Mashiro no Oto
Those Snow White Notes
ましろのおと
Setsu Sawamura runs away from his small home village following the death of his grandfather, the legendary shamisen master Matsugorou Sawamura. On his deathbed, Matsugorou told Setsu to give up the shamisen if he was only going to imitate others instead of playing in his own way. Grieving, Setsu heads for Tokyo, hoping that the big city can inspire him to discover his own unique playing style. But Tokyo defies his expectations by drowning out all other sounds with the deafening noise of its city life. Concerned about her son, Setsu's rich and successful mother, Umeko, waltzes back into his life and forces him to enroll in Umezono Academy. At the school, he meets Shuri Maeda, a girl who is fascinated by the Tsugaru shamisen and wishes to perform a song her grandmother once heard a long time ago. Shuri starts up a shamisen appreciation club and convinces Setsu to teach the members how to play the instrument. As he becomes more involved with the club, will Setsu be able to recover his love for the shamisen and discover the unique sound he lacks? [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Synopsis
Setsu Sawamura runs away from his small home village following the death of his grandfather, the legendary shamisen master Matsugorou Sawamura. On his deathbed, Matsugorou told Setsu to give up the shamisen if he was only going to imitate others instead of playing in his own way. Grieving, Setsu heads for Tokyo, hoping that the big city can inspire him to discover his own unique playing style. But Tokyo defies his expectations by drowning out all other sounds with the deafening noise of its city life. Concerned about her son, Setsu's rich and successful mother, Umeko, waltzes back into his life and forces him to enroll in Umezono Academy. At the school, he meets Shuri Maeda, a girl who is fascinated by the Tsugaru shamisen and wishes to perform a song her grandmother once heard a long time ago. Shuri starts up a shamisen appreciation club and convinces Setsu to teach the members how to play the instrument. As he becomes more involved with the club, will Setsu be able to recover his love for the shamisen and discover the unique sound he lacks? [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Reviews(20)
Alfredo_Elric
June 18, 2021
Mashiro no Oto is a new music anime about an culturally important instrument: the shamisen. From the first episode, the audience is drawn to Setsu, a very skilled shamisen player who has yet to find his sound, leaving his home in the countryside for Tokyo after his grandpa has passed away. Throughout Setsu’s journey, there are many forced, dramatic moments to be able to meet new characters or push the story forward. While the music is gladly the strongest point to this anime, there are many flaws that come with it. Before explaining further, some cultural context of this instrument should be known. Kabuki isa very important theater within Japanese culture. There are different types of theater like Bunraku, the puppet theater, but both use the shamisen instrument as an important figure. The shamisen can either emphasize the intended emotions from the play or help with fun sound effects. Also, more so within Kabuki, the plays are known to be overdramatized to the point that the play is supposed to be seen as fake and not particularly believable. The influences from the Kabuki are impalpable and important in understanding Mashiro no Oto better. While I do agree with the majority that Mashiro is rather melodramatic, this does not come without reason. As mentioned earlier, Kabuki is a theater play dramatized to an extent that is purposely unauthentic. For the audience, these plays are not meant to be viewed as realistic but as entertainment within its ‘fakeness’. For that reason, Mashiro no Oto is not as contrived as a normal kabuki play. Not even close. But this shows how Mashiro no Oto’s story was influenced and mixed with more modern entertainment that led to the melodrama within the show. The animation style is very light and dream-like throughout the anime, helping portray the influence of the unrealistic, mythical beauty that kabuki plays have. The music along with the animation when they display the powerful sound that a shamisen player can have is also pulling from Kabuki and Japanese theater. The shamisen is at the forefront when it comes to Japanese theater music and sounds, so it must be able to perform and portray various emotions. In fact, the whole performance relies on how skilled the player is. For a more modern day audience, not as many people have experienced these theater performances. Thus, within an anime, they must be able to deliver a compromise that shares a similar feeling to real life. Thankfully, the director/crew at Shin-Ei Animation managed to display their prowess in the animation style when it comes to the shamisen parts. Watching an animation of a kabuki play will certainly not feel the same as a play in-person but by adding visuals that compare emotions received when looking at different natural scenery to the emotions the shamisen is conveying and pair that with strong music, the reception is enhanced within the anime style performance. A point that cannot be left out is how it is sad that the overall animation does not stay consistent. I do admit that there are moments where the animation seems to decline especially in the later episodes but I did not think they were particularly obnoxious. However, if there is one almost unbearable part of the show, it is also the most notable flaw of Mashiro no Oto and that is the comedy. To put it simply, it constantly feels out of place. One moment, the anime will have a calming atmosphere following Setsu before it suddenly changes to a randomly placed comedic moment. A brief example is how Setsu is thinking about how he's going to play a specific piece before some character interrupts him by either saying something supposedly funny, acting strangely, or Setsu running into an argument or awkward situation between two characters. Some of these comedic moments are portrayed as a necessity, especially in the beginning, when introducing its wide cast of characters who offer their unique chemistry in a rather niche setting. However, with this being a slice of life anime, one must place great care towards the flow of events to pace the audience for the climactic emotional impacts. Without any spoilers, an example of how the pacing gets lost is how certain scenes would begin to build up to a serious moment, like watching snow fall pile onto the ground into an untouched, crisp image only to have the some comedic stranger think it would be funny to reenact their earlier Dance Dance Revolution session only to leave many dense, messy footprints and forever ruining the could-have-been nice emotional landscape from before. In the slice of life genre, the biggest problem is almost always the illogically inserted comedy sprinkled about to lessen the emotional weight that they can bring. Mashiro no Oto is unfortunately no different. In the end, I believe the best way to use comedy in slice of life anime is to have it flow or not have it at all. Mashiro no Oto is all about its music, and I can gladly say that it is the best part of this anime because this show is about a lesser known, underappreciated instrument outside of Japan: the shamisen. Even as a person who has not had much exposure to a shamisen, all the music that has a shamisen used is just impactful. Within the events of the show, the moments where either Setsu and others play, there is volume and heart to them. If the music was intended to be powerful and well played or by a character struggling, the difference is conveyed and better noticed as more episodes are seen. From this, Mashiro no Oto has succeeded in giving me a greater appreciation for the shamisen sound. Sadly, outside of the shamisen music itself, the music directing is rather bland. The many quick tone changes mean numerous changes in music. This includes many sudden tone shifts indicated by sad music. A part that needs to be pointed out is how these changes of music can ever come to overshadow the actual shamisen playing. I’m not here to listen to a sad piano bishounen when the shamisen is literally still being played on screen. It's workable music on its own but the quick changes do not flow well and should not overshadow the actual star instrument of the show. On the other hand, the voice acting definitely deserves applause. Mashiro no Oto has kept in mind their Seiyuus and where each character comes from. There are multiple characters that live from different parts of Japan and Shin-Ei Animation did not forget to add in the accents. Even as a non-native and non-fluent speaker, I can still clearly hear the differences between the words spoken by the characters. Concerning the characters, they are not the most in depth characters and a lot of characters that I still don’t remember the names of are all pretty flat to push the story along which may be partially influenced by the 12 episode limit constraint and not having enough time to fit everything in nicely. Beginning with Setsu, he is a character that is more of a loner with others eventually drawn to him. By trying to find a way to move on from the loss of his grandfather and seek his own sound, he is able to grow and understand himself better due to these other people. Concerning a lot of his inner dialogue, the number of times he has talked about his gramps, how he can not play the piece right, and how he can not find his sound is a chore for the audience to get through due to how repetitive his words feel. However, I can now better understand Setsu and his situation, which honestly could and should still be fleshed out more, due to his untapped potential as an authentic musician lacking both self-esteem and motivation. In the end, the last two episodes portrayed Setsu's character better, which is what I wanted from this slice of life anime. For the other characters, the important ones like Setsu’s friends, and some later side characters get like two to five minute long for backstories. For Setsu’s brother, Wakana, he’s the acceptable ‘helicopter older brother’. I do wish that they could have made more time for the audience to understand the other characters better. To sum it up, a lot of these characters are placed and have desires just to directly or indirectly help Setsu with his journey of sound, even if it causes the show to feel less believable. [Slight Spoilers in Upcoming Paragraph] Two characters that follow that description the most are the teacher, Keiko, and a fellow classmate, Shuri. Keiko acts like a teenager and is always excited to go help the shamisen club. She also is able to reach out to more well-known people easily and it is explained through how Setsu is apparently known by certain people in the shamisen community. Does that mean she just gives out Setsu’s information to people in hope of them reading her emails? For a well-known alumni, Seiryuu, Keiko was able to reach out to him so easily. Would previous alumni be so willing to meet anyone who is going to their old school? Most likely not. And then we have Shuri, who is one of the first people Setsu met at his school. She was interested in the shamisen due to her Grandma wanting to hear a shamisen song that Setsu’s grandpa played in the past so she got Setsu to play again by convincing him to try to play it and basically establish the shamisen club. After the first half of the anime, she becomes more of a side character to tell Setsu what he should hear at a specific moment as well as still being around to show a beginner's struggle of playing the shamisen, timing. Her struggle is lame in comparison and could have been done better when compared to the others in the group. During the competition, two of the group members, Kaito and Rai, were able to play effectively and well despite being beginners and the new style being told to them by Setsu moments before going on stage while Shuri is still struggling with timing. “Wa” indeed Shuri. [End of Slight Spoilers] In the end, if you don’t like how the shamisen sounds or are not interested in Kabuki influences, then I would not recommend it. I admit that I enjoyed the music and visual style, more than the actual plot and characters. This anime will not be able to perfectly replicate the feel of a Kabuki play but if you are willing to see an anime that does embrace parts of its cultural theater roots with strong music, I would tell you to give this anime a try.
