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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There have been many Pokemon films over the years. There are usually one volume manga that go along with each movie. They are basically written adaptions of the films that they cover. This manga retells the events of the latest Pokemon film, but I will still be judging it as if it were an original story.

The manga starts off with Keldeo challenging the mighty Kyurem. Things don’t end well and the legendary Swords of Justice are forced to intervene. Later on, Ash and friends have fun buying boxed lunches and having a grand time. Pikachu is the only one quick enough to notice a damaged Keldeo on the train, but Ash and friends are quick to come to his aid. Things get dangerous when Kyurem follows them and starts a battle. Will Keldeo prove himself worthy and defeat Kyurem?

First off, let’s talk about Ash Ketchum, the legendary trainer from Pallet Town. He’s battled many powerful enemies in the past and his Pikachu should be one of the strongest beings on the planet at this point. Unfortunately Ash never shows this as he spends the entire volume getting beaten up. Ash and Pikachu don’t provide any threat to Kyurem and actually perform worse than Keldeo. Ash also doesn’t act brave in this volume and seems to be scared of Kyurem. Kyurem is tough, but Ash has dealt with Mewtwo and Gary, so he should be prepared at this point. When it’s all on the line for Ash to free some pokemon, he is unable to rise to the occasion. Ash is definitely not a really likable character in this volume and I’d recommend checking out other titles if you’re just reading the volume to see how cool he is.

His friends, Cilan and Iris are alright at best. Cilan seems to always be thinking about food and he doesn’t really take the situation seriously. I don’t think he would be my first choice if I needed a partner to go fight a legendary pokemon with. Iris knows a lot about Dragon pokemon, but she can’t seem to make up her mind. At first she claims that Kyurem is the strongest dragon type pokemon on earth! Later on she says that he is one of the strongest dragon type pokemon. That’s a pretty key difference, but aside from that she was alright. She took things a little more seriously, but she never got to take on Kyurem. Actually, compared to his friends I’d say that Ash was a pretty good character in this story.

Keldeo is arguably the main character of this adventure. He quickly learns that to truly become a Sword of Justice, he’ll need strength of character and the guts to accept defeat. He has a pretty climatic battle with Kyurem and I’d say that he was an alright character. I’m not a huge fan of the design (It wrecked some of his serious moments) but when the going got tough, Keldeo stepped up to the plate.

There was no Team Rocket in this story, but Kyurem took their place as the main villain. He definitely stole the show in this manga and all of his lines were pretty intense. He effortlessly takes down fighter after fighter and it seemed like nobody could stand up to him. The Swords of Justice couldn’t endure his power, Ash was frightened by his strength, and Keldeo lacked the experience needed to take him out. I’m glad that Kyurem could talk in human language, proving that he is one of the smarter pokemon. He has two different combat forms and both of them are definitely cool. Seeing as how he can fire off giant energy blasts, fly at super speeds, and freeze everything that he comes near; he’s definitely one of the toughest pokemon that Ash and friends have come up against.

This was definitely one of the better movie tie-ins to the Pokemon franchise. The art was pretty solid and while the comic relief could be a little off putting, the fight scenes came out strong. It is a fun Pokemon adventure and I’d definitely recommend it to Pokemon fans everywhere. Non pokemon fans will still get a kick out of it as well.

Overall 7/10