Anime Review: La Corda d'Oro Blue Sky

La Corda d'Oro Blue Sky - 12 episodes

Koihanata Kanade was invited to Seiso Academy to compete for the national musical competition wherein they have to pit against the cream of the crop of other schools. She was once a child prodigy in playing the violin but she has reached a somewhat of a slump.

I was excited with the number of bishonen and different schools. There are four schools and fifteen bishies but the opening credits showed twelve main boys. Who wouldn't be excited? Out of all the Neoromance anime adaptations, the only project that I really liked is La Corda d' Oro. So I was feeling positive about the spinoff. There was also a reverse harem cohabitation within the reverse harem interschool competition.  Inception! Yes, there was a female photographer in the house and all-girl team but I liked to pretend that they don't count.

But after just a couple of episodes, I have quickly accepted the fact that it's going to be yet another boring Neoromance anime. It was trying too hard to be very dramatic which made it too serious. And couple it with the fact that it has the worst animation I've seen recently. You can literally see the outline of the drawings and they look distorted at times. With these factors it just makes me hate everything that I would normally be relaxed about. We all know that eventually she'll win but I was expecting some exciting twists for each levels of the competition. But no, it was plain compete and win and repeat. Even the typical exaggerated scenes in animes during battles looked cheesy. I'm not sure if the same plot worked for the manga and the otome versions, (I haven't read and played it) but the ending left me wondering is that it? All the dragging episodes just for that ending.

Spinoffs usually have this character templates but maybe because of my frustration on the show they all looked pale, recycled bishonens. The only character who caught my attention for a second was Ritsu Kisaragi. It was when he took off his glasses looking vulnerable. That's it. The only silver linings are of course the music and the cameo crossovers of the characters from the original series.

I was expecting for the franchise to take it on the next level since it's the nationals we're talking about. They're going to compete with the best of the best. Sadly it has the lost the charm of the original title. Thank kamisama for Kamigami no Asobi or it would have been a horrendous spring.