Kono Oto Tomare! Episode 9 Review: A Piercing Sound

Episode 9, ‘A Piercing Sound’ brings on a bit of turmoil for the members of the Tokise koto club. With the arrival of a new rival, the team become painfully aware of their shortcomings. Also, for those of you that have been waiting for Kurata’s time in the limelight, this week’s episode gives our lovable megane a bit more screen time.

Plot

The koto club is invited to attend a performance by Kazusa Kanagawa at Meiryo High School and are blown away by the intensity of her sound. Still reeling from the phenomenal performance the Kudo and the rest of the members realize just how outclassed their playing is…

Episode Highlights

Himesuka Performance: The members of the club travel to Meiryo High to watch the Meiryo and Himesuka koto club performances… unfortunately they’re a little late, so they arrive just in time to see the Himesuka performance and it was intense! They play a piece called ‘Two Personalities’ that’s typically played as a duet, but Himesuka has about five girls playing at once and they manage to make it sound absolutely amazing!

Hozuki’s Koto 101: Since she has the most koto experience, Hozuki is usually the source of most of the koto information. In this week’s episode, she explains the mechanics of the duet in ‘Two Personalities’ and her explanation is accompanied by a nice visual aid that clearly shows how the two parts of the piece fit together.

Kurata Character Arc: Finally, Kurata gets his own ‘story arc’ just like Kudo and Hozuki! In this week’s episode we get up close and personal with the koto club president, and it was sorely needed. We learn that he wasn’t able to go to his dream high school Meiryo because he flunked his exam. On top of that, his own younger brother looks down on him for being a member of the koto club. After this week’s episode, I really feel like I got to know Kurata much better and I sincerely hope they give us more episodes with him as the focus in the future.

Kurata/Kudo Falling Out: Hozuki and Kudo go at it just about once an episode, but in this week’s episode we finally see Kurata and Kudo butting heads. Kudo has opened up a lot since the start of the episode and in his own heavy-handed way he does his best to help his friends out when he has the chance. So, when he notices Kurata suffering after their trip to Meiryo, he offers a little help only to be rebuffed. What follows is an episode long falling out that affects not just the boys, but the entire club.

Kurusu and Kurata… I ship it: It’s starting to look like Kurusu and Kurata might be the new B couple in Kono Oto Tomare. She has really stepped up since her disastrous introduction and surprisingly, she’s been pretty invested in Kurata’s well being… is that love in the air?

Remaking their Nationals Sign: The biggest highlight of the episode comes at the end, when the members of the koto club all sit down and remake their Nationals sign. It’s a wonderful bonding moment between all the members and seeing the new poster with all their names on it is just so heartwarming!

Themes and Trivia

Koto: The koto is a Japanese stringed instrument and the national instrument of Japan. The Koto is made from kiri wood and has 13 strings each strung over 13 moveable bridges, to change the pitch the player must move the bridges before playing. To play the koto the player uses three finger picks worn over the thumb, index, and middle finger to pluck the strings.

Rokudan no Shirabe: One of Yatsuhashi Kengyo’s famous sokyoku pieces. The song is made up of six columns (the name means ‘six-column tune’) each with 52 beats.

Comments

We’ve finally reached that next stage in Kono Oto Tomare, where the team has to get their act together to really stand a chance at fulfilling their goal. For the members of the Koto club, it’s going to Nationals, and while it’s a cute dream, unless they up their game they won’t even make it past the prelims. And now we see just the kind of competition they’re up against. The Himesuka koto club is on a completely different level skill wise from Tokise and they have a lot of work to do to even have a chance.

But, the real highlight of the episode was Kurata. I have been waiting for him to get the same attention Hozuki and Kuda get, since he’s the first person to be a part of the koto club. His character arcs have been kind of lacking as of late and I was beginning to think that he was going to wind up becoming little more than a side character… and then BAM, here comes Episode 9 with some genuine Kurata character development! I loved seeing his home life and his ‘strained’ relationship with his brother (who is a total cutie). Kurata isn’t a ‘born’ leader, he’s much more of a supporting character, but now that he’s president of the club he is forced to step out of his comfort zone and actually lead.

He’s mostly been leaving the formal training stuff to Hozuki, and that’s been all fine and good, but Hozuki isn’t the president he is and it’s high time he acted like it. The club has reached the point where they’ve outgrown their previous setup and they’re experiencing some growing pains. Everyone is making strides, Kudo and Hozuki most of all, but Kurata has been standing still and that’s not conducive to their growth as a team. The big fight between Kurata and Kudo was necessary because it showed just how important it is for them to rely on one another. This isn’t a solitary activity; they all have to work together to make everything work.

Stronger Together

I wouldn’t say that Kurata is my favorite character, but I appreciate him having his storyline fleshed out a bit more. We need a break from Kudo and Hozuki every now and again. Episode 9 was a great Kurata-centric episode that showcased just how much more work the club has to do to make it to the Nationals!!

I’ll be back next week with another Kono Oto Tomare review, but in the meantime, be sure to check out MANGA.TOKYO’s other amazing Spring 2019 reviews!!

NEXT TIME: Near Yet Far