OP Sequence
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OP: 「Brand New Breeze」 by カノン (Kanon)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (11.9MB, XviD)
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Summary:
In the past, there was a young man who saved a small and mysterious creature. This young man’s dream was to start a music school, and so the creature that he helped promised to bless the school he created. And now, in the present, there is a Seisou Academy with a special contest. On this morning, Hino Kahoko is rushing to school and arrives as the first bell is ringing. When she catches her breath by the fairy statue in front of the school, an actual fairy appears in front of her. This fairy is excited that Kahoko can see him, so he decides to start the contest by ringing the campus bells. The entire school hears these bells and by the time Kaho arrives in class, everyone is abuzz about the contest. Kaho’s friend tells her about a past romance between two rival violinists who were brought together by a fairy. Remembering the fairy she saw earlier, Kaho decides that it must have been her imagination, but she accidentally blurts this out during class. The teacher punishes her by having her carry some stuff afterwards to class 2-A in the music department. Along the way, Kaho is accidentally bumped into by someone when she’s at the top of a staircase, causing her to lose her balance and drop all of the books. Fortunately, the same guy who bumped into her saves her from the fall by catching her. He ends up helping her carry the stuff to the classroom and introduces himself as Tsuchiura Ryoutarou.
When they get to the classroom, it’s apparent that they don’t fit in because the music department students have different uniforms. As they’re standing at the 2-A door, another boy approaches them and asks them to move because they’re in the way. He refuses to help them out since it has nothing to do with him. Afterwards, once Kaho has finished her task and has parted ways with Ryoutarou, she encounters the fairy again. This time, the fairy introduces himself as Lili, but before he can say much more, Kaho runs off. She returns to her own classroom, but the fairy follows her there and tells her that no one else can see him but her, causing Kaho to collapse in despair. It is later during lunch that principal announces the participants of the music competition: 3-B’s Yunoki Azuma, 3-B’s Hihara Kazuki, 2-A’s Tsukimori Ren, 1-A’s Shimizu Keiichi, 1-A’s Fuyuumi Shouko, and 2-2’s Hino Kahoko. Everyone, including Kaho herself, is surprised that her name got called. Kaho goes to see Kanazawa-sensei about there being a mistake, but he confirms that there is none. Kanazawa thinks that her being chosen means that she must have seen that, which Kaho immediately figures out is referring to Lili the fairy. Kanazawa also passes along a message telling Kaho to go to the practice room of the music department after school. Before Kaho can ask anything else, she gets interrupted by Yunoki and Hihara. The two realize who she is and introduce themselves – Hihara plays the trumpet and Yunoki plays the flute. When they try to guess what instrument Kaho plays, she declares that this has nothing to do with her and excuses herself.
Despite that, Kaho ends up going to the area with all of the practice rooms after school. She sees something sparkle in one of the room and goes inside to find Lili waiting for her. Lili calls himself a fata (latin for fairy), and explains that the fata think that music is a source of happiness – that’s why they spread music in order to fill the world with happiness. Plenty of people used to be able see them, but times changed and people nowadays can’t sense them anymore. Lili ends up giving Kaho a magic violin that he finished after years of research – with its magical powers, anyone can play the violin. But it’s actually still a prototype, so the user has to be on the same wavelength as Lili to use it. The fairy wants Kaho to try it out, but she protests because she doesn’t know how to play the violin. All of the sudden, Kaho’s arms start moving on their own into the right positions, causing her to scream and throw the violin away. Lili manages to catch it, but Kaho doesn’t want the violin back. Lili had an idealized version of what he expected to happen, but for now, he decides to give Kaho the violin and its case. After the fairy disappears, Tsukimori Ren comes into that room and kicks Kaho out so that he can practice. As she is walking through the school trying to figure out what to do, she finds three girls bullying Fuyuumi Shouko. When Kaho goes to intervene, they challenge her, since she was chosen, to play for them. Kaho doesn’t want to take back what she said and apologize, so she has no choice but to pull out the violin and try to play.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「CRESCENDO」 by ステラ クインテット (Stella Quintet)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1 Mirror 2 (7.7MB, XviD)
I recognized Kanon’s voice as soon as she started singing the OP. I remember it from Angel Heart, where she sang the Gloria insert song. In any case, I love her voice and this OP as well (I’ve got the song on repeat now). The ED quintet is comprised of the main male characters singing, and it’s not a bad song.
Alright, I know that I initially marked this series as having a poor chance of getting blogged because, well frankly, it didn’t sound that interesting. But then earlier in the week, when I went back and rechecked the schedule, I realized that there was a dearth of Sunday shows. It was this or Galaxy Angel, and since I haven’t seen any of the previous GA series, I chose this.
The first episode itself wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either – it had decent animation and ended up being an average introduction episode in terms of story that didn’t really wow me or win me over. Still, I can see some potential in this series. There were some overly shoujo moments made me laugh a little, and I’m a little curious how the whole music contest will work out. I suspect that by taking Kaho’s own violin skill (or lack thereof) out of the equation, this becomes not a series about a music competition, but instead probably about how she – as a normal girl – befriends all of these extraordinary guys and what happens from that.
I’ll probably give this a couple more episodes to see how the story develops before making a decision. As I mentioned above, the one big thing this show has got going for it is a Sunday airtime, which is a day that’s fairly light on other new shows. We’ll see what happens…
