I dont know if Ill even be able to do this manga justice. Its a beautiful and meaningful story and its done something that nothing else that Ive read has been able to do: make me cry. And not just once but multiple times and thats just shedding tears. Thats not counting the number of times I got choked up while reading. You see the reason why Kono Oto Tomare succeeds is due to how it portrays emotions and how deeply it goes with them. This is the story of a koto club a club that focuses on a traditional Japanese instrument on the brink of being disbanded. Takezou Kurata is the only member left now all the seniors graduated. In order to keep the club alive he needs to recruit more members. However to his surprise the first person who asks to join is the delinquent Chika Kudou. The two of them alongside Satowa Hozuki a koto playing prodigy from a major koto family decide to try and bring their little club to nationals. As Ive said before Kono Oto Tomares strength is how it can evoke strong emotions. Its fitting since the koto playing is intended to create different feelings within the audience and how the characters are feeling is reflected in the sound of their kotos. Kono Oto Tomare is able to connect you to the characters emotions in ways that can emotionally resonate with you. The feelings of not being able to measure up insecurities the fear of dragging down other people and burdening them and feelings of loneliness. Im going to go off on a tangent about Haikyuu the volleyball anime because of a connection I was able to make. My favorite Haikyuu character is Takashi Yamaguchi. I immediately took notice of him when I heard him say the words Am I the only first year who isnt special? Because I understood him. My parents had me do a lot of sports but I never really enjoyed them. I did them because I had to. And I wasnt very good at athletics. No matter how hard I tried I would always come in last in my races be it swimming or track. My younger siblings would usually place in their events and I would always feel down about that. When I did sports my only goal was to not be last. Then I wouldnt feel useless or like I was nothing in comparison to my siblings. I didnt care as much about Hinata and Kageyama trying to reach the top with their genius special abilities. I cared about Yamaguchi trying his hardest to be valuable and not left behind. That tangent about Haikyuu is valuable because all the characters in Kono Oto Tomare are like Yamaguchi. All of them have strengths and strong weaknesses. Their koto performances have such a strong basis in how they function as a team to create their sounds. One players weaknesses and mistakes could detract from their performance. Every character in this manga feels insecure about their skills and abilities. All of them have their own weaknesses to overcome. None of them are super geniuses. Even Satowa Hozuki who is by far the most talented player in the group reached her level due to rigorous demanding work from an early age. She was basically groomed to become the head of koto group from childhood. All of them have shortcomings in their playing either by themselves or together. It is as a group that these players must improve not only for themselves but for others. Every character who gets even a hint of backstory or an arc shows me glimmers of emotion that I can understand and hit me hard. Even as someone who has never even heard of koto before reading this I can understand their deep passionate feelings. The strength with which theyre conveyed brings me back to my times of intense insecurity and anxiety. It allows me to connect to the characters on such a deep level that I can feel what theyre feeling. I cry for both my past self and for these characters. I dont think there are many Kono Oto Tomare characters who I hate. Almost every character I disliked in the beginning was able to grow and change in surprising ways. Right off the bat I adored Takezou. He was kindhearted but weakwilled and easy to walk all over. He knows he has shortcomings and he wants to be a stronger person and leader for the club. He knows hes weak but that doesnt stop him from trying to inspire his teammates. Chika Kudou is another character I liked immediately. I think I really like delinquenty characters with a softer side and the fact that he tries so hard to rectify his past mistakes is admirable. His growth into a kinder person is subtle but you will find that Kudou is a completely different koto player and person than he was in the beginning. Satowa Hozuki was more difficult for me to like. I hated her in the beginning. She was very condescending and I cannot stand condescending people and made some jabs toward Kudou that felt extremely low. However she has a reason for behaving the way she does since she was under socialized as a child and had to watch her own mother become increasingly cruel to her. With her level of skill she has a hard time relating to people who are beginners. And the Hozuki in the beginning is nothing like the Hozuki at the end of the series. She grows in empathy and can work on moving past her trauma. Her relationship with Kudou was obnoxious in the beginning but the way it changes and evolves over time is simply beautiful. Shes beautifully written and is probably one of the most complex characters in the series. The other characters got their own arcs and times to shine. I was expecting the delinquents who joined the club to pay back a debt to remain a comic relief trio only intended to fill seats and remain indistinguishable from each other. However they grow to love the koto and become passionate about it. They have their own flaws as koto players and people in addition to separate struggles. Kurusu the sixth member initially joined with dishonorable motives. She had a traumatic experience with bullying and rumors being spread about her and she views all relationships as things that can easily be broken. She goes from someone who has spent years destroying friendships to someone whose strength is emotional support. The other two club members who join are equally beautifully written and even the side characters are engaging and have depth. The art is gorgeous. At first I was a little off about it but it quickly became visually stunning. The color pictures are to die for. I would hang them on my wall Im that obsessed. The character designs actually kind of remind me of the current popular shoujo art style sort of like what Ive seen from Io Sakisaka and Mika Yamamori. All the characters are beautiful or cute and theres such striking imagery with the koto performances especially as the series goes on. My favorite parts visually are probably when the music school whose name I embarrassingly forgot played Tomfoolery and the conversation between Momoya and Uzuki. This manga will forever have a special place in my heart due to how much it made me feel. I have never seen so many emotions portrayed in such an effective way as this series did. I could empathize with everyone so well and I could just gush about this manga for ages. Do yourself a favor and read it. You wont be disappointed.