Some interesting news about Piano no Mori this week… While it is a two-cour series, the cours are going to split – and not only that, the second reportedly won’t air until Winter 2019. I was kind of surprised to know this series was multi-cour to begin with, and something about this kind of strikes me as odd and a little ominous, but perhaps it comes down to nothing more than Fukushima Gainax’ limited production capacity. Whatever the case may be, I certainly hope we get that second cour because while it certainly has flaws, The Piano Forest is still one of the more interesting shows this season.
I guess watching episodes less frequently than normal (due to the erratic subbing releases) does make one appreciate elements of this series a bit more. It strikes me this week that Chopin truly is an astonishingly brilliant composer – the great thing about the format for the Chopin Competition is that it gives us exposure to so many different Chopin pieces. The depth and breadth of his repertoire is impressive, but there’s something unmistakable that makes every one of his pieces instantly recognizable. That’s something I feel about Mozart, too, but the list pretty much ends there for me.
I’m also appreciating more and more the care FukuGainax put into the performances themselves. Not so much visually – that’s mediocre CGI any way you slice it. But the performances themselves are spot-on with what the narrative is trying to portray. When you’ve listened to enough classical piano (and it’s probably thousands of hours in my case) the nuances are quite clear. Take, for example, Shuuhei’s performance in this episode. While recognizably the same pianist, you can instantly tell something is different this time. Shuuhei was always precise, technically flawless, almost reverent in his playing. But in his performance this week there’s a fragility, a defiance that’s just slightly edging towards desperation, that elevates the whole far beyond what it was before.
As I’ve stated, for me it’s really Shuuhei who represents the most interesting journey in this series, not Kai. It’s ironic but perhaps not surprising that even as he seems finally to have transcended himself, he’s starting to come apart at the seams. His fetishistic wiping of the keys before every piece, his excessive hand-washing the aftermath, and the fact that he’s seemingly unaware of them both – the vulnerability Shuuhei needs to become a truly great pianist is a two-edged sword to be sure. I’d actually thought Adamski was going to be angry about the wiping of the keys (on the grounds that it implies he’s a sweaty pig) but rather, it feels as if he recognizes something he sees in Shuuhei all too well.
Meanwhile, Kai – who’s playing on the final day of the first round – has made a new friend. That would be Lech Symanowski (Kenn, who I’m impressed to say I did not recognize at all), a very young-looking Pole who’s the grandson of a famous pianist (who looks like he was Adamski’s piano teacher). I’m not sure what the make of that whole “master of the forest” mysticism thing, but Lech’s story seems quite believable apart from that – he feels the weight of Polish expectations on him (only Adamski seems a serious threat this time, and his best days as a competitive pianist appear to be behind him). So much so, in fact, that Lech is overcome by panic attacks before he performs (he’s already delayed his performance once, presumably for that reason.
Again, we get back to that business of how much care Gainax is putting into these performances. Lech’s is instantly different than anyone else we’ve heard play – light, slightly impish, exquisitely pure and cutting tonally. If I was listening to the various piano pieces from Piano no Mori blind as a soundtrack, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t pick this one as my favorite – it really gets to the essence of Chopin (as I’m sure a Pole would say only a Pole could). Between this and Shuuhei’s elegant and demure brilliance, the bar has been set pretty high for Kai’s performance, which will no doubt be the final one before the series break.
