Forest of Piano
Series Directed by
Gaku Nakatani … (12 episodes, 2018)
Series Writing Credits
Bob Buchholz … (12 episodes, 2018)
Megan Buchholz … (12 episodes, 2018)
Makoto Isshiki … (manga) (unknown episodes)
Cast (descriptions from Wikipedia)
Kai Ichinose is the son of a prostitute. He is an elementary school student who often plays the mysterious piano in the forest. He has the ability to instantly remember any piano piece he hears and play it back perfectly. In the future, he is a renowned pianist.
Sōsuke Ajino is the music teacher at Kai and Shuhei’s school. In his youth he was a famous pianist who won several awards for his playing, however his career was abruptly ended after an accident injured his left hand and killed his fiancée. After discovering Kai’s affinity for the piano, he becomes his coach.
Shūhei Amamiya is a transfer student from Tokyo who makes quick friends with Kai following their love for the piano.
Pang Wei is a Chinese pianist studying abroad in Poland. He is one of the participants in the International Chopin Piano Competition and is favored to win. His piano style sounds eerily similar to Ajino’s before his accident.
Lech Szymanowski is a Polish pianist and one of the participants in the International Chopin Piano Competition. He is often called the “New Star of Poland”.
Takako Maruyama appears as one of the participants at the regional piano competition. She was inspired by Kai to become a better pianist.
Forest of Piano belongs firmly in the category of Interesting Failures. Or perhaps magnificent missed opportunity. It starts out brilliantly. A young boy of about ten, the son of a prostitute, lives with his mother on the edge of the forest. One day, exploring the forest, he discovers an abandoned piano. (Pianos abandoned in forests tend to have a very short shelf life, so this obviously is a fantasy story). He teaches himself to play.
A transfer student in his class, Shūhei, is being victimized by class bullies and Kai steps in to help him. The bullies have talked about a haunted piano in the forest that kills people, and dare Shūhei to find the piano. Kai admits the piano is his, and shows it to Shūhei. He plays some Mozart flawlessly. Intrigued, Shūhei, an advanced student, tries to play the instrument. It produces only a few dull thuds, exactly what you would expect from a grand piano left in the woods.
For the first nine episodes, this is a brilliant series. The character development is sublime, with interesting and very authentic people. It avoids nearly all the annoying conventions anime is prey to, and shows a genuine love for classical piano and those who practice it. It is affectionate and sentimental without being cloying, and the main conflict isn’t amongst the characters as it is the challenges presented by mastering the music. If there was a flaw, it was the low-quality animation, compensated for by good character drawing and good background art. (The animation did NOT skimp on hands playing the piano, however.)
I was so impressed by the series that after a half dozen episodes I invited a friend, himself a concert-level pianist, to watch and possibly weigh in on the series.
The the Chopin competitions began (in Poland, of course), and it became unwatchable.
Or perhaps the word I want is unlistenable.
The competitions feature friends, family, judges, critics and rivals watching as each competitor plays. As they watch, they are thinking their various thoughts, usually about the playing.
Vocalized aloud. Non-stop. Over the music.
It’s a disgraceful lack of respect for the music, and annoying as hell, especially since the conflict becomes contrived and overwrought, a reality show formula where the suspense lies on who will be thrown off the Island or fired by Donald Trump.
They could have simply made the thoughts subtitles, different colors for different persons thinking, and different languages–any language–in attached SRT files.
I’m used to seeing anime series fall apart before. A rule of thumb normally is that if it starts well and stays good after a half-dozen episodes, it’s likely to stay good. It is true of music-oriented series: most become rubbish by the third episode. One Jazz-oriented one, Kids on the Slope stayed good to the end, one of the best anime series I’ve ever seen.
I hope someone takes the series and re-releases it with subs instead of vocalizations. It will still fade as the drama cheapens, but at least then it will still be worth watching—and listening to—to the very end.