It has a lot of “potential” which it couldn’t fully use however that shouldn’t demotivate you from watching it. It’s become one of my favourites for sure.
The animation felt a bit awkward during the start but they really improved a lot as the series progressed. Loved the art from the start <3 But yeah compared to other brilliant anime it may seem a bit lacking so may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
I’m really glad I didn’t drop it, infact it compelled me to read the manga too.
I’ll digress a bit but Ohmygod you need to read the manga. It is Amazing. A masterpiece. The art is absolutely breathtaking and except for the fact that you can’t hear the koto music everything’s on point. Even about the music part, separate music CD has been released so you can get an idea of what they play. And it’s absolutely mesmerising. The manga is a must read if you like the anime or the concept of the anime but aren’t able to watch because of the issues.
Anyways coming back to the anime,
Since I’ve read the manga I’d say they actually did a good job adapting it because they didn’t change much of the storyline and it seemed similar and all. Anyways read the manga my fellow people. You will not regret :’)
Some of the things which I’d like to point out are (I’m not mentioning these to not make you watch it but so that you’re “aware” about it. Infact I very much recommend you to check it out atleast)
Firstly, the personalities of a few characters reallyyyyy annoyed me at first but I’m glad it got better.
Now I can say I’m quite fond of all of them.
The character developments are really strong in here!
Secondly, one thing that I didn’t like was they barely gave you 1-2 second glimpse of koto sound during practice sessions and members exaggerated reactions. I mean I do get they left it for main event but like just one touch of string is too less? And how do you react like that just from one second sound. It was funny yet annoying at times.
And even in the main performances they’d start showing flashbacks. Flashbacks are fine by me if they just showed slides but they’d even stop the music and there would be dialogues. It really put me off lmao because I love music and I’m here for music but then you cut it off in between. I mean yeah flashbacks are important but why put it in between the actual performancesssss.
Apart from this everything else was fine.
I’m not someone who looks for perfection. My philosophy is to see the beauty of imperfection and that’s what I was doing while watching this anime. The imperfection made me realise that we all are human afterall. It’s easy for me or others to condemn and criticise about it while I can’t even draw one scene out of it properly. Also as I said the manga is very good so there’s always that option for you.
The ending didn’t seem like an ending but since the list says 13eps I guess that was it. Can’t wait for season 2 which will come out in October I believe. I’m sure they’ll make a lot more improvements by then. I’m quite happy to see how much it improved within the first season itself. I’m really glad I watched it, hope you can feel the same~
