Note before the start: This obviously has some spoilers. The review is from MY PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW, everyone will appreciate and see something else, by this review i wish to give you a new look on the anime :D, feel free to let me know your POV... everyone is unique and values something else more than others.
.
Intro
For me personally Kono Oto Tomare is something that was more enjoyable than Your Lie in April or Oregairu. Now I don't want to downgrade these amazing animes, but I really feel like this anime gives you a lot more to take from it than the other two do since they have more characters and also were not afraid to focus on more than one or two things like Oregairu and Your Lie in April felt... I think this is just a better anime overall :D.
Enough of the intro talk, I want to talk about the characters here where I feel like I can share more than talking about the plot itself.
Chika Kudou
Chida Kudo is one of the main male characters from the Kono Oto Tomare series, he is interesting and catched my attention mainly later in the anime where you find out about his past and we could also say a tragedy with the kotos of his grandpa, this is something which actually isn't shown as much as in manga, but if I talk only about anime, Chika really made a big jump, first being someone who looks like he is just destroying everything without having anything of a value, to a person where he values the people around him and never leaves them alone in a tough spot. He is also also an extreme hard worker – this is something that had an impact on some other characters which maybe at the start of the anime weren’t THAT dedicated and hard-working.
Satowa Houzuki
Satowa Houzuki is one of the main female characters from the Kono Oto Tomare series. Satowa in her past played a lot of koto. This was because she was from a koto-playing family. With that said, her past with it isn't pleasant, her mother was very toxic towards her – that had also reasons, but, well, for young Satowa, she just couldn't really see the full picture at the younger age, and it also didn't change the fact that it left a mark on her. She is left all alone with hate towards Koto and very reserved, she felt like she didn't really belong anywhere, this is where the Koto Club and people in it change her, for example she hurt Chika Kudou by saying few things like "why is someone like you playing Koto" and well you can imagine Chika because of his past took it very personally and badly. This was one of the big turning points for the evolution of Satowa Hozukis character, Chika forgived her and also defended her behind her back instead of insulting her. This because of Satowas past meant a lot to her and just deepened the trust and bond between her and the Koto Club.
Takezou Kurata
Takezou Kurata, he was the first main male character to be shown in the anime, a very soft and not really confident guy which was the only koto club member at the start, I'm gonna skip the past here to the present, thanks to everyone support around him, he grew as a person, becoming more confident and also honest, since he was the leader this gave the club a really nice image I would say for the people outside of it. I feel like he was one of the characters which in some later stages of the anime really helped with keeping everyone together. What I mean by that is that he was able to make other characters open up more and accept them politely, a nice development and if we get season three, I will be looking forward to seeing more of him... I believe he has still a lot of uncovered potential as a character.
Hiro Kurusu
Hiro Kurusu was at first a veryyy very toxic character. I thought she would stay that way, she tried to basically push everyone against each other in the koto club – but since at the time the clubs mood was set nicely, no one fell for any of her tricks, and they surprisingly to me welcomed her warmly as a member of the koto club. Now why would Hiro Kurusu do something like this, she was affected by her past friends, which basically did the same thing, ditched her and then started creating rumours around her, the fact that the koto club accepted her despite at first being we could say attacked by her efforts to break them, it was one of the big moments which really helped the koto club and their friendship in the long run.
Maintakeaway
So the takeaway here is really simple, friendship. I really liked how the anime showcased different kinds of traumas or negative events which affected the characters here and how there was always friendship included as one of the main, if not the main thing to solve the issues. I also cant forget mentioning the music - I didn't have a clue what koto is before the anime, and now I just like to listen to it from time to time, if you add up the character development, the plot and its twists, animation and also the music, I just feel its safe to say this is one of the best music romcoms to be seen.

Thanks for reading