La Corda D’Oro… One would think that watching an anime series whose main plot involves kids who play classical music would be a flop, but in this anime’s case, it works and very shockingly well at that. Who’d have thought?
The story starts off where the main character, Hino Kahoko, is given a magical violin from a small cutesy magical fairy creature named Lilli in order to spread the love of music through entering a competition… I’ll admit, I was thinking about hitting the stop button right there based on how cheesey and girly the whole thing seemed. It sounded just like something straight out of a fairytale. But it only takes a few more minutes until you realize that this really is NOT just some magical girl anime. As a matter of fact it really isn’t one at all.
Hino Kahoko was really just an ordinary gen-ed student who was minding her own business until Lilli came along. During the course of the competition she meets many new people, people who she never would have talked to if it weren’t for her newly found ‘talent’ with the violin, and she begins to see life from a different perspective as she learns about their struggles, their lives, and why music is just so important to everyone of them. After listening to such things, you’d be hard pressed NOT to find your new appreciation for music afterwards as the things the characters do and say really manages to move you towards actually wanting to hear the pieces they play throughout the competition and you’ll find yourself genuinely enjoying their performances and being confused as to who you even want to win the competition. You’ll get caught up in Hino’s struggles so fast that you yourself start to sympathize with her own clonflicting emotions.
The art in La Corda D’Oro is amazing. The characters look gorgeous in almost every screen shot. It’s hard to find one character without an appealing character design in this anime. I found myself ecstatic when I saw that this is one of the few anime that actually goes out of it’s way to animate the movements of the characters as they play their instruments. You’ll be able to watch as Len, a violinist in the competition, actually plucks the strings on his intrument. And you’ll see the pianist, Ryotaro, glides his fingers across his piano. The only issue I had with the art was…I supose one would say color coordination as two (technically three) of the main characters have green hair, all of the main charactershave really bright colored hair, and the background characters have generic hair coloring. I know the main characters need to stand out, but sometimes there needs to be some kind of balance there so that they don’t just pop out like they do…
Music is not a problem in this series and you may even find yourself recognizing many of the pieces the characters play throught the show. Even if you’ve never been interested in classical music there is so much passion invoked into the preformances that you can actually pick up on emotions via the pieces that the characters play. The only downfall is that beyond classical pieces the other pieces seem repetitive and not very special. The opening and the ending grow bothersome after a while as well and I found myself mildly annoyed after watching one episode after another and immediately went to skip the opening after the first two episodes. The songs are not ones that make you want to play them over and over again. They’re not bad either, just not outstanding.
Since this anime is technically a reverse harem show (one girl, many guys (save for the clarinet player who is also a girl)) the guys all follow a pattern of character personalities and fit into a certain stereotype. Even so, I found that a lot of the characters, though stereotypical, were able to pull it off without coming off as too generic. There are five boys that are considered potential love interests for Hino and they’re all so charming in their own respect that it’s really hard to decide who to root for when Hino is one on one with any guy. A problem, however, is that this anime is based off of a dating sim game, and it comes over quite obvious whenever a ‘moment’ happens between Hino and one of the main characters. It kind of gives the show an over dramatic flair and there’s real confusion as to whom Kahoko really likes as she has moments with all of the male leads.
As a whole, however the series is very enjoyable. It’s funny as well as cute, and you can honestly learn a lot from it. Especially with Lilli’s One Point Classic, a little trivia segment that comes on just before the previews where Lilli gives you little facts and tidbits about music in general. You’ll find that you come out of La Corda D’Oro with a new viewpoint, a feeling of contentment, and knowledge of stuff you never knew you needed to know.
I would recommend this series to music lovers as well as non-music lovers. If you like any kind of romance than this series is totally for you. La Corda D’Oro will not disappoint!
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