English Dub Review: Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life “Tenkyu”

Overview

While everyone is taken aback and impressed by Mio’s performance, Team Tokise gets ready to play. They enter the stage together and Hozuki sits front and center. As she is about to begin the performance, she sees her mom enter and sit in the back of the audience. Soulfully, she begins to play the koto. From the moment she starts to play, everyone is enraptured by the way she commands the strings, and the life brought to the room is tangible. The rest of the team compliments her perfectly, while also getting the chance to showcase their own personal talents. They’re all so in sync that it brings tears to the eyes of the audience members. As Hozuki’s mom watches in awe, she reflects on the toxic way she’s handled her grief over the years, and realizes she should have treated Hozuki better.

The audience is so stunned they initially forget to clap. Afterwards, the team wonders if their performance was bad. During the break where the judges are making their decisions, though, Hozuki carefully reveals to the group that she wants to see if her mom is still in the audience. They jump to help look for her, asking Hozuki why she hadn’t mentioned her mother sooner. They’re unable to find her on their own, but once Hozuki checks the backstage area, her mother appears and calls out to her.

Our Take

There’s something very beautiful about the way Hozuki’s performance was orchestrated animation-wise. The effects in the background and from the kotos themselves were a nice touch in-between audience reactions. The real main event of this episode, though, was that 8-minute long koto piece. Not only was it intricate and beautiful, but even to those who aren’t versed in koto, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the melodies and harmonies of the entire piece. The real challenge of a show like this is getting people to take the koto as seriously as these characters do. This episode accomplishes that through the sheer beauty of that piece.

While the central focus of this episode is mainly on Hozuki, the closure she gets with her mom has been an important factor to her arc. There’s only one episode left and while it’s unclear whether or not any other character will get further expansion before the end of the season, but at least a much needed plot thread will be tied up.

As a series, the koto still seems like kind of a specific thing to try and get people to relate to. Considering that things are wrapping up this season, it still seems like there could have been more visual effects to add in with the koto performances (much like Mio’s in last episode.) One thing for sure is that the koto definitely seems to represent a very relevant thing: family. The koto is bringing Hozuki and her mother together, and it brought her to her friends as well.

Maybe there’s a uniting factor between blood and water.