All I said I the HSG finale post I’ll say here – it grates me to no end that I have to deal with an episode like this in the midst of travel and exhaustion.  If nothing else this at least isn’t the finale of Kono Oto Tomare, but it’s such a monumental episode in every sense that it deserves both to be thoroughly discussed and praised to high Heaven.  I know not many of you are watching this show (which means you’re probably not reading this review anyway) but boy, you’re the ones missing out.

I’ll keep it brief and just say what’s foremost on my mind, as I’ll certainly be re-watching this episode at least once.  First, it strikes me that the bullshit meter with KOT is exceptionally low.  This is a series that doesn’t screw around with the audience – it’s very clear what it’s about and what it believes, and it just goes about delivering on that in the best way possible.  Honest, direct emotion and beautiful music.  The meaning of friendship and family, and mentorship.  The power of love.  It ain’t complicated but it’s sure as hell powerful.

Another thought in my mind right now is that Kono Oto Tomare has a pretty flawless record when it comes to delivering in the big moments.  Part of that is saving budget for the performance sequences, sure, but it goes much deeper than that.  This show has wrenched more raw emotion out of me than any other this year, and there’s a good reason for that.  It all ties back to that clarity of purpose – from the source material on upwards, there’s never any question of what the crucial moments are.  Everyone involved understands the material and what’s important, and they make every damn one of those moments count.

Then we have the music.  “Tenkyuu”, like “Ryuuseigun”, is an original piece composed for this series, and by God it’s a beautiful piece.  But the performance – I mean, what can you say?  As I expected the anime showed every note, and the Tokise Koto Club nailed every note.  There was no question by the end which school had delivered the outstanding performance (in Granny’s words “hiding the difficulty of the performance, as it should be” – in marked contrast to Himesaka – and truly allowing every member of the ensemble to express their soul, unlike Hakuto), but it goes deeper even that that.  This performance and this piece communicated such an unmistakable sense of joy, of gratitude for existence.  Am I projecting?  No, I don’t think so – it was all there, in the music.  It’s not the first time Kono Oto Tomare has moved me to tears with a performance, though the circumstances were quite different this time.

This, surely, is one of the core themes of KOT – true musical apotheosis can only happen when the line between the performer and the performer is erased.  “The sound is your soul itself”, indeed.  Context is everything here, remembering the circumstances when Satowa-chan first played a variation on this piece, and contrasting those circumstances – and that performance – with this moment.  And that is truly the genius of this series, because the power in the narrative comes from the way the lines between the characters and their music are broken down bit by bit until they’re inseparable.

You’d think this would be overdramatic, false – the Tokise kids sitting awkwardly on stage as silence grips the hall, unable to see the tears on so many faces (familiar and otherwise).  But I don’t know how anyone could listen to that performance – especially if they knew the performers – and not be impacted.  And how did it happen?  It couldn’t be more straightforward – because the bonds between the performers were stronger than with any other ensemble, and because they worked their asses off for each other.  I can’t ask for any truer a climax than that, and I can’t ask for anything more from an adaptation.