Classi9

An enchanting story about a Japanese Girl being able to study in Vienna. She has to overcome the cultural challenges along with finding her own footing while being surrounded by musical prodigies. It's a remarkable and cute story about a girl trying to fulfill her own way while meeting astounding people who will influence the classics in the future.

If you like harems and romance stories, this is a great one to read. I highly recommend it. This book is really wonderful in that they portray the most famous musicians really well; it actually made me go back and listen to their songs.

I gave the story an 8 since I feel like the protagonist should encounter more inner conflicts since the story is slow and seams repetitive. Otherwise, it's really enjoyable.

To preface this review, I am a (hopefully somewhat) seasoned classical musician, so I have a fair amount of knowledge going into the manga. This is a reverse harem (guys fight over a "girl") AND gender bender manga (girl pretends to be a guy), so if you're not into that stuff, go read something else.

Story: 5. There were definite plot holes that the author put in the plot. Each of the composers is from a completely different era; at least the author could have ordered their age a bit better? For example, Haydn is portrayed as a little kid, but Mozart, who is drawn much older than Haydn, definitely looked up to Haydn as a budding composer and musician. Just saying. Mozart is god, but not god to the point where everything revolves around him. Other than that, it's a decent and lighthearted plot but really not anything special.

Art: 7. It was clean and well drawn for the most part. However, the mangaka obviously does not know how to draw certain musical instruments which put me off a bit (if you want to see a good example of musical instruments in anime, watch Hibike Euphonium. Gosh they did an amazing job animating that oboe).

Characters: 6. The author basically went on the classical composer stereotype and ended it there. Also, the MC is a guy IRL but is a girl in the manga for some odd reason which I feel doesn't do the real composer justice. However, I'm somewhat biased towards this whole situation, but the characters aren't too deep or unique so it gets a 6 either way.

Enjoyment: 8. Guys, there's finally a manga about classical music that's not Your Lie in April! I enjoyed reading this manga and relating it to my personal knowledge of classical music.

Overall: 6.5 Mediocre plot and characters, but it's not easy putting together the pieces especially with composers ranging from the late 1600's to the mid 1800's. I'm a classical music buff, so combining two things that I enjoy really just made this series so much more enjoyable. This series is definitely a good stepping stone for those who want to know more about classical music and for those who want something in the same music genre as Your Lie in April.

Classi9 is a fun, light-hearted read. By no means would I call it a masterpiece, but the writing and characters were better than I expected. When I saw that the characters were re-imagined versions of famous composers, I was anticipating a barely cohesive plotline that leaned heavily on those as a gimmick. But, after reading this, I can say that I would have enjoyed the story even if the author had omitted that shtick and allowed the characters to simply be random people that she created.

Story: Historical, music-themed gender bender. I would say that it was a good example of those story types, so if that is the kind of manga that interests you, you'll probably like this one. Is the story believable? Yeah that's a definite no. Is it well-written enough that I could suspend disbelief and enjoy it anyways? Sure.

Art: Attractive and consistent. I would say slightly better than average. There is a fair amount of chibi art, if that is something that bothers you. Clearly drawn for the female audience - lots of bishounen. That being said, it is not a overly-flowery, starry-eyed shoujo style

Characters: Likeable characters. For the most part, not a whole lot of character growth. Some characters were well-rounded, others were not.

Enjoyment: As silly and gimmicky as it was, I enjoyed this manga a lot. My knowledge of classical music is pretty minimal, and I did enjoy the historical tidbits that the mangaka included in between some of the chapters. I get the feeling that if you are more knowledgable about classical music and composers, you will probably get frustrated and distracted by the historical inaccuracies that I am sure exist within this story.

This was a rather interesting read, as this manga is rather light-hearted, with an easy going, and non-complex storyline, about female protagonist who wants to get into a male-only music school.
I did enjoy the fact that, it actually based the characters on real life people, and that the story actually incorporated some real life facts about the musicians. I actually started looking all the musicians up, after I finished reading this manga.
I also enjoyed the art style of this manga, as I feel like it portrayed the real-life musicians well, and it actually tried to keep close to how the real-life artists actually looked like.
Only down point for me would be the fact that, it was a bit short, and felt a bit rushed as well. It could have done with a few more chapters, to perhaps expand upon the real-life musicians a bit more.
Other than that, defiantly an interesting story, which I actually enjoyed reading. Worth a try.

It's a very lighthearted manga, it's very enjoyable since it doesn't really have a complex storyline. It does portray the characters in a very amiable way, and no one should expect to really learn anything, I mean some facts are correct, like Beethoven being deaf (though not from a very young age, as they represent here), or the fact that the composer Rentarou Taki did die a year after he returned from Austria of tuberculosis. Overall its a very light read if you enjoy reverse harem, though it doesn't really focus on the romance aspect as much, it's more similar to those of friends, kind of like Ouran High School Host Club, though without so much plot.