La Makura D’Oro, hiza-makura, ultimate skinship!

Hiza-makura (lap pillow)

This is just heavenly…


No, not daki-makura. It’s 膝枕。Hiza-makura. Yes, lap-pillow. Sleep on a girl’s lap. The ultimate skinship! How I wish, how I wish to sleep on her lap. Artificial hizamakura, I mean a 3-D hizamakura won’t do. I want Hizamakura like these:

Ah, La Corda D’Oro, primo passo. 2444444! (frantic laughter of Miya) This is awesome. This series is a masterpiece, it even surpasses the Star Wars trilogy! I haven’t seen any beautiful anime for a long time, since Marimite. Marimite was a tsunami to me. It was amazingly beautiful.

Maria Sama Ga Miteru

La Corda D’Oro is a shojo anime based on a PS2 otome game. It made me frantic. I laughed and screamed like crazy. There’s nothing heavenlier than girls’ romantic gossip! Since high school, or I should say adolescence, I’ve been failing to have a deep conversation with girls. They never shared romantic gossip with me. Since adolescent years, girls have become very distant existence. Even though I went to coed, I felt they lived in a totally different world. I figure it was because of lack of skinship, failing to have a physical contact with the opposite sex is the reason I felt they were distant, which is the most painful thing on earth. Even kansetsu kisu (indirect kiss) was a big deal in Japan. In the Western world, skinship is part of life, so this wouldn’t be a problem. That’s what defines freedom, which I came here to pursue, in the land of free.

Therefore, I get really sensational whenever I watch a shojo-oriented anime, especially a Rabu-kome (love comedy) i.e., romantic comedy. Romance from girl’s perspective indeed. The main character is Hino Kahoko, an ordinary 2nd year (junior year) high school student. 17 years old! The best age of life. She is a generic student from General Studies. But one day she gets discovered by a music fairy and gets bestowed a magical violin. Then, she gets to meet all the ikemen (good looking face) men from the Music Department. Through a violin, she gets to be friend with ikemen students that all the school girls dream of. And each time her heart throbs, I go frantic. I really wish I could see girls swooned every time they spotted me. Too bad I wasn’t born bishonen, life is unfair…

Vampire Knight

Man, this is really crazy. Claude Levi-Strauss speaking, the story is based on the same structure, shojo prototype. For example, in Vampire Knight, in the Day Class (humans), they only have one ikemen guy. But in the Night Class (vampires), they got tons of ikemen guys. So, all the girls flock to the Night Class. Just like that, in La Corda D’Oro, there’s only one ikemen student from General Studies, but there are a bunch of ikemens at the Music Department, so basically all the girls flock to the music building. Especially, for Yunoki-sama, there’s even a fan club, his unofficial guard organization. They run very SS-like. They even try to exterminate Kahoko. Personality-wise, Yunoki is like a male version of Ayatsuji-san of Amagami. And Yunoki-sama’s voice is the same seiyuu for Kaname-sama of Vampire Knight. Probably a school Kahoko goes to is mission-kei (religious schools), maybe Roman Catholicism (btw I’m a Catholic in 2-D since watching Marimite), but this BS two tier system… It’s like aristocracy and proletariat. And the upperclassmen are all ikemen being constantly chased down by drooling girls.

Anyway, classical music is really great. I still remember all the girls I fell in love from my school years, but this particular classical music anime has reminded me of a specific girl who played a wonderful piano back in my school days. I wonder what she’s doing now…a girl with a grand piano, what a beautiful scenery…she was rather average looking, yes, she was ordinarily pretty, not like super pretty that every dude was crazy about, but her Chopin piece enhanced her charm. When I saw her play Chopin in a music room, it left a strong impression in me. I simply forgot about myself. Yes, indeed Chopin made her a sailor uniform eternal feminine. Yes, music made her special. But I can never meet her again, because I think she must have changed a lot, probably has become a career woman, or married up, raising kids. She has to be eternal in me, the moment I saw her play piano, so I can never meet her, lest my eternal feminine falls apart…

Anyway, music connects people. Skinship was impossible in Japan, that’s why music instrument was a big thing. In Como Agua Para Chocolate (1992), because skinship was banned, Tita had indirect sexual contact with Pedro through her cuisine. Yes, the wedding cake! Japanese society doesn’t allow skinship until you find a mate, so for Kahoko, music becomes a way of flirting. Rendan (duet) is a way of skinship, virtual skinship, spiritual skinship, musical flirt, acoustic coquetting. Skinship = flirt = coquetting.

Moeutics

There is one particular character I can identify myself with: Shimizu Keiichi. Ah, especially when Shimizu-kun played Bach – Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major BWV1007 for Kahoko at the chapel. It also reminds me of Shinji playing that song in Neon Genesis Evangelion. That was totally beautiful. Yes, I was like Shimizu-kun when I was in high school. Although I was way too far from being a bishonen, my personality was, or still is, very much like Shimizu-kun’s.

With such a beautiful stained glass behind, the angels blessing Maria-sama and Iesu-sama. Just wonderful, wonderful… Divine. Yet, Shimizu-kun says Kahoko is the one helped him discover his original sound. Just like a bird warms her egg in the nest, Kahoko warms up Shimizu-kun’s creativity on her lap. Yes, a warmth of her lap gives him an inspiration! So, it’s maieutics. Ah, just beautiful. His cello resonates the entire chapel, and also touches Kahoko’s heart. Ah, I wish I could play a cello. I try to teach myself a guitar and play it to make girls fall in love, but I’ve never seen girls go head over heels about me. Ah, surely Shimizu-kun got a skill. He has a style! Killing her softly with his cello. I wish I could study classical music when I was a kid. Yoshiki from X-Japan also studied classical music in his childhood. It’s too late now. So, I had resorted to magic, occult, religion, looked for love potion like Indiana Jones, but failed… Now I figure love potion doesn’t exist at all. It’s all a lie. This world is phony. 3-D (reality) sucks. Life is saudade (melancholic).

Kahoko's heart throbs by Shimizu-kun's cello

Ahh, how much I’ve been wanting to see this reaction from girls…her cheeks go blushing and her heart goes thumping. The cutest moment ever. This shot just makes me heavenly, and at the same time, sad, or saudade.

This cello scene reminds me of Ogasawara Sachiko-sama playing an organ at the chapel from Episode 2 of Marimite 1st Season. The episode title is “Un duo Inattendu.” Unexpected duet! Her Ave Maria made Yumi‘s heart throb. It was the most shocking and beautiful scene I ever saw in anime.

The other guy of La Corda D’Oro, Tsukimori, plays a violin for a sick dolphin. After hearing the melody, the dolphin gets energetic and recovers from sickness. Music is surely a miracle! It is music therapy. He heals a dolphin! Dolphin healer! I thought dolphins were the healers. I heard many hikikomori have been cured with dolphin therapy. But dolphins also need therapy, hu? Dolphin recovers by Tsukimori's violin

Yet, Tsukimori admits that his healing power was invoked by Kahoko’s violin. Yeah, Kahoko-chan is awesome! Can she play Ave Maria for me? I’m a hikikomori too. What I need is therapy. Heal me with your music. I don’t need dolphin therapy. I know dolphin can’t heal me since dolphin is not a moekko (moe girl). I’m like German shepherd returning from service. I want her to heal this poor wretched. Yes, please let me sleep on her lap, and let her sing a lullaby to me or play a violin to me. That will be the ultimate skinship. So she can help me give a birth to the new melody. Yes, her violin is a maieutic instrument. It’s not a question of spirituality, but moeticality. Otaku liberation theology. Moelogy. Or whatever… I don’t give a big name for this. It’s simply moe. It’s more than maieutics. It’s moeutics.

Thus, what I need is Hiza-makura! That’s La Makura D’Oro! 金色の枕

Maieutic violin

To take a peep, here’s La Corda on Crunchyroll.

Author: Monsieur LaMoe

A refugee from Japan. Live in NAFTA. Get hooked on Moe. Moe is opium? Twitter: @MonsieurLamoe

4 thoughts on “La Makura D’Oro, hiza-makura, ultimate skinship!

    1. @lelangir

      Crotch or knee, positioning-wise, it’s all included in hiza-makura. Really nice skinship…I painfully long for…

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