I’m surprised by one thing at least – I expected Piano no Mori to advance Shuuhei into the finals before crushing him.  I’m a bit peeved at the series at the moment, not so much for that but for the way it’s presented the judging process.  I don’t doubt that bias in favor of Polish candidates exists – bias has always been an unspoken reality of piano competitions, just as it with sports such as figure skating.  But it’s hard to imagine it’s artless as what we saw here – a judge actually arguing that a candidate should be eliminated because his performance was too good?

In a strange way, things might actually be more interesting with Shuuhei out early.  Why?  Well, frankly everything concerning Kai and the competition is a snore (excluding his actual playing).  He’ll either clearly be the best and be cheated out of the title, or clearly be the best and nobly defy bias and skulduggery and win.  Frankly I don’t much care either way – he’s a golden God, yeah, we get it.  It’s hard to imagine Piano no Mori drawing any actual drama out of Kai’s arc at this point – it’s really only the actual performance that will be compelling.

That leaves the burden of carrying the narrative energy to Shuuhei, and if he’d made it to the finals his arc would have been pretty much a foregone conclusion.  A moral victory, a graceful defeat at the hands of the vastly superior Kai, a promise to himself to try and become more like him in the future.  Now, though, the series has to come up with something else, if we assume that he’s not going to be totally sidelined this far from the finish.  That could happen, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem likely.  And since it’s not immediately obvious what role Shuuhei will play in the denouement, that lends a bit of mystery and at least the possibility that it will be something genuinely surprising and interesting.

One other note – I’m kind of sad that Piano no Mori didn’t include Fazioli as one of the pianos for the competition.  I suspect that’s because it wasn’t when the manga started (it was added in 2010) but it would be genuinely interesting to hear as part of the series, because the sound is quite unique among concert grands.  Closer to the sharp clarity of the Yamaha versus the warm fuzziness of the Hamburg Steinway to be sure, but a unique tone that tends to be quite divisive among piano aficionados (I love it).  It would have suited Lech’s style perfectly.