La Corda D Oro is a pretty unique series. The plot revolves around a girl named Kohoko. She meets up with a fairy who can only be seen by a select few who can help to bring music back into its golden age. The fairy tells her that she must inspire people with her music and gives her a magical violin. With it, she can play excellently as long as she is one with the music..in a way. Along the way, she realizes the true value of music and why it’s a necessary part of everyday life.

Kahoko isn’t the only character who’s deeply interested in music. Once she joins the music world, she runs into Len, Ryotaro, and others. Winning the contests may be easy with her magical violin, but what happens when it starts to break down? Will Kahoko be able to master the violin or is all hope lost!?

This is one series where I can’t say that I really like any of the characters, but they aren’t awful. Kahoko is a pretty cheerful character, but she doubts herself a lot and by the end of the series, her music skills never become extraordinary. Technically that’s realistic since she just started playing the instrument, but it is pretty disappointing. By the end of the series, she definitely has a long way to go. The fairy helps her less and less as the series goes on and he basically disappears by the end. Kahoko is one of only two Gen Ed (General Education or basically normal school) characters who is able to practice and compete alongside the music school kids.

Len is known as one of the greatest musicians around. Like Kahoko, he also uses the violin. If Kahoko is cheerful and only average at the violin, he’s the exact opposite. He’s pretty silent and he also tends to be pretty rude. He doesn’t usually mean it, but he doesn’t know how to interact well with others. He mastered the violin a long time ago and his skills are unparalleled. Later on, he even leaves the city so that he can further his skills and rise to the next level. He starts to warm up to the others by the end and maybe even learns that friendship can be a good thing. Of course, he has to leave at the end which may make him regress a bit.

Ryotaro is the other Gen Ed student who manages to make it into the big leagues. He misses out on most of the first volumes as a musician. At first he just wants to stick to sports, but Kahoko helps him realize that music is one of the most important hobbies ever. That’s basically what happens; At any rate, Ryotaro uses the piano in his performances. He’s pretty good and he actually competes with Len a lot. He never ends up surpassing him, but he definitely gave Len a good fight. Ryotaro’s one of the happier members and he’s usually pretty upbeat.

Azuma is one of the musicians that you will find yourself disliking pretty quickly. He’s rich and pretty good at the flute. While he appears to be a very nice and polite guy to the general audience, he actually harbors a dark side as well. He’s pretty rude to Kahoko for the entire series, but unfortunately nobody ever notices. Later on he must decide between sticking to music or furthering his education. (I wonder which one he’ll pick…)

Keiichi is another music student who plays the cello. He doesn’t get as much of a role as the other members and he mostly enjoys sleeping. He’s decently good at music and he tends to do pretty good. He’s overshadowed by the other members, but he’s an all right character. Finally, we have Kazuki and Shouko, but there’s no reason to go too in depth with them. Kazuki is also a pretty happy guy who plays the trumpet. He’s all right at best, but next to Kahoko he may be the worst musician. His personality doesn’t really change that much and he never notices that his best friend (Azuma) has a dark side even though it’s fairly obvious. Shouko plays the clarinet, but that’s about all I can say about her. She’s very quiet and rarely talks to gets any character development.

The art for the series is decently good and the pacing is all right. There isn’t an overabundance of romance, but a bit more than is necessary. If they had cut the whole romance subplot out of the way and just kept it to music playing, this may have risen to a higher score. As it is, I’d recommend it to Shojo fans or people who really enjoy music. I thought the manga was all right and one of the better Shojo’s that I read.

Overall 4/10

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