Kono Oto Tomare

Kono Oto Tomare is a manga series about a high school club for playing the traditional Japanese instrument Koto. The focus is on a group of rowdy boys who form the core of the club and initially seem unfit to play such a delicate instrument.

Watched few episodes of Kono Oto Tomare and then switched to reading the manga. The animation was quite average, while the manga has nice art. I guess I’ll check out the music parts also in the anime.

Been a while since I saw the three stooges trope. I thought the balance of characters was weird with 5 male main characters and 2 female, but if you think of the three guys as a one character it’s only 2:1. Probably the (female) author also just wanted to have boys.

Houduki says it: “Oh it’s you alone? I thought you three can’t function separately.”

Again this is kind of obvious, but maybe I forget it more often than I think: One way to make a character more interesting is to create some kind of contradiction in them, and then explore the conflict it suggests. So here we have delinquents trying to play an instrument “for refined people”, so everyone doubts their efforts, even themselves. They have difficulties learning the usual way, but some problems they can find unexpected solutions to thanks to their unconventional personality.

Is senpai even a main character in this manga? Maybe his lack of leadership and being the club president is his contradiction.