group of people with seemingly no common ground supporting each other by compensating for what the others lacked"

  There's a popular saying that floats around the anime community, "Don't judge an anime by its first episode!". Kono Oto Tomare! definitely necessitates this philosophy with its pilot's admittedly clumsy pacing. This is evidently a result of the large amount of backstory revealed in the shows first 24 minutes (which, in my opinion, hurts the series's storytelling a bit) topped with minor character friction that feels somewhat contrived. However, upon completing Kono Oto Tomare! I realize how vital this "stick with it!" mantra really is in the grand scheme of things. This anime is certainly standard slice of life fare but, if you choose to invest the time in it, it also proves itself to be a heart-gripping coming-of-age drama focusing on the troubled students of a high school koto club.

  Once you conquer the hill of the first episode the story begins to blossom into something that is ultimately much better than what is initially set up. With each episode the viewer is introduced to new characters, each of them injecting their own personal issues into the narrative which effectively builds the story's foundation. This first season is essentially about synthesizing each of the main character's positive change arcs. To be honest, I think the strongest part of this series is the character writing. I particularly enjoyed how each character was confronted by a suitable opposing character, ultimately leading to eventual development and actualized moral change. I think the show summed this concept up best in its own words, at its heart the Koto Club is "...a group of people with seemingly no common ground supporting each other by compensating for what the others lacked."

  With this in mind, Kono Oto Tomare!'s best character is undoubtedly Kudo Chika who, despite his delinquent facade, proves himself to be the Koto Club's heart time and time again. As a viewer I found my fondness growing for him as he became more emotionally intelligent and observant of the people surrounding him. The real draw here is that Kudo personally seeks out his own reformation and often in spite of all of the other character's initial doubts of him. This applies heavily to Houzuki Satowa who proves to be an effective rival and potential love interest to Kudo, though she is definitely more than just that.

  One thing to keep in mind though is that the show's animation is definitely on the rudimentary side. In some of the key sequences there is an emphasis on special effects and stills rather than on actual animation. You can tell this anime has its roots in manga, a medium that's invested in still images, despite it focusing heavily on the playing of instruments and how skilled the characters are with their hands. At the same time, this anime is also a really good comedy with its visual gags relying on a simplified, chibi art style. This not only works well as an offset to the main drama but it also serves as a cushion for the overall animation in the long run.

  Overall I honestly really enjoyed seeing this season through to its end. Though I will stress that these 13 episodes serve mostly as a prelude. The final episode promises further growth on behalf of the characters more than capping off the entire season. I think this show deserves recognition with regard to character intrigue more than anything else. Needless to say, I'm excited for what's next and will be seeing the story through into its second season. It deserves that much.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  R2R

  62/100
  The problem with 'Music' Anime.

  https://anilist.co/anime/103302/Kono-Oto-Tomare-Sounds-of-Life/

  ---

  I like music. There are so many instruments & musical pieces that I don't even know the name of, so I find it a bit exciting when I see an Anime with some instrument in its key visual or in its plot summary to find out that next unheard Japanese instrument. But there's one thing I really don't like when it comes to the music genre in Anime.

  Reading Music

  This Anime has Koto, a string instrument which sounds a bit similar to piano. There are many awkward moments when I watch music Anime and that's mainly because the characters talk (saying it out loud or monologuing themselves) about someone's music in some metaphorical language. Like;

  The strings! They resonate so beautifully, I can see the snow
  What is this! The sounds. I can see the sounds!
  OMG! The piano sounds are giving me an ejection.

  These are just my made up examples, not really from some music Anime (I hope) but these don't sound like some artistic metaphors or beautiful language, it's just cringe. If the music is really that impressive or if some character really has such talent then, Let their music speak for itself.
  Now I know that it isn't quite possible and that partly comes from the reason these Anime are adaptations of Manga, where the only elements they have are art, story and their talent. Since manga is restricted to not having any music, the mangaka try their hardest to convey the essence of the music or instrument, via mesmerizing art or some storytelling techniques but even then, technically speaking, they can't create music. But in Anime, you have voice acting to let the musicians express their thoughts, animation to make the movement of the instruments feel more life-like and most of all, you can add music. Anime is far from any restrictions to hold back but they're still adapting the Manga, and that's where the problem seems to arise. They're still adapting those metaphors and other restrictions that are imbedded in the manga when I think it's not necessary to do so. Worse, they're adapting these dialogues right in the middle of someone's performance. It's like you're listening to music but your noisy friend is constantly shouting right beside you. It's annoying.
  Kono Oto Tomare! is the same, it does all these things I don't like. But there are also moments I really like that don't stick to complaints I had above.

  (Mild Spoilers)
  There's an episode where our gang are finally giving their first performance in front of all the students. And towards the end of that episode, there's this moment where the Anime plays the Dragon Meteor Shower, the piece the characters wanted to play, in the background while showing the memories these characters made on the screen, WITHOUT any dialogue. This one moment really feels powerful & quite literally can give goosebumps. While I was amazed by the audio-visual storytelling here, I also wondered why they haven't used the same method during the remaining moments.
  (Mild Spoilers End)

  I kinda understand that also use metaphors to make viewers get certain meaning that might not reach them but I much prefer if they did that at the end instead of forcefully including them during musical scenes.

  Strings of the same instrument

  The characters are not that impressive really. Chika is your tsundere husbando who's suffering with not having any talent (& a harsh past), Hozuki is your tsundere waifu who's suffering with too much talent (& a harsh past), Kurata is a weak club president who shows growth but can be found annoying, Kurusu is a lot more annoying (with a harsh past) but grows out of it and the rest of the cast are literally there to fill the space (they say that themselves) but gets some moments because...well, they're MC friends after all.

  Art

  The art style is beautiful. They add this smooth texture to the character faces during music performances which elevates the scene a bit and which is where the Anime really gets good. Apart from that, there are few moments where they add some pencil lines on character faces to create some intensity supposedly generated due to the 'intense' music. I like the idea but that didn't worked well. It's more awkward than intense because it definitely wasn't conveyed, the intensity it's trying to create. The flashback scenes worked pretty well, though still generic.

  ---

  Conclusion

  Overall, it's alright. Not the best in music or drama, but definitely have some moments.
  Hopefully it gets better in S2.

  Continue on AniList

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