Kono Oto Tomare! S2

Title:Kono Oto Tomare! S2
Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life S2
Overall:Buy
Keywords: , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Platinum Vision
ENOKI Junya
TANEZAKI Atsumi
UCHIDA Yuma
Takezo, Kudo, Satowa and the other members of the Koto club pursue their goal of winning the national championship.

13 episodes




A sequel to Kono Oto Tomare!
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy 8 7 7 9 8 8 Ggultra2764 [series:3761#1552]
A step up from its first season, this second season of Kono Oto Tomare features the members of Tokise's koto club attempting to improve their cohesion and playing skills after their failure at a local competition in the finale of the first season. These efforts are led by a new instructor for the club, Akira Doujima, who has her own personal issues to deal with in her new role and also serves as part of Satowa's character development in trying to get past her family issues. Unlike the prior season's attempts at creating villains to test the koto club's bonds, Doujima makes for an effective one here as her present struggles mirror those of Satowa's in struggling with family relations and losing her passion for involvement in koto performances and her involvement with the koto club helping to gradually change her. The other major members of the koto club are shown to have their gradual changes they have undergone due to their involvement with the koto club, showing the character developments each have undergone. The final five episodes focus on the qualifiers for the national koto competition with the major schools, outside of Tokise, getting their focus to explore how each became involved with koto playing or sought to improve their performances from the prior competition and the final performance from Tokise, which I won't spoil, is appropriately fitting with the growth and improvement they underwent throughout both seasons. Still, the series is left incomplete with its manga source material still ongoing as of this review. But still, I do have to admit this second season of Koto Oto Tomare made a more stronger impression on me than I was expecting given the stronger story developments and music focus offered up with it.

Last updated Friday, July 16 2021. Created Friday, July 16 2021.
Rent Stretch [series:3761#628]
(All episodes watched):

Season one of KOT ended abruptly--the club had clearly gotten out of a jam, but exactly what the result of their first major competition would be remained unknown. Here, the story picks up just where it cut off: we learn what the judges thought of the group, and how it fared relative to a plethora of competitors that we were introduced to in the final episodes of season one. Quality seems unchanged, which is good news for me since I enjoyed season one. I had thought I detected signs of budding romance in season one, and there are more in season two, but ultimately they don't amount to much and the main thrust of the show is how well the club will do in competitions. The club's once counterproductive adviser has made a complete turnaround and become a major asset. What will no doubt be the central conflict of this second season emerges when a girl from Hozuki's mother's Koto academy (Hozuki and her mother are not on good terms with each other) shows up and offers to help train the club. She's a virtuoso, and if she's serious her help would be a godsend; but then again she may have come to sabotage their efforts. It turns out that she has issues of her own, what with her tortured career as a Koto musician, so she can't be all bad. It wasn't difficult to guess that while initially hostile, she would come to be impressed by their honest determination and would wind up a friend. Before long she defies her jealous and deceitful grandmother, who has been the chief villain of the season. The show definitely needed some sort of unexpected problem to liven things up, and may need another one afterwards. Learning how to play a musical instrument in harmony with others isn't the most exciting task in the world. It's possible that Satowa and her estranged mother may bury their differences and make up, which, if handled well, would be cathartic. Is the principal question whether our heroes take first place in the big national competition, or is it how they have changed and improved, and worked out personal problems? For the moment it seems to be neither, as we get to know their opponents instead. Several episodes are spent learning about other clubs that are competing against our main characters, which may or may not have been a good idea. If it had been up to me, I would have used the time that was spent on the opposition to expand on the budding romances that involve four of the club members. In general, season two of KOT didn't seem as exciting or intriguing as season one did. Except perhaps for Satowa the main characters have managed to put their lives in order and have no looming problems other than doing well in competitions. However, I thought the climactic episode twelve was handled well. The club gives another critical performance and, while I would have a hard time telling the difference between an OK rendition and an outstanding one, the audio, dialogue and everything else got the message across that this was the latter. Satowa gets a degree of closure as her estranged mother turns up to watch her preform. All in all, it was pretty neat. Episode thirteen wraps things up nicely; yet another season could be added on, since the club still hasn't gotten to Nationals, or things could (and probably will) end cleanly here. I still wish I knew whether any of the characters have really fallen in love, but I am quite satisfied with KOT.

Last updated Tuesday, December 15 2020. Created Thursday, October 10 2019.

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