Tari Tari, Kokoro No Melody, natsukashii school chorus

Tari Tari is such a nice show. Very heart-warming. Full of natuskashii (nostalgia), sehnsucht, or saudade. It’s rather slow-paced—I sometimes fall asleep in the middle of an episode—but it’s very iyashikei (therapeutic). Yes, it’s close to Tamayura, another iyashikei anime. I would have liked an OVA version rather than a TV series of Tamayura. It was really good, especially the BGM, sung by Maaya Sakamoto and Megumi Nakajima.

The three main female characters look like the girls from Hanasaku Iroha. Wakana looks like Minchi, Sawa looks like Nakocchi, of course with her oppai, and Konatsu looks like Ohana. Konatsu has almond shaped eyes, and distinctive chestnut-colored hair. And she is chibi (short), but energetic. I love that kind of girl. And with the two male leads, there is a badminton guy, Taichi, and a guy who lived in Austria and then just came back to Japan, so his nickname is Wien (Vienna).

And Konatsu and Wien are weirdly synchronized. That cheerleading chorus is too weird when they are cheering for Taichi at the badminton competition in the Episode 5. They are like a wife and a husband, or bakkapuru (baka + couple). Idiot couple. They remind me of Isaac and Miria, the bakkapuru from BACCANO! Their synchronicity level is abnormal.

Ah, that music, that ED chorus from the Episode 6 is just amazing. So awesome, with a retrospective of Wakana’s deceased mother. Oh my Gosh. Beautiful. Kokoro No Melody. It made me tearful.

The piano is just awesome. I love this type of piano accompaniment. I know I grew up in Japan and went to Japanese middle school and high school, so this type of music is embedded in my psyche. Yes, every year we always had this cliché school chorus competition (合唱コンクール gasshou concours), where we had to choose the songs we wanted to sing in the competition. I remember we did Kato Kazuhiko’s song, Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichi Do. Kato Kazuhiko was the legend who wrote Do You Remember Love?, and Nakajima Megumi sang that at AX2010!

School chorus is totally natsukashii. Yes, wearing school uniforms, working with a girl you have a crush on, and that’s the only time you can talk to her naturally without any awkwardness. It’s the most valuable time to get to know her. That community spirit, a class becoming one literally, working hard for the same project, staying in the classroom after school until the evening, listening to the cassette tapes together, figuring out which notes you will be singing. This anime so reminds me of these days. When a chorus really gets harmonized, it serves as a proxy for oral gratification, becoming one with her indirectly. Indirect kiss, indirect skinship? It’s more like invocation. My voice and hers get harmonized, though too many voices, but like only one sperm can reach the egg, my voice forestalls all the other voices and reaches her voice in my heart.

Also, when my crush happened to be in another class, then, I would root for her secretly, though I had to cheer for my classmates ostensibly. But at the gym used as a concert hall only for this specific day event, I saw her along with her classmates on the stage performing together, and then I only looked at her, concentrating on her mouth. Then, the voice exuding from her vocal cord vibrated my eardrums. How ecstatic… That sensation…, yes, ear sex. Her beautiful voice was coming out from her cute lips that I was eager to press my lips on. Lack of skinship induces more than necessary fantasy. Maybe that’s why I was into chorus that intensively. That’s all I could do in a skinshipless society.

But you know, I noticed my crush was talking to a piano guy more than anybody else. That intense jealousy led me to conclude that I must learn musical instruments! But private piano lesson was something only bourgeois kids could take. So I taught myself guitar instead as a working class kid. And one of the reasons I got into guitar was that I wanted to play these school chorus songs at a picnic since a guitar was more portable, and invite my female classmates (more natural excuse to invite my crush) and sing with them. But this dream never came true in Japan. So I still dream I want to be a picnic or campfire guitarist, and I want to play a Tokimemo song, or Kono Ki Nanno Ki with full chorus.

Thus, I want to do Kokoro No Melody (Live). Of course with piano, but I need a pianist like Gendomike, since I can’t play piano myself. And of course, I want to play this at a picnic too, but this time, I’ll accompany on guitar, in order to regain youth, especially my long lost high school years!

Author: Monsieur LaMoe

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

9 thoughts on “Tari Tari, Kokoro No Melody, natsukashii school chorus

  1. We will play that song together. And record it, and release it here. Mark my words!

    This show has grown from a rather pretty but inconsequential show to being something a lot more enjoyable. I really dig it now.

    1. Awesome! Looking forward to! I think I’ll practice a live version of that song from youtube, which is a lot easier, for only two singers, not like five singers in anime. I’m glad that you dig Tari Tari too!

  2. Great review!
    Tari Tari is also in my opinion one of the best shows this season for sure. Too bad it only has 12 episodes and there only a couple more to go. I’m excited how the show will continue, in the recent episodes we have some dramatic elements added – I hope the music will not get too short in the end.

    Also I love how P.A. Works is doing things lately: Hanasaku Iroha and Tari Tari, I really love them with it’s characters, developement, soundtrack, and of course it’s heartwarming feeling when watching it.

    Sadly I have to add that I never experienced something like I see in Anime – Here in Germany, we don’t have anything like a school chorus (clubs in general) or any kind of school festivals. The daily school life is very linear and boring. Sometimes I wish I could experience these…

    1. @DjKnuX

      Thank you for the input! It’s an honor to have you here from Germany.

      I also liked Hanasaku Iroha. I really wanted to visit Bonbori festival. Yes, heartwarming feeling, that’s what I like about these animes too. Oxytocin inducing.

      These girls friendship was so awesome, like female friendship in Railgun. That kind of friendship is unattainable among dudes, that’s why I regret I was born male.

      I see, sorry to hear that. I hear German education system is full of boredom despite being one of the highest education levels in the world. But I hear skinship is more widely accepted in Germany, well, EU in general. Your grass looks greener? Japan is really mysophobic, even shaking hands is big of a deal. I never held any girl’s hand and walked together after school… That’s why I came to America.

  3. @DjKnuX – you don’t have school clubs in Germany? Not even choruses? Man that must be tough…

  4. @Ray:
    Well, I only can tell for the schools I went to. These were standard schools here in Germany: You went there for like 6-8 hours, only for learning (the normal stuff), then going home straight after that so I came home around 2 PM, sometimes a bit later… – I know one school I went to had a band with four members, but that’s it.
    I know there are also full-day schools here, but only some. These offer club activities on the afternoons. But I wonder how much fun they are actually – In Anime it always looks like much fun to have these.

    @Monsieur LaMoe:
    Great we have the same opinion and also the same taste in anime (at least if it comes to these type of anime). 🙂
    Oh yes, I heard they really celebrated the Bonbori festival in Japan. I would love to go there if it would be celebrated again – maybe after the movie aired. I also love how some guys made map with iall important locations of the anme (TariTari) – Also would check them out in RL~
    I guess I know what you mean with the girls-friendship there: The friendships (at least in anime) are like that they really spend most of their time together, trust each other, and talk about everything. It’s hard to tell actually…
    The German education system is okay in general. It’s only like you only go to school for learning the stuff. Of course you meet some nice guys (and girls) with which you hang out in the break times – but that’s only like 40-60 minutes a day. And if school was over, it’s mostly the case that everybody walks home straight.

    p.s. Sorry for being a bit off-topic here – just felt like to post an answer to some things.

    1. @DjKnuX

      Thanks for the little info!

      Yes, they have Bondori Fest during October in Ishikawa prefecture. http://www.yuwaku.gr.jp/bonbori/index-b.html Me too, I really want to visit there. You remember that’s where Ohana made a romantic confession! Yes, otaku pilgrimage map! Looking forward to the movie too!

      Yup, since I’m a boy, can’t get into female circles, so never witnessed that in RL.

      Yes, high schools in Japan were like that too. But during lunch break, some lucky dudes get homemade obento (lunchbox) from girls. On St. Valentine’s Day, the luckiest dudes get homemade chocolate from girls.

      Most school kids did the club activity after school. Kids walking home straight were called “kitakubu” (going home club). Our school didn’t have a choir club, too bad.

      Kids nowadays mail back and forth with their cellphones anywhere anytime, so time constraint of schools doesn’t matter anymore, I think.

      Hey, btw, just saw your music on youtube. That’s really awesome!

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