From little things, big things grow, maybe.
Episode 1
Here we are with the standard club anime where all the previous members graduated but one and now we’re recruiting new members. We’re just combining this with the standard delinquent/misunderstood trope character who needs to find some way to absolve his guilt after his actions led to the destruction of his grandfather’s work prior to his death. That said, just because we’ve seen these stories before doesn’t make this a bad start. Not at all.
With its soft colour palette and slow pacing, this episode is fairly calm and mellow even with the violent encounters and flash backs. While the outcome of the episode is more or less guaranteed, the journey is worth taking and while neither of the main characters is getting points for originality any time soon, both Kudo and Takezou are interesting enough in their own ways.
One thing that is a little amiss might be that this is a koto club and other than one flash back sequence to the seniors playing, where we didn’t really hear it, there’s no koto playing in this first episode. Maybe that’s fine given this is the set-up for recruiting members and we’ll get there, but it just seemed like you would put the instrument on more display early in a season.
There’s a lot of anime this one will inevitably get compared to, but taken on its own, while it is an ordinary kind of story it is one that so far has been nicely put together and was fun to watch. I’m looking forward to seeing how the other members get recruited and to seeing them actually doing proper club activities.
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Episode 2
Well I said I was curious as to recruitment of other members and to hear them play the koto and episode 2 hit both those points. Admittedly Kono Oto Tomare doesn’t appear to be in any rush introducing just one new club member this week. Turns out the whole message about not judging a book by its cover isn’t just going to be applied to Kudo as Houzuki, the new member is also a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to her appearance and personality.
With another fiery personality in the mix, things are more lively than last week. We see Takezou perform to try to recruit new members though with fairly indifferent results before we meet Houzuki and it is revealed that she’s apparently a genius player. They hold off on proving that for a fair while until Houzuki is in the club room alone and Kudo hears her playing from outside the door. It was pretty impressive all things considered with pretty visuals thrown into the mix.
Kudo continues looking for absolution for past misdeeds, this week helping the club get their instruments fixed before volunteering to help repair them. The delinquent with the heart of gold act is one we should all be familiar with but that doesn’t make it any less endearing and it is certainly enough to finally thaw Houzuki’s chilly personality.
While I’m still a bit behind on this one I think I’m going to enjoy it so for now this one is firmly staying in my line up.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
- Kono Oto Tomare! Series Review
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episodes 1 + 2
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episodes 3 + 4
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 5
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 6
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 7
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 8
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 9
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 10
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episodes 11 + 12
- Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 13
- Images from: Kono Oto Tomare! Dir. M Ryouma. Platinum Vision. 2019.
Oh gosh I forgot this was becoming an anime- I usually dislike music & sports series but I have to admit I love the manga of Kono Oto Tomare! I’ll definitely have to add this to my watch list, and hopefully it gets better as the episodes continue 🙂
Thanks for this review, I love reading these posts
So far this one has stayed pretty average as an anime. There are some great points but there’s a lot that is just really average. Hoping it picks up in the second half.
It does get better as time goes on, ep 4 is *really* good.
I’ll look forward to it. It will probably be next weekend before I do another two episodes. I’m trying to catch up but I’m behind on literally everything this season.
Hey, if it’s half as as good a delinquent redemption story as Clannad, I’m down
I thought you didn’t have access to this one?
Someone from Australia pointed out that I could watch it a week after release on Funimation. I’d given up even checking their site because previously anything I tried to watch had been region locked. But it has been a lot of seasons since I even looked at their site. I now have a handful of other anime to check out that I have unexpected access to.
Cool. Hope you continue to enjoy it then. 🙂
I’ve had the same thoughts from what you wrote in my first impressions. It’s slow but picks up at a certain point.
And I don’t necessarily think that being slow was a problem. The pacing felt right for what it was delivering.
This is one series I’ve been enjoying immensely, but i’m a sucker for traditional Japanese instruments and that may be making me biased towards it haha.
For me this one kind of feels like Tsurune so far and I really enjoyed watching that even if I’m not sure it is something I’d watch again. Still, the characters in this seem a bit livelier so I’m curious as to whether this one will end up leaving a bit more of an impression in the end.
I haven’t seen Tsurune (yet), but from what I’ve read about it, I’d have to agree. I hope that this series gets slightly evocative just to give it more depth.
Depth would be nice, but I’ll be happy with something that just ends up relaxing to watch for the season.