Piano no Mori (TV)

personally, i'm not really into music. the reason i was intrigued and started watching this show was honestly because the summary on MAL made it look a little bit like a shounen ai or have shippable male main characters, so i picked it up. although it isn't actually shounen ai, i've always shipped kai and shuhei. the reason i enjoyed this anime and watched both seasons was because i was probably a bit more focused on their relationship than anything else, so i stuck around for that! the show throughout the two seasons went between different perspectives of other pianists, but i would've wished itfocused on kai and shuhei just a bit more. something i have always hated about this anime from the first episode is the animation during anyon'e piano performances. it broke the (general) 2d anime rule and was more of a 3d style. it didn't suit at all, and looked quite weird; especially for an anime. i could understand in a cartoon but seeing it in an anime was pretty odd. overall, the anime was good from my point of view, but everyone has a different reason for picking this anime up if they did.

I have no idea how to judge this, but do have a clear idea of it, so with the anime adaptation of both the Madhouse film and the completed manga itself, let's see what you get with the 1st half of this series while waiting for the 2nd cour to be set next Winter (at the time of this review). As many would suggest, watching the film made by Madhouse in 2007 is a plus (or how I would interpret it as a MUST) because Gainax clearly rushed out of proportion, seeing that the manga made an extensive approach to cover the emotions felt by theMCs-turned-rivals Kai Ichinose and Amamiya Shuuhei from children to grown-up, full-fledged pianists. And for manga readers like myself, it's a no-brainer with the most well-beloved pianist-turned-teacher, Sousuke Ajino, having an accident wreck his ability to play with teaching Kai to not surpass anyone, but to find his own voice, from the piano in the forest onto the big scene. This 1st half covers pretty much the rushed film adaptation onwards to the Polish competition that came to an abrupt end with the 2nd cour left to go. And with music anime, it's a dime a dozen with hits (Your Lie In April etc.), and Piano no Mori falls few and far in between with these. It's a good adaptation, and pretty much still getting used to the CGI which helped in transition moments and such. As of now, please watch Madhouse's film (which encompasses Episodes 1-4) and follow up on the rest when it comes soon, but for anime-onlys, this series is good if you want a music anime, only if it prefers to your tastes for competition-filled drama.

If you like learning about things then you will like this anime. I've learnt a lot about classical music, it's status in society, people's reaction to great talent, and an appreciation for the art of piano. Nothing is confusing for people who don't know anything about classical music. The story is told where we are introduced to the performer's background story/their motivations to compete in the grand stage of piano, before they play their piece. We aren't just listening to the music, but we get to hear the thoughts as they play. This brings an emotional element to the performance where we are able tolearn in more depth about what it's like to be that person performing. The way the writer talks about the music has an artistic style that is impossible to not notice the passion for piano. And this what makes the anime so enjoyable, it's a passionate story that doesn't need the hype we see in shounen anime to make it great. And like anything that isn't mainstream, this anime won't sit well with a lot of people. My one critique is that it's a short anime where time periods in the main character's life is missing. This can effect our ability to understand what the main character, kai, has been through to get where he ended up. I really like the protagonist Kai, he's a very compassionate character and this doesn't change throughout. However, we don't see much challenges to Kai's character development. Overall, there is plenty to get out from watching this anime and I defiantly recommend it.

Piano no Mori anime, like the homonimous film, tells the story of Kai Ichinose, an incredibly talented pianist child, whose free style however fails to convince the strict judges of the competitions. Sôsuke Ajino, a former master pianist, takes him as his pupil and vows to make the world appreciate his talent. If you saw the film, you already saw the best part of it. The problem of this anime is that after the first arc (which was already covered in the film version) the story suddently stops moving forward and keeps moving in circles around the two same ideas: Amamiya (Kai's friend-rival) is frustratedabout not reaching Kai's level, and the competition judges are a close-minded bunch who can't appreciate Kai's talent. Competitions become the end of the story and not just plot drives, to the point that the last 4 episodes have been a single competition. On top of that, there're no other plot lines to bring some fresh breeze into the story (as, for example, there were in Your Lie in April). Unless you want to see some anime version of a piano competition, I can't recommend to watch it further than the childhood arc.

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