Being surrounded by cute boys... every fangirl's wet dream.
La Corda d'Oro (The Golden String) or Kin'iro no Corda is a series of Otome Romance Games developed by Koei with a manga and anime adaptation. The anime adaptation gives a face to the nameless protagonist in the form of Hino Kahoko, an Ordinary High-School Student who was given a magical violin by Lily, the spirit of the school.
Every few years, the prestigious Seisou Academy holds a prominent musical competition, and only the very best students at the Academy are allowed to participate. Though all are eligible to apply, only students from the music department actually make it to the competition... until now.
The series proved successful and spawned various sequels: the first two ones feature Kahoko, but Kiniro no Corda 3 takes place 8 years after the first game's timeline, featuring a new protagonist joining Seisou High School: Kanade Kohinata, as well as a new set of guys (but with the old ones doing cameos). The latter one was greenlit for an anime series in April 2014, and received a continuation with the game Kiniro no Corda 4.
A mobile game entitled Kin'iro no Corda Starlight Orchestra was released in April 2021 and features yet another protagonist and cast, marking the third generation of characters.
Examples:
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The entire franchise
- Elegant Classical Musician: Being about classical music and the orchestra, everyone.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Many characters across the games:
- First generation: Azuma.
- Second generation: Hōsei.
- Starlight Orchestra: Kazuma, Ukiha, Ryōsuke.
- World of Technicolor Hair: The games contain a rainbow of unnatural hair colors for its Japanese characters with nary a comment or justification. Let's see...Kahoko Hino's bright red, Len Tsukimori's blue, Ryoutarou Tsuchiura and Kazuki Hihara's varying shades of green, Azuma Yunoki's purple, Shoko Fuyuumi's bluish-green, Kanazawa-sensei's reddish purple, Shinobu Ousaki's the other shade of red, and Keiichi Shimizu's blonde.
First generation (1st & 2nd games)
- Anime of the Game: La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo and Secondo Passo (a 2-episode OVA).
- Brought Down to Normal: After the strings get fixed, the violin is still no longer magical, so Kahoko has to play fair and square (and actually train harder) from then on.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Pretty much a given. Hell, just look at the trope image.
- Classical Music: Lots and lots of it. The performances in the game and anime are actually pretty good.
- Days Of The Week Name: The main characters all have kanji in their last names that refer to the days of the week. Hino has the "sun" character from Sunday, Tsukimori has the "moon" character from Monday, Hihara "fire" from Tuesday, Shimizu "water" from Wednesday, Yunoki "tree" from Thursday, Kanaya "gold" from Friday, and Tsuchiura "earth" from Saturday. Of course, by the time they added Kaji and Etou to the cast, they had run out of days to work with...
- Foils: Among others: Hino and Tsukimori, Tsukimori and Tsuchiura, and Hihara and Yunoki.
- Heroic BSoD: Happens to Kahoko when she breaks her violin's strings.
- Jerkass: Tsukimori, but he develops into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Yunoki when he reveals his dark side.
- Last-Name Basis: Many characters refers to others by their last name.
- Love Confession:
- Out of all the characters, Tsuchiura is the first to directly confess to Hino in Chapter 71.
- Tsukimori in Chapter 75.
- Meaningful Name: La Corda d'Oro means "the golden string" in Italian.
- Oblivious to Love: Hino, to the rest of the boys' crushes on her.
- Official Couple: Tsukimori and Hino in the manga.
- Pinky Swear: Between Hino and Tsukimori when she asks him to attend the competition in Chapter 65.
- Poor Communication Kills: Most recently in the manga, Tsukimori kept it a secret of when he was leaving to study abroad from Hino because of how much she means to him. When Hino finds out the day he's leaving, she comes to the conclusion that she wasn't important enough to Tsukimori to be told of this. They get better.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: A funny incident involving Tsuchiura's ex. Involves both Tsukimori and Tsuchiura denying that Hino is their girlfriend.
- Shrinking Violet: Fuyuumi.
Starlight Orchestra
- Awesome, but Impractical: SSR cards are daunting to raise despite being gifted with better stats; they're rare to begin with, which makes free limit-breaking difficult (doubly so if they're limited event cards), and manually limit-breaking them requires separate kinds of statues, which are hard to obtain (doubly so if it's a crossover character).
- The Bad Guy Wins: At the end of Kyoto arc, Taiga successfully convinces Ukiha to join his agency, marking the first major loss for the Starlight Orchestra.
- Bittersweet Ending: Miyazaki arc: despite the successful concert, the amusement park gets demolished anyway, with only the Ferris wheel spared. However, Sōji has overcome his stage fright and decided to pursue music again, and he and Takuto join the orchestra.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The heroine is referred to as "concertmistress" awfully frequently by an awful lot of characters.
- Finishing Move: The "finale", triggered at the end of a won level if the "finale" gauge is filled to 100% and upnote . During the finale sequence, the team leader gets a Super Move Portrait Attack and a burst of points for spectators is achieved. Filling the gauge to 200% triggers an "SP finale", which gives even more spectator points.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player character's name – Yui Asahina by default – is customizable and never spoken aloud even when written in dialogue.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: Card rarities are color-coded: red for N, silver for R, gold for SR and rainbow for SSR.
- Leitmotif: Each region has 3 pieces of public-domain orchestral music as these, which are played during levels.
- Limit Break: Each card comes with a set of level caps, with the next cap reached (a star added) every time a duplicate is summoned or when manually unlocked using statues. Each card's limits can be broken seven times; any duplicate summoned for a card that already has 7 stars will be converted into statues.
- Officially Shortened Title: SutaOke.
- Order Reborn: A mundane, non-fantasy version: the game's plot is about rebuilding the once-great Starlight Orchestra back from the ground up to take on national competitions.
- Predatory Business: Regal Records is a large music company with a track record of poor work environment for performers leading them to quit (Rei, Ginga), stifling individuality (Polaris) and exploiting controversies and people in difficult situations (the Mikado).
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Classical and orchestral pieces are used as level themes. Each region gets a set of 3 scores, making them essentially regional Leitmotifs.
- Random Number God: Cards are collected via "scouting", which is basically a gacha.
- Rare Candy: You can force level-up cards by feeding them music books; the higher the book's rarity, the more experience points given. Unlocking the training road requires another kind of materials (food), which must correspond with the character's home region. Limit-breaking requires another kind of materials (statues).
- Skill Scores and Perks: The "training road" feature where you can increase a card's stats and unlock skills and side stories via a skill tree mechanic. Unlocking a node (called a "panel") requires materials that correspond with the character's region.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Kyoto arc: after performing a successful concert with the Starlight Orchestra, Ukiha joins the bad guys and derides the same people he just performed with. Also featuring his slapping Gen'ichirō in the face and declaring him expulsed from his family.
- Super Move Portrait Attack: All characters present in a performance sequence with a bonus activated get one each before the sequence starts, but the team leader gets a special animated one during finale. Concert levels begin with portraits of five main members.
- Theme Naming: All over the place; the only school without a naming theme is Nakijin by virtue of having only one character.
- Seisō characters except heroine and Sakuya are named after Shōgi terms.
- Heroine's Canon Name and Sakuya: contrasting Temporal Theme Naming.
- Jōyō: Floral Theme Naming
- Sylph: Stellar Name, extended to the idol unit.
- South Hyūga: Colourful Theme Naming
- Takagamine: Animal Theme Naming
- Lazarus: Animal Theme Naming after fish.
- Kakyō: Rock Theme Naming, extended to two NPCs from St. Cecil Girls' Academy (Sango and Ruri)
- Trailers Always Spoil: One of the game's promotional image features the entire main cast except Ukiha.
