This week’s episode of Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life, ‘The Koto Club Reborn’, brings us a bit of conflict… finally! Episode 3 gives us a bit more music than the previous two offerings, but there is much more emphasis on delving into Hozuki’s and Kudo’s character motivations…

Plot

Three new members join the Koto club, but when the vice principal finds out they’re not actually playing the koto, he hatches a scheme to get the club disbanded for good. The club has one month to prepare a song for an all school assembly. If they fail to impress the vice principal, he will have the club shut down for good. Hosuki steps up to teach everyone koto basics, but her Spartan teaching methods rub the members the wrong way. Undaunted, Kudo comes up with a surprising solution to their problems…

Episode Highlights

Love/Hate Relationship: I’m going to go ahead and call it… Kudo and Hozuki are going to develop feelings for one another. I mean, all the signs are there. They butt heads at just about every single turn, so it’s safe to say that they are totally gonna be crushin’ on each other before the halfway mark of the series.

Comic Relief Members: Three more new members join the Koto club and they seem to be little more than comic relief. They have super exaggerated reactions to everything and they only ever do anything as a unit. I really hope this isn’t the case for the rest of the season…

The Big Wager: The vice principal challenges the validity of the Koto club, demanding that they prepare a performance that will wow him or he’ll report them to the principal. Hozuki manages to get them one month to prepare for their performance, but that means she will have to train each and every one of them on how to play the koto properly.

Koto 101: Hozuki gives the members of the Koto club a crash course on the instrument, giving a detailed description of the koto and how it is played. It’s a nice way to get viewers that aren’t as familiar with the Koto information about without being overly complicated.

Themes and Trivia

Plectrum: These are the three-finger picks used to pluck the strings of the koto in order to produce a sound. The plectrum are worn on the thumb, index, and middle fingers.

Koto notation: Similar to the traditional music staff, koto notation is how music for the koto is written down. Usually instead of notes, Japanese characters are used to denote which strings should be plucked to produce the desired note, though there are other symbols used to represents rests and other musical annotations.

Sakura, Sakura: Is a traditional Japanese folk song dedicated to the spring season and the cherry blossoms, it is also used internationally to represent Japan. Though it is believed to have been composed in ancient times, the piece originally made popular during the Edo period.

Ryuuseigun: For their performance for the vice principal, Hozuki decides to have the members of the club play the song Ryuuseigun.

You can listen to the entire piece here

Comments

The vice principal is the real villain of the story. He seems hellbent on screwing over Kudo and the Koto club by extension. I have no clue what his problem is, but he seriously needs to pull that stick out of his ass… I can’t for the life of me understand why someone would go through this much trouble to sabotage just one student, it’s seriously overkill.

On that note, Hozuki is seriously something else. I mean come on, she goes out of her way to push Kudo’s buttons. Which I suppose is set up for their eventual romance. I’ve never read the manga so I’m not 100% sure if that’s the case, but I seriously think that’s where the series is going with this. There is just too much belligerent sexual tension and a kind of romantic plotline is sure to come later on down the line.

I’m also really loving Kudo. I don’t know if I just have a thing for misunderstood bad boys or what, but he is honestly the best part of the series for me so far! He is such a tsun bun, but I really love just how much he really cares for the club and how much respect he has for the koto. You can really tell that despite not having nearly as much training as Hozuki. He really does respect her talent as a musician.

But, my biggest complaint is the lack of music in the series thus far. I get it, they have to set up the characters and their motivations for playing before delving into the music side of things, but I seriously need more than the one or two half songs we got this week. The songs we did hear were great, but I couldn’t help but want more…

Finally, some decent tunes

So far, Kono Oto Tomare! is a music anime with more character development than actual music, which wasn’t what I expected. I love learning more about the characters and their motivations for joining the club, but I dunno, I just thought there would be more music… Episode 3, was a nice character defining episode for Hozuki, but, there wasn’t all that much else to it…

I’ll be back next week with another Kono Oto Tomare! review, but in the meantime, be sure to check out MANGA.TOKYO’s other amazing Spring 2019 reviews!!

NEXT TIME: The First Resounding Note

Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life

Spring 2019 | Anime Info | Simulcast