Forest of Piano

Tbh I wasn't expecting crazy animation but man this was on PowerPoint levels. It's such a good story and amazing music, it just feels so wrong. It's like the whole budget went to animating his hair as if a fan were in front of him. I knew it wasn't going to be like YLIA, but I expected at least a little arm movement while he was playing. It's such a shame.

Other than that I highly recommend it. I sat through both seasons. Binged it even. It's a captivating story. Moved me to tears a couple of times. You know, sometimes there doesn't need to be mappa, ufotable, or even kyoto animation levels. But it does help.

This animation about a feisty boy, Kai Ichinose, who finds an abandoned piano in a forest and learns to play it by himself, is so addictive I watched the whole 2 seasons, of 12 episodes each, in one sitting.

He rescues a classmate Shuhei Amamiya from bullies and, after finding out Shuhei wants to be a pianist, shows his new friend his piano in the forest. By some magic, the piano only responds to his touch. Shuhei is startled by Kai's playing and starts to harbor a complex emotion of envy and admiration for Kai, an emotion that eventually turns into an obsession to prove his superiority in piano playing.

Kai's teacher, Sosuke Ajino, a once-renowned pianist who got incapacitated after an accident, finds out about Kai's piano and volunteers to train the poor but extremely talented boy who, being the son of a prostitute and raised in a red-light district, would have little chance to better himself.

Season 2 is mostly about the International Chopin Piano Competition that Kai and Shuhei participate in. Side stories about the participants and Ajino add to the delightfulness of the series. The competition is fierce, raising my respect for pianists through the roof for having not only enormous talent but also incredible memory and nerves of steel. The commentaries from spectators add to the excitement about the events. But most of all, the music is exquisite, made more so by the pianists' affinity with it.

I'm a huge classical music fan. I play the piano a lot and I love doing so which is why I thought this series will be perfect for me, but I was sadly mistaken.

First of all, I would give the first season 8/10 The good: Fast paced storytelling, heartwarming storys and a likeable protagonist and antagonist (if you can even call him that). Beautiful music and it makes one want to play the piano.

The bad: You can't really enjoy a piece of music since it will be cut of at any second. On the other hand, sometimes they go on for a minute even though you've heard it a lot already just to "show the reactions". This is a big point, in a Manga you can write how it makes people feel but in animation, you should be able to feel that as well. which of course is very difficult, and they didn't really succeed.

The cringe-worthy: The animation. It's a 2D animation with 3D when they play the piano. The movement of the hands is very pleasant and rarely seen in animation, but when the whole body is shown, it looks creepy and unpleasant. But after a season, I got used to it.

Season 2: This season discarded almost everything good about the first and tried to better the cringe-worthiness by removing the 3D. But, they made it worse. Now there are juist still shots shown of them playing the piano. Sometimes they are clearly playing with both hands and the still shows them with one hand in the air.

The fast paced story comes to a halt because the entire season is just one big competition and the animation gets so lazy they use still shots about 50% of the time. Did the budget run out? What happend?

The good: The protagonist is still likeable and the music still good (except that it's now exclusively Chopin, which get's a bit boring after a few hours)

4/10

Overall 6/10 First season is recommendable, the second season not so much.

I loved Season 1 and binge-watched Season 2 of this charming series. It shows Kai growing from poor waif into an accomplished pianist with great generosity of spirit. His teacher Ajino and rival Shuhei grow with him as childhood resistance and rivalry mature into supportive friendship. Meanwhile, much great piano artistry is featured as nearly the entire second season takes place at the Chopin competition in Poland. Other characters at the competition are well-developed and authentic with interesting side-stories. I wept with its poignancy several times. Don't miss it!

I absolutely loved this series. I must admit that the second series drags a bit with the lead up to the finale, but my oh my does it still deliver. I was hooked from episode one and I could not wait to watch all the episodes. Absolutely fantastic series, with the drama of friendship and love, and the descriptions of the piano which made you feel as if you were in the place Kai and the others were taking you to. Cannot emphasis enough how great this series is.