OP Sequence

OP: 「Brand New Breeze」 by カノン (Kanon)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (11.9MB, XviD)

Summary:
In the past, there was a young man who saved a small and mysterious creature. This young man’s dream was to start a music school, and so the creature that he helped promised to bless the school he created. And now, in the present, there is a Seisou Academy with a special contest. On this morning, Hino Kahoko is rushing to school and arrives as the first bell is ringing. When she catches her breath by the fairy statue in front of the school, an actual fairy appears in front of her. This fairy is excited that Kahoko can see him, so he decides to start the contest by ringing the campus bells. The entire school hears these bells and by the time Kaho arrives in class, everyone is abuzz about the contest. Kaho’s friend tells her about a past romance between two rival violinists who were brought together by a fairy. Remembering the fairy she saw earlier, Kaho decides that it must have been her imagination, but she accidentally blurts this out during class. The teacher punishes her by having her carry some stuff afterwards to class 2-A in the music department. Along the way, Kaho is accidentally bumped into by someone when she’s at the top of a staircase, causing her to lose her balance and drop all of the books. Fortunately, the same guy who bumped into her saves her from the fall by catching her. He ends up helping her carry the stuff to the classroom and introduces himself as Tsuchiura Ryoutarou.
When they get to the classroom, it’s apparent that they don’t fit in because the music department students have different uniforms. As they’re standing at the 2-A door, another boy approaches them and asks them to move because they’re in the way. He refuses to help them out since it has nothing to do with him. Afterwards, once Kaho has finished her task and has parted ways with Ryoutarou, she encounters the fairy again. This time, the fairy introduces himself as Lili, but before he can say much more, Kaho runs off. She returns to her own classroom, but the fairy follows her there and tells her that no one else can see him but her, causing Kaho to collapse in despair. It is later during lunch that principal announces the participants of the music competition: 3-B’s Yunoki Azuma, 3-B’s Hihara Kazuki, 2-A’s Tsukimori Ren, 1-A’s Shimizu Keiichi, 1-A’s Fuyuumi Shouko, and 2-2’s Hino Kahoko. Everyone, including Kaho herself, is surprised that her name got called. Kaho goes to see Kanazawa-sensei about there being a mistake, but he confirms that there is none. Kanazawa thinks that her being chosen means that she must have seen that, which Kaho immediately figures out is referring to Lili the fairy. Kanazawa also passes along a message telling Kaho to go to the practice room of the music department after school. Before Kaho can ask anything else, she gets interrupted by Yunoki and Hihara. The two realize who she is and introduce themselves – Hihara plays the trumpet and Yunoki plays the flute. When they try to guess what instrument Kaho plays, she declares that this has nothing to do with her and excuses herself.
Despite that, Kaho ends up going to the area with all of the practice rooms after school. She sees something sparkle in one of the room and goes inside to find Lili waiting for her. Lili calls himself a fata (latin for fairy), and explains that the fata think that music is a source of happiness – that’s why they spread music in order to fill the world with happiness. Plenty of people used to be able see them, but times changed and people nowadays can’t sense them anymore. Lili ends up giving Kaho a magic violin that he finished after years of research – with its magical powers, anyone can play the violin. But it’s actually still a prototype, so the user has to be on the same wavelength as Lili to use it. The fairy wants Kaho to try it out, but she protests because she doesn’t know how to play the violin. All of the sudden, Kaho’s arms start moving on their own into the right positions, causing her to scream and throw the violin away. Lili manages to catch it, but Kaho doesn’t want the violin back. Lili had an idealized version of what he expected to happen, but for now, he decides to give Kaho the violin and its case. After the fairy disappears, Tsukimori Ren comes into that room and kicks Kaho out so that he can practice. As she is walking through the school trying to figure out what to do, she finds three girls bullying Fuyuumi Shouko. When Kaho goes to intervene, they challenge her, since she was chosen, to play for them. Kaho doesn’t want to take back what she said and apologize, so she has no choice but to pull out the violin and try to play.

ED Sequence

ED: 「CRESCENDO」 by ステラ クインテット (Stella Quintet)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (7.7MB, XviD)
I recognized Kanon’s voice as soon as she started singing the OP. I remember it from Angel Heart, where she sang the Gloria insert song. In any case, I love her voice and this OP as well (I’ve got the song on repeat now). The ED quintet is comprised of the main male characters singing, and it’s not a bad song.

Alright, I know that I initially marked this series as having a poor chance of getting blogged because, well frankly, it didn’t sound that interesting. But then earlier in the week, when I went back and rechecked the schedule, I realized that there was a dearth of Sunday shows. It was this or Galaxy Angel, and since I haven’t seen any of the previous GA series, I chose this.
The first episode itself wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either – it had decent animation and ended up being an average introduction episode in terms of story that didn’t really wow me or win me over. Still, I can see some potential in this series. There were some overly shoujo moments made me laugh a little, and I’m a little curious how the whole music contest will work out. I suspect that by taking Kaho’s own violin skill (or lack thereof) out of the equation, this becomes not a series about a music competition, but instead probably about how she – as a normal girl – befriends all of these extraordinary guys and what happens from that.
I’ll probably give this a couple more episodes to see how the story develops before making a decision. As I mentioned above, the one big thing this show has got going for it is a Sunday airtime, which is a day that’s fairly light on other new shows. We’ll see what happens…

68 Comments

  1. Lots of fun. Good OP. Good voice-acting from the lead. She really sells those shoujo feelings. And remember: all genres have their conventions, not just shoujo. Personally, I love the shoujo conventions and have no time for the conventions of mecha or monster-of-the-week. Welcome to a new season!

  2. I’m curious about this one! I don’t like fairies that much, but it looks kinda cute! I wonmder why the story has so many male characters though! 🙂 Thanks for the screencaps!

    Lalita
  3. Oh, I remeber reading this in Shojo Beat. I was not that interested in it. The anime looks pretty though. That one guy has green hair in the anime… as a matter of fact they all seem to have bizzare haircolors. That’s haren series for you lol

    Midnight
  4. Didn’t really like OP in terms of the music and also the actual material presented.

    I probably won’t be watching this, unless none of the other series give me my romance needs 😀 (still there’s always bokura ga ita)

    j
  5. Ouran in Music, take away the houto club and place them in the music-blub, this time the main girl doesn’t have to dress like a boy but to prethend she plays good the violin…? Nani?
    ROTFL
    srry I know al of the above is way wrong but believe that was my first impression ^^ anyways the series look god, maybe I’l watch some few epi to see if the hole left by ouran can be loosened ^^

    RickaZ
  6. Hmm, now this is quite a story. If the traditional “rules” of anime plotting are applied here
    Show Spoiler ▼

  7. I really think you are making a mistake!!
    Galaxy angels 2 it´s not direct linked to any other GA old series!!
    And it´s too much funny ONMI, and I´ve seen this one(here) too and I really think it´s TOO BORING!!!I was Almost sleeping seen this one.But on the other hand after GA2 01 I Changed my mind about the fact that this series did not have my old GA caracters and could be bad to a NEW GA with NEW caracters with a very promissing idea.And also for the ones here that like yuri potential yuri caracters can be seen by the very first episode.But I really think that caracter is a HENTAI one and not a yuri one, but ok because they are funny and the bad guy from the start, the little one with the seiyuu from the ” JUU HATSU BUY ” from magikano is too hilarious.So I recommend GA 2 and not this one.TOO BORING and i think we had too many series like this primo passo ” a pussy and alot of …(you know what dic..ks)” with this very boring cliche style.Here at home we know this types of animes as the ” LET´S JUST FILL SOME HARD DRIVE BEFORE THEY REALIZE WE ARE NOT WORTH AND DELETE US”
    😀 😀

    tensai_otaku
  8. hmm seems like an odd anime feels like a harem except in reverse with the other types we’ve come to kno about, but like harems it will always be a barrel of laughs and more

    asian182
  9. Now I have seen it, here is a scathing criticism of this anime.

    Beginning: Electronic Synthesizer Orchestral imitation on very light piece. I am not impressed.
    OP: Not bad but weak.
    BGM: Consistantly light music. It sounds Baroque, but of variety that is used as light comical fares. No way you can do anything serious with this music
    Why Violinists? Throughout the world, Violinists are known to be more likely of being egoist.
    Flute: Easiest piece of them all?! ( Grieg’s Peer Gynt Morning )
    Trumpet: Easy again. Fit for 2nd year trumpet player
    Violin ( Tsukimori Ren ): OK but not impressive
    Cello: Techniquely OK but nothing else.
    Clarinet: Easy again. Some Elementary Students can play that.
    Carmen Fantasy: Finally something worth paying attention to. I guess a very goood junior high violinist can do something similar ( but aren’t these guys High school Music students? )
    ED: Just Bad. It could have been made better if they did a full male quartet arrangement or Barbershop Quartet arrangement ( there is a difference between them ), but I fail to see how they could use such low quality music for music oriented show.

    Japan boost of best Classical music training in Asia outside of Israel. Although it would cost more money and time to hire real musicians to make this anime, in this anime about music, it is something they should have done. It would do very well to promote the anime by actually holding an audition for each instrument: Even if the prize is just hourly labor fee and name on the credit, I am certain dozens, if not hundreds of music majors in High school and college would have applied to the audition. The anime clearly chose not to utilize this to full extent. Even though they may introduce better performance later on, the damage is done: This anime already feels like an insult to classical musician and something not worthy of viewing.

    wontaek
  10. Step 1: apply a heavy layer of napalm
    Step 2: salt the scorched earth
    Step 3: turn over the soil to mix the salt deeper into the ground and to expose the still moist under-soil
    Step 4: apply a second dosage of napalm

    The right and proper way to treat this show…

    Zzz...
  11. a shoujo ?! … nothing wrong with that !!
    I think it’s silly that people will complain about shoujo’s being too common and boring but don’t seem to mind yuri and yaoi being just as corny !
    and if shoujo has to much pretty boys , well shounen has too much pretty “annoying” girls !! and tooooooo much Fanservice
    !!

    anyway .. I would like to see this one get a chance to be viewed .

    jojo
  12. well…the first episode consist more than one chap in the manga…I’ve been looking for scanlations of it in manga version and was glad to hear that it became an anime already….thank goodness…’m really exited on what will happen next…since i laid my eyes on this anime, i’ve been searching for the episodes of it…hope i could watch one…>_

    fayte
  13. The character design look cute, but the anime itself seems boring. I might, just might try the first episode. I’m not quite sure yet, and i already have a lot of animes that i’ve decided to watch, so this might not come to that list. ^^;;

    Ai-Tan
  14. teehee…
    i liked the manga and i read like the first 3 chapters but idc i liked it.. i hope the anime will be good!
    btw, the manga’s name is kinira no corda or sumthing like that…i dunno why the manga and anime names are diferent
    i love shoujo!

    jenjen
  15. Overall, not a bad first episode. This one had a little bit of charm to it. The main character’s expressions and reactions are very similar to Sora in Kaleido Star. If there are people who liked Kaleido Star, I think this will be right up their alley. I went in expecting this to be a bit on the sappy side, so I wasn’t that bothered by all the cutesy stuff.

    TJ
  16. The premise was pretty standard as far as harem animes go. I love the music aspect of the anime and the animation’s decent. But I can’t get over the fact that she’s handed this musical violin and can (I’m assuming) play amazingly. The others actually worked for their art; they can be portrayed as snobbish or what have you, but they actually put in the effort. I was hoping for some balking on her part. Doesn’t she feel the least bit… fake? All that moral diatribe aside, I agree with you and I plan to give it a few more episodes before I write this anime off.

    Gia
  17. I really love the manga series and I’ve been searching all over for episodes to either download or purchase (DVD), if you anything about that can you please tell me? Thanks for uploading the OP and ED sequences!!

    Miharu
  18. There seems to have been an explosion of anime & manga based on dating sims as of late. (Kanon’s been around for a while, but now we have Crescent Love and this) Oh well, at least it’s for girls this time around. (Unlike most stuff based on dating sims) I can’t complain too much now that we’ve finally gotten some equal time.

    Basilisk
  19. !!! are you blogging this?? PLEASE BLOG IT. >_> um, I realise it’s a little late to now. But so far only one episode has been subbed, I think, by StrawberryMintSubs or something. And I think many people don’t understand Japanese in the raws.

  20. I really like this series *full of bishie goodness* and I’m looking forward for more episode reviews. I’ve seen ’til episode 5 and so far it hasn’t bored me. I think strawberrymint *did I get that right?* via bitorrent is subbing it.

    Celessa
  21. i just got the manga today, i didn’t even know of this series till now. Even though I normally read your blogs.

    Now to go off and look for some fansubs and get obsessed with another music series.*stillinnodamemode*

    Saruko
  22. A bit too shojo for me, but I’ll keep watching it, I like anime with music as one of the main themes ! I’ll forward to the OST !

    by the way, at the end of this episode, Ren plays Carmen on the violin, does somebody know where I can find this recorded ? (it was great!!!)

    Puchi
  23. OMG!! i lov tis anime so much.
    after i saw my friend reading the manga, i decide to watch the anim.
    im so glad i did. its the best but im only up to episode 18. *sniff*sniff*
    the uploader only put up 2 episoded each friday.
    o well, i guess i hav 2 wait till the nex friday.
    *pacing bac n forth* AARRGGGHH!!! i cant wait!!!

    ediblesushi
  24. hey i know i’m late but i totally love this manga “la corda d’oro primo passo.
    i love kahoko & len / kahoko & ryutaro’s pair. theyre cute sometimes kahoko with azuma keiji and kazuki also rocks. i like the scene when kahoko has tears in her eyes after hearing shinobu play the violin.
    in India right now it is being telecasted on animax.
    a request to u——————
    please add capeta’s episode review also pls pls pls

    takuyachan21
  25. I really, really <3 this anime’ ^___^-

    I suggest you guys should watch this too =]

    Because of this anime’ I was inspired to play the violin ^___^- although I’m playing the guitar =]

    I <3 it! ~

    <3Kahoko x Len<3

    MiyaChan48
  26. in the photo asowme. by the way ho is hino love?. and the song is awsome to i sing not want to stop and i try again oh ya why la corda doro primo passo not have episode2 and not have a some games , the dvd like that! bye – bye

  27. this film is goooood .its laike something like my hearts can feel thats emotion kohoko hino *(the characters film)the film is insteresting film everrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!iiiiiiiimnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn mmmmyyyy lliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffe!!11111111

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