La Corda D'Oro

Genre: Romance
Age Appropriate: All ages
Emotional Response: Eeeeeeeeeee!
Notable Features: music, high school, coming of age
Language: Japanese
Length: 1 season, 26 episodes (+2 extras!)
Overall Recommendation: Great

"Just making sound come out is different than playing it." - Lili

La Corda D'Oro is about a young woman's journey into the world of musical performance. Kahoko has no musical talent, but finds that she loves music immensely. She stumbles into a school statue, and a fairy magically appears, asking her to take on a magical violin and enter the school's music contest. This violin will allow anyone to play wonderfully, and Kahoko denies her desire to play despite the assistance. It takes a little while for her to submit to the fairy Lili's request.

Kahoko and one other general studies student get wrapped up in the contest where all of the other students are from the music side of their academy. Each person has a different personality type, from shy young lady to popular guy (in sheep's clothing!). Kahoko makes friends with everyone through the series, breaking down barriers between everyone, and learning more about herself in the process. Her new interesting musical happiness can't be perfect forever, and despite the successes she has in each episode with building friendships and experiencing coming-of-age issues, Kahoko has to take her lessons and admit reality to herself - at risk of losing everything she's built for herself.

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So, you see, I'm a musician at heart. Therefore, this struck a particular chord in mean (harharhar). It's a difficult series to watch, though. It's really good, and I definitely enjoyed the relationships between the members and Kahoko - it's pretty typical nice reverse harem type. I was a lot more interested in the music than the guys, however. The music is beautiful, and I want to find a soundtrack. I always wished I could play the violin, but I ended up doing other things. So, I really enjoyed those parts.

It was only difficult because I don't always like conflict, especially emotional conflict - give me explosions and evil doers any day, or emotional pain. Unfortunately,  most of my favorite anime is really that good because of the emotional connections made. I also enjoyed the different personalities represented. I'm glad that they threw in a shy girl, too. Often I find this type of series to be all one girl focused. The shy girl didn't have anything to do with the story in that regard, but I think it made things more realistic.

I totally recommend it if you're anime and musically inclined. I found nothing really in there that I would hesitate to let the younger crowd watch, other than actual interest in the content. Aside from one scene where a guy accidentally falls on a girl and they blush, there isn't any questionable. Go ahead and watch it. I thought it was pretty great.

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1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and: Okami-san and Her Seven Companions