Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life

Plot

The story focuses on the koto club of Tokise High School in Kanagawa Prefecture. Takezo Kurata, in his second year, is the only member left in the koto club, after all the senior members have graduated. While he is trying his best to recruit more members into the club, Chika Kudo submits his application. However, Takezo is against the idea as Kudo has a reputation as a delinquent, and rumors say he was responsible for the destruction of his grandfather's own koto workshop. Things change when he discovers the truth behind the workshop's destruction and Kudo's resolve to honor his past. Also joining the club is the koto prodigy, Satowa Hozuki, who has her own agenda. Over time, more members join the club, each with their own reasons for playing. Eventually, they come to share a common goal – to play at the Koto Nationals competition.

Characters

Tokise Koto Club

Chika Kudo (久遠 愛)

Voiced by: Yūki Ono (vomic), Yuma Uchida (anime) (Japanese); Daman Mills (English) (anime)

Kudo, fondly called by his first name by most of his friends, has a very childish personality. He is straightforward with his words, but does not clearly know how to express himself or understand others, since he has not had many friends, spending most of his younger years being a delinquent. He changes his attitude because of his grandfather, and develops an interest towards the koto because of him. He feels like he needs to be responsible but he learns to understand what his grandfather said to him in his middle school year. He likes to help out his friends, but becomes shy when they thank him.

Although he starts with basically no knowledge about the koto, he is able to learn playing pretty quickly. He even has the ability to learn to play right after seeing someone else (for example, Satowa) playing it a few times. After learning that Satowa is a genius, he makes reaching her level (as a rival) his goal. He later develops a crush on her but does not understand his own feelings, leading to him wondering why he feels the urge to touch or embrace her. He has an earnest and diligent attitude when playing the koto and it seems to flow into his music too.

Chika currently stays with his aunt, Isaki. The one who understands him the most is his friend, Takaoka.

Takezo Kurata (倉田 武蔵)

Voiced by: Ryota Osaka (vomic), Junya Enoki (anime) (Japanese); Alejandro Saab (English) (anime)

The president of the koto club; settling into the role since there are no other senior members left after all his seniors graduated. He is also relatively new to the koto, and initially feels the pressure of being the president, but calms down once he knows that he has the help and support from all the other members of the club.

Initially, his personality was like that of a coward, and someone who lacked confidence, no matter what he did. This changes later, and he becomes quite the dependable senior and president. Mostly, he has a serious personality, and approaches everything he does earnestly.

Supporting characters

Tetsuki Takaoka (高岡 哲生)

Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese); Robert McCollum (English)

Kudo's friend from before the series started. He is good at studying, cooking and at fighting too. He is the one who understands Kudo the most. He also explained Kudo's situation to Takezo when he wanted to join the koto club. Kudo hangs out at his place, even when he is feeling off, making him feed him. He also ends up being Kudo and his other friends' cram teacher when exams are due.

Gen Kudo (久遠源)

Voiced by: Tetsuo Kanao (Japanese); Charlie Campbell (English)

Kudo's grandfather who passes away before the events of the series.

Takeru Kurata (倉田武流)

Voiced by: Natsuki Hanae (Japanese); Ricco Fajardo (English)

Takezo's younger brother. He appears apathetic, almost antagonistic, to the activities of his brother.

Mashiro (真白)

Voiced by: Ayaka Asai (Japanese); Felecia Angelle (English)

Mio Kanzaki (神崎 澪)

Voiced by: Shouta Aoi (Japanese); Christopher Wehkamp (English)

Isaki Kudo (久遠 衣咲)

Voiced by: Nana Mizuki (Japanese); Lydia Mackay (English)

Shizune Nishina (仁科 静音, Nishina Shizune)

Voiced by: Masako Isobe (Japanese); Linda Leonard (English)

Production

Born into a family with a mother who was a koto teacher and a sister who was a professional koto player, Amyu first started playing the koto at 3 years of age. When Amyu was in elementary school, she aspired to be a manga artist, and eventually had hopes to draw a manga using koto as its theme.

Afterwards, Amyu debuted as a manga artist with her koto-themed one-shot manga. Thereafter, she spent her days announcing one-shots in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine, Ribon. At the time, although Amyu had the thoughts of having her first serialization to be a koto manga, she did not get a good response from Ribon's chief editor, deciding to ultimately leave Ribon. While bringing it to other editorial departments, she met an editor for Jump Square, leading to the creation of this current work.

In addition, according to Amyu, originally Satowa was meant to be the main character, but it was pointed out that she had too gloomy of a personality, so in response, it was changed to the current main characters, Chika and Takezo.

Characteristics

Style

This work is set in the koto club as a youth group drama, detailing the joys and struggles of boys and girls. Amyu expressed that rather than the focus of the manga being on the koto, she carefully wrote it around the idea of "a youth group drama".

As mentioned above, Amyu has had experience with the koto since childhood, with her experience reflected in the work. As an example, the accuracy of the positioning of the koto pillars, as well as the characters' troubles regarding the koto being from a part of Amyu's personal experiences. On the other hand, due to playing the koto at a young age, Amyu says that they did not understand as much the difficulties that beginners may have in learning the koto. To counter this, Amyu deliberately requested for her chief editor not to study the koto and she asked advice from her mother and sister, who have koto teaching experience.

Original koto music pieces

As mentioned above, this work contains various koto pieces, including original koto music. As of this current time, original koto pieces featured in this work include the piece performed by the Tokise High School Koto Club in front of the student body to save the club "Ryūseigun", the piece performed by the Tokise High School Koto Club in the Kanto Music Festival "Kuon", the piece performed by the Hakuto High School Koto Club in the Kanagawa Preliminaries "Katakago", the piece performed by the Tokise High School Koto Club at the Kanagawa Preliminaries "Tenkyu". These 4 pieces are all made by Amyu's family members.

Ryūseigun - Amyu's older sister

Kuon - Amyu's mother

Katakago - Amyu's mother

Tenkyu - Amyu's older sister

To commemorate the release of the 5th volume, a video of "Ryūseigun" performed by koto players was released. Afterwards, the sheet music was made available alongside the release of the 6th volume. Similarly, with the release of the 7th volume, a video of "Kuon" performed by koto players were released.

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Amyu, Kono Oto Tomare began publication in Shueisha's monthly shōnen manga magazine Jump Square in August 2012. As of October 2025, it has been compiled into 33 tankōbon volumes.

Anime

An anime television series adaptation aired in two parts from April 6 to June 29, 2019, and October 5 to December 28, 2019, on Tokyo MX, BS11, AT-X, GYT, Wowow, and HTB. The series is animated by Platinum Vision and was directed by Ryōma Mizuno, with Ayumu Hisao handling series composition, and Junko Yamanaka designing the characters. Shouta Aoi performed the series' opening theme song "Tone", while Yuma Uchida performed the series' ending theme song "Speechless". Aoi also performed the series' second opening theme song "Harmony", while Uchida also performed the series' ending theme song "Rainbow". Funimation has licensed the series, and released the dub as it aired.

Stage play

A stage play adaptation ran in 2019 in three locations: August 17–25 in Tokyo, September 7–8 in Fukuoka, and September 14–15 in Osaka. The play starred Takuma Zaiki as Kudo, Kazuki Furuta as Kurata, Hinako Tanaka as Satowa, Kouhei Shiota as Adachi, Kotori Kojima as Sakai, and Tatsuki Jōnin as Mizuhara. In preparation for the play, the cast members trained for four months to learn how to play the koto.

Reception

As of October 2021, the series had surpassed 5.5 million copies in circulation. Particularly, the amount of junior high school and high school student readers have been increasing, and there are junior high school students who have started learning the koto after reading this work.

In addition, the videos of the koto players performing the work's original pieces have been increasing in views, with "Ryūseigun" passing 1 million views on January 1, 2018.

On March 8, 2017, the album "Kono Oto Tomare! ~Tokise High School Koto Club" was released by King Records, receiving an Award of Excellence in the Records category at the 72nd National Arts Festival by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. It also won the Traditional Japanese Music Album of the Year Award at the 32rd Japan Gold Disc Awards.