The looming question for me as we reach the halfway point of Piano no Mori is this – have we finally reached the moment of timeskip?  Next week’s episode is titled “reunion”, though that doesn’t tell us much, even if we can guess who’s reuniting.  Considering that all of the promotional material for this series featured Kai and Shuuhei as young adults, if anything it’s surprising that we’re still dealing with them as kids, so I suspect this truly is the transition point.

Any way you slice it, this is a lot of material to cover in 12 episodes.  I mean, the manga went for 26 volumes and I suppose it’s theoretically possible Gainax may attempt to adapt all of it in some way, shape or form.  Even so, things haven’t felt rushed to me – until this episode, that is.  There’s a lot of stuff going on here that just seems to be lacking context.  It feels as if we’ve walked in on the middle of the relationship between Kai and the girl from forest’s edge – and then there’s the matter of Ben, the delivery man who whisks Kai off on an adventure (and promptly abandons him in the city) – who the heck is he?

Adding to this feeling is the fact that so much of import happens in this episode.  First of all, the forest piano is destroyed by lightning – which given the title of the series, is a matter of at least passing importance.  Shuuhei competes in (and wins) the national student piano competition, and that doesn’t even merit a note played or a full minute of screen time.  He then decides he’s ready to study abroad.  And Rei decides that Kai should leave her and the forest’s edge to study piano.  This is obviously the crucial nexus point for his character – leave Rei behind and throw himself into the piano?  Or stay behind and take the harder road to where he wants to go?

That trip with Ben and his dog Tenmaru (loved the bit with the vibrating phone) is a fateful one for Kai.  They stumble across a glass piano set up outside a music store for promotional purposes.  And as it’s a lucky traffic stoppage, Kai asks if he can play it and the violinist agrees – but only if he can play the piece she shows him the sheet music for.  It’s the Rach 3, no less – the notorious pianist-killer – but Kai handles it no problem.  It’s at this point that Ben ditches him to finish his delivery – which I have to be honest, I would be pretty fucking pissed about if I were Kai’s parent.

All of this comes down to hardening Kai’s resolve.  That he’s going to devote his life to the piano, yes – but also that he’ll stay behind and protect Rei.  And that he’ll have Ajino-sensei be the one t0 teach him, rather than study abroad under a professional pianist.  The contrast between Kai and Shuuhei could hardly be more apparent, and it’s pretty obvious on which side of the divide the narrative falls (as it almost always does in this sort of series).