Kawagoe Boys Sing

It has been a month since genius orchestra conductor Haruo Hibiki was unceremoniously dismissed from his position at the Cosmopolitan Philharmonic Orchestra. Unable to find a similar position, the eccentric Haruo gets roped into teaching music at Kawagoe Private Academy instead. It is here that he receives an ultimatum: if he can put together a boys' choir at the school and win the annual competition, he can return to his former job.

Desperate to return to the limelight, Haruo searches the entire school for suitable voices for the choir. Unfortunately, his inability to communicate normally puts him at odds with almost everyone he encounters—including Tenshi Dei, a boy who loves to sing but cannot do so in front of others. With only a year to complete this lofty goal, Haruo will need to learn how to get along with the boys he can manage to recruit while also supporting their growth into a formidable choir.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hibiki, Haruo Main

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Dei, Tenshi Main

Uzawa, Shoutarou Japanese

Kobashi, Kaito Supporting

Nakanishi, Nao Japanese

Yazawa, Hiroshi Supporting

Tsuchida, Reiou Japanese

Hibiki, Arisa Supporting

Doi, Mika Japanese

Iijima, Rika Supporting

Suzaki, Aya Japanese

Koarashi, Zen Supporting

Tachibana, Tatsumaru Japanese

Morimura, Michiru Supporting

Doujima, Hayato Japanese

Suzuki, Curtis Supporting

Fukagawa, Kazumasa Japanese

Shiratori, Shuuji Supporting

Yuki, Obara Japanese

Matsumoto, Jun Director

Kikuta, Hiromi Sound Director

Takeuchi, Nobuyuki Episode Director, Storyboard, Animation Director, Key Animation

Fukuda, Noriyuki Episode Director, Animation Director

Reviews

Apr 21, 2024

peachxchinchou

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (11/12 eps)

As a huge fan of music anime in general, I thought I'd enjoy this. The first few episodes were great! Silly slice of life-esque music anime. However, as it got on, it got more and more rushed, leaving the final "arc" to just 2 episodes. If it was longer, it'd probably have seemed less rushed.

Most of the characters have a "thing" which becomes their nickname (Cardbocchi, IT, Maiden). Other than their "thing" , most of the characters are really forgettable, most of which I can't even remember their names.

I liked the teacher though, definitely one of the best kinds of characters,, very silly

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 12, 2023

RowinHaddick

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (5/12 eps)

Spoiler

My first actually written review for an anime for some reason is going to this show. Strangely, it is the first one to make me really want to write a review.

Anyways, this is a very strange show with strange characters and very odd choices in its writing. Each boy who joins the choir is given something strange about their personality to introduce a conflict they each have to resolve. The original boy, for example, (Dei, Tenshi) is extremely shy and is afraid of singing while people watch him. This conflict is immediately resolved in the first episode and then brought back later on (to ... be immediately resolved again).

It's this tendency of the show that makes the pacing feel very odd. Whether it's Kobashi, Kaito deciding in one episode to stop being obsessed in being the center of attention (something not adhered to) or Barato Shinzuo dealing with his identity crisis in 10 minutes, none of the conflicts feel too genuine or satisfying when they're "resolved."

Despite this the show does have times in which you can't really help to just smile at the boys bonding and singing together. The kareoke scene in ep 5 does this as well as the gorgeous song in ep 2.

I really have to give props to the art style and voice actors for making the anime feel cozy and fun when the writing doesn't get in their way. At the end of the day when the show isn't ham-fisting food metaphors forced character development you get simple and enjoyable scenes of regular peers bonding over music.

The most annoying part of this show so far is that the best the choir has sounded is in episode 2 when they sing a song which was wisely used in the anime's trailer (and I'm currently listening to on repeat on Spotify). It makes the intended narrative of them "improving" not seem genuine to me.

Still, I watched this show expecting mediocre comfortable entertainment with some genuine feel good moments and I got that.

I do hope that the conductor turned choir instructor gets some character development or he will start to make the anime unenjoyable.

Right now however, this is the best example of a 6/10 I've ever experienced.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 21, 2024

SuperAdventure

Not Recommended

This is one of the most baffling anime experiences I've ever had. Here is an anime almost nobody knew about, both in Japan and over in America, and this project appears to be this studio's very first anime.
Well they are definitely learning how to make anime in the School of HARD KNOCKS
It's supposed to be a Boy's Choir, though in the very first episode they show dancing, and a routine that more resembles idol performance. There are some bits and pieces that hint at someone in this studio knowing about singing... but it's not much, and the show has a distinct feeling that it ... doesn't really know much about its subject. And then there's the music.... Oh God. For reasons known only to the show's creators they had an ambitious choice of songs but which include a lot of English lyrics. But they apparently didn't have the budget for fluent English vocalists... the singing is by a bunch of amateurs and sounds awful most of the time. And I don't mean mild accents here and there, but such bad mispronunciation that it literally made me CRINGE!!
Speaking of cringe, the opener for this thing is an acid trip. It's one of the most terrible looking openers I've ever seen, made all the more baffling by how much passion was clearly put into it. This entire anime feels like a Case Study for the Dunning-Kreuger Effect.
The plot is pretty basic- smug rich boy failed conductor (Haruo Hibiki, who I called "Maestro") is recruited by his grandmother (better known as Old Hag) who decides that he must coach a boy's choir at the Kawagoe Boy's School that she is headmaster of, and win a National Competition or else his conducting career is over. He first scouts Tenshi, known as "Cardbocci" in the anime, which means Cardboard Box...heh, a very apt description of the impression this anime makes on you. Tenshi is cute, talented, but has stage fright. But it quickly forgets the plot and becomes an after-school music club anime, with all these other oddball boys joining. One who has facepaint like you'd see in Kiss maybe, a couple of twins and a rich kid (who all have the same face), and a big marshmallow guy (Bartleby).
It teases shonen-ai romance but never gets farther than the characters just being nice to each other. The animation is stilted, a lot of scenes make heavy use of stills. The characters all have these prominent eyelids drawn over their eyes that just make them look tired. The direction is all over the place, and the episodes range from pithy, slightly boring inexplicable school antics mixed with character drama- to downright awful. One episode in the middle of the season features the boys moving to another auditorium and somehow getting taken hostage by the worst terrorist in history, while an old guy shows up with a camera and ends up with his pants down... I can't explain, it's just terrible. Other times the direction takes a dark, artsy turn.
Characters are introduced and then forgotten about. Most of the episodes began with Maestro sitting on the sofa in Old Hag's office while she prods him for progress on his choir recruitment while they eat desserts (like PEPPER FLAVORED pudding! BLEGHH!!) Another episode has her ride up to challenge a competing choir group while riding a Segway. I could tell you to just go ahead and watch this just to see for yourself, but you're more likely to be bored to death and that is why I can't recommend it.

Even so, there are moments of true brilliance- sometimes the music is emotional and fitting and very good. Sometimes the arthouse direction actually pulls off a great scene. Sometimes the character IT-kun is actually kind of fun and entertaining. The backgrounds don't look like anything you see in other anime, it's different scenery and shot from different angles than you usually see and gives it an interesting vibe. This isn't a truly bad show, it tries very hard and has a positive message, but its execution is so clumsy and its writing so sloppy, and it's a musical anime that doesn't understand its own subject and doesn't have enough MUSIC!!! And in the world of music anime that's a deal breaker.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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