Piano

I’m usually into slice-of-life anime, but Piano was just too real. Usually, slice-of-life anime isn’t really close to life, because if that happened, it wouldn’t be that interesting. Everything that happened in Piano had a high probability of happening in real life, so I wasn’t really interested. I’m not saying it’s bad, but I don’t think it’ll ever be one of my favorites.

One thing I noticed about Piano is that the story focused more on the lives of Miu’s family and friends. It was only in the last 4 episodes that the focus shifted to Miu. I guess it was better that way, because Miu ... was kind of uninteresting. Her friend Yuki was more interesting. So was her piano teacher, Shirakawa-sensei. I also love the fact that most of her family loved to drink and be merry.

I did like the voice actors for this anime. Ayako Kawasumi played the role of Miu. I don’t think it was Miu was one of her best roles, but she’s great nonetheless. Jun Fukuyama, one of my recent favorites with roles such as Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass and Kimihiro Watanuki from xxxHOLiC, was great as Takahashi.

I noticed the character designs right away, because the design is very similar to Ah! My Goddess’. That’s mostly because Kousuke Fujishima, who did the original manga of Ah! My Goddess, was the one who did the original story and character designs for Piano. All in all visuals were okay, although there wasn’t really anything special about it. Simplicity was the key feature of the visuals, and if you prefer simple over extravagant, then you’ll like Piano.

The music, as expected, consisted of a lot of classically-influenced piano music. I was really impressed when I found out that Ayako Kawasumi played the piano for the opening song. She’s certainly very talented. The ending theme, “Kokoro no Oto” by Yoko Ueno, was also very nice – I memorized it right away.

Since it was very close to real life, one good point to add about it is that it’s very easy to watch. If you want to watch something that’s not so complicated like most anime these days, or if you want to watch something that’ll relax you, then Piano is for you.

Well this show is quite boring most of the time, and it is listed as "romance", but it only hints at the romantic interests of some characters. If you begin this show thinking it will be a love story, full of drama, and boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, stop! It has very little drama(and it potrayed poorly), and even less romance. Now if your into the whole "slice of life" and reality anime series, then give this show a shot. It takes a different approach then most of those series (Air, To Heart, etc), instead of following a male lead, it follows a female. Most, if not all ... of this show is about Miu Nomura's relationships with her family, friends, and Piano teacher(and a bit about her playing the piano, although not as much as you'd expect from some anime named "Piano"!).

Oh, and the only reason I finished this show was because it was on "On Demand" for free, and I had nothing else to watch at the time.

Plot: There really is no plot in this anime, at all. It does sort of end, as a "coming of age" story, but very little happens in the story. I thought to be a story there has to be some sort of obstical for the character(s) to overcome (person vs person/Person vs nature/ person vs self?) apparently my English Teacher was wrong, because there are NO obstacles to overcome in this anime. There is very little progress in the show, and it is very slow.

Characters: This anime has many interesting characters! If there is a strong part of this show, it is the characters. Takahashi (the guy Miu has a crush on) is interesting and mysterious, Yuuki has the whole "tomboy" thing going on witha bit of a twist, very interesting, Miu's teacher is the MOST interesting character so of course they decide to give him the least amount of screen time, and even Mui's mother and father are pretty cool , and don't get the time on screen they diserve. Miu is a pretty decent character, but her attitude is very "off", and she is dull when compared to the others. However she does have the whole "cute/ innocent" thing going on, that could have been developed more, but instead they decided to make the show even more boring, and go nowhere. And although this anime has GREAT characters, that are very interesting, they don't do anything interesting at all. This show had a a lot of potential, but it didn't use it!

Art: It's pretty cool, and matched the whole "slice of life" thing it has going on. Pretty realistic, and all the characters and backgrounds look good. However don't look for anything amazing, or lots of hard work being pu into the animation. It is just "above average" but seeing how the characters don't do anything, it's just walking and talking animated pictures. There is no place for them to shine the animation, but it does bring in that "realism" feeling by looking so realistic.

Sound: Another great part of the show, that doesn't get enough time to shine, is it's music. The classical music that would possibly save this show is sometimes not even bothered to be played in an episode. Although when some music is playing, it's useally good.

Dubs: I never watched the Japanese Verson, sorry, so I have no idea what that verson is like. As for the english verson, it is acceptable. Nothing horrible, very well rounded, but it allows a few actors to "shine", but not Cowboy Bebop or anything amazing like that. Marc Diraison gives the best performance by far, as the Piano Teacher. But since he's barely in the show this does not really matter. Sean Schemmel (Adult Goku in DBZ , English Dub) does have a small part, and is probally the most known actor here. Pretty much if you like dubs, watch it, but this is not an amazing dub, that a sub only guy would like. So if your a subber, keep the Japanese track on no need to test out english on this dvd. But if you like dubs, not bad enough to resort to subtitles. I have no complaints with the dub (expect that it is very boring, but I blame the plot, there's not much exitement you can throw into this show. The plot kills everything pretty much), so I suggest this to other dubbers .

Final Vertic: If you like slice of life shows, watch this show. It brings something new to the table. However it is very boring, and drags on, and has almost no plot. Watch for the characters and the "realism" , not for romance or music.

As with all series that I watch, I try to at least watch the first two episodes, unless I really~ (and I mean REALLY~~) hated the first episode or is having trouble finding the next ones, and with this series, I completed it surprisingly. Why surprisingly?

My first impression of this series that it seemed like a series that was about classical music, the piano to be more precise, which to my knowledge the only other anime series that dealt with classical music were La Corda D\'Oro and Nodame Cantabile.

As I started to watch this series, from what I noticed, the piano, much of the time ... played the backdrop of the series and mainly revolved more around Miyu and the ones around her. To be honest, I have no idea why I completed this series as it was really boring and seemed more like a documentary of Miyu\'s life than an enjoyable show. Even as a documentary that it seemed to be, I\'ve SEEN better ones and that\'s sad as most documentaries bore me anyway (but I have seen awesome ones though. :P). O.o;

The only reason that I can even think up about why I finished this series would because I had really nothing better to watch at the time and I was too lazy to drop it. If I did have something better to watch, I would have most likely have dropped it.

As for the animation, character designs and such, it was alright. Unlike some other series that I\'ve seen, the colors for the animation weren\'t that vivid and seemed quite bland to me. As for character designs, they were kinda plain and with Miyu herself, her hair just seemed a little wierd... I know in anime/manga/video games, characters can have gravity-defying hair, but hers just looked funny.

Nothing special stuck out in the overall sense, even though the music aspect of it was what caught my attention in the first place (as I love classical music and very few series revolve around it). I think that this series had potential to be better than \'just average,\' maybe not extraordinarily good, but a series that I wouldn\'t forget about.

I have to say that I wasted how ever many hours it took of my life watching the whole series and is just one of those series that isn\'t a rememberable series that blends in, rather than sticking out from other series. Nothing too much more to say than it was quite the disappointment for me as I was hoping for more.

I really love this anime! ^_^ It's so cute, and very interesting to watch. I myself am a piano player and I would say it inspires me to practice more so that I can be just as talented at Miu is. ^_^

Piano -The Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart: Reviewed.
Original Run: 11/11/2002 – 01/13/2003
Genre: Drama, Romance.
Anime Director: Norihiko Sudo

Plot:
Music has many distinguished sounds, sounds of joy sounds of pain, but it also sheds a new light to a path so serene that it’s captivating. Miu Nomura (our heroin) has walked this path from a wee tot to her adolescent stage. She had incredible talents ever since she was young, and playing the piano was her specialty. She was blessed and her talents were at their peak when she shared what she loved doing best with an audience. As Miu reached her preteens, she began to struggle ... like all musicians do as they try to find their muse. The path she once walked was shrouded with darkness, and her talents had come to a screeching halt. To struggle is to survive, and reinventing oneself is a hard task than it appears to be. Through the pain, and social struggles, Miu continues to march down that black painted path in hopes of rediscovering her former self.

Characters:
Miu Nomura.
Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese), Rebecca Soler (English)

Miu Nomura was born a prodigy; she had an unbelievable talent for playing the piano and found it to be the rhythm of her life. Playing the piano was her way of expressing herself and a way of connecting her emotions with those around her. The urge to share the wonderful feeling that music instilled in her heart with her beloved ones, is what fueled her ambitions and allowed her to excel at her forte. With such feelings, puddles of nerving emotions begin to develop, and Miu’s heart was enveloped with unfamiliar feelings, feelings of love, friendship and despair, that she struggles with immensely as she tries to lead a normal life. Despite this enormous weight that she caries on her shoulders, she continues to strive forward in hopes of grasping the emotions that once filled her heart with immeasurable joy.

Yuuki Matsubara.
Voiced by: Voiced by: Tomoko Kawakami (Japanese), Zoe Martin (English)

Yuuki is a wonderful person; she’s friendly and enjoys helping others. She is energetic and full of life and is always putting others ahead of her own needs. Yuuki’s Miu’s best friend in the series and they share a warm and sensational relationship in the series. Through out the entire aspect of the story telling, we find Yuuki always keeping a watchful eye on her best friend, as she tries to help her deal with the daily struggles of a preteen’s life. Together they embrace their surroundings and march towards a resolution to the crippling problems that befell them. Amidst the misery, Yuuki’s determination to help her friend never once wavered, and this quickly becomes one of her strongest traits in the series.

Kazuya Takahashi.
Voiced by: Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Michael Sinterniklaas (English)

There comes a time in every boy’s life when he has to decide between his future and love life, and Takahashi is no stranger to this moral dilemma. Takahashi is a hard working teenager that’s devoted to his studies and his school life. In the series, he serves as Miu’s serene crush and one of the reasons that hindered Miu’s talents. Although this is somewhat true, Takahashi is not entirely to blame, as it was Miu’s uncontrolled emotions towards him that caused her severe disillusions.

Summation:
Music has powerful affects, effects that can heal, sadden or spring forth an astounding surge of energy to the human vessel. Piano is a series that embodies all of these affects that music produces, and it does this through a young maiden named, Miu Nomura. The viewer is immersed in all what music has to offer through Miu’s struggles in the series. Miu’s struggles are portrayed wonderfully via a terrific script and rich character, that the majority of the viewers are likely to be familiar with. Piano is a powerful series that offers a sensible insight on teenagers in their adolescent stage, and how they contend to deal with internal uncertainty.

Theme:
The show does well to establish a moral theme that everyone can familiarize with. Through powerful characters and a beautiful story line, Piano dictates the pace on how humans struggle with love, friendship and change. The series solely focus on how change can affect us all, but it also depicts how love and friendship can have such tremendous effects in our everyday life. The message is spectacularly delivered through solid actors and self-conscious characters. The viewer is sure to be enthralled as he is taking on a journey of struggle, despair and salvation.

Media Related:
Although it’s not the originator of its genre, piano does well to deliver a solid story line that is sure to appease the mass audience of the genre. Through elegantly designed characters and breath taking scenery, piano amasses all the necessary traits of a magnificent drama filled, and romance inspiring series. Not often are we blessed with extraordinary story telling and memorable characters, and only a few series have succeeded in this beloved field, but Piano quickly erases all doubts from the viewer’s mind from the get go to the preclusion of the series, and in doing so it distinguishes itself and establishes a solid foundation for itself as one of the greats.

All in all, this show is very typical. A typical shy girl, a typical crush on a typical jock, a typical friend for the shy girl, a typical mom and dad with typical problems. The problem with a typical anime like this is that it’s boring to me. It wouldn’t be if it had any real drama but for how many I watched and the only real drama coming from losing a cat that was found about 2 seconds after it was lost, I just can’t get into it.

I didn’t really feel anything for this show. It was only the second episode where we got ... any real drama started and even then, it was pretty short lived. Then we ended up getting a rather boring talk about boys with mother and daughter. It is hard to get into it, thinking it will be good since I don’t know OLM.

The animation is slow, even though it was rather beautiful. I really don’t get how some of the girl’s hair stays the way It does. For all my whining about how boring the show is, visually, it wasn’t all bad.

I’m not a fan of classical music much so the music wanted to make me fall asleep. It’s just slow and sad. The voices also didn’t stand out to me too.

I was kind of disappointed after watching this anime. I was expecting something else. I thought that it would be awesome. I only watched this anime because of it's name. I am a huge fan of anime and I love music. This is nothing compared to Nodame Cantabile. The problems that the protagonist is facing in Piano are not problems at all. She is not doing any thing at all. She is just playing the piano and crushing on some guy. She takes such little things as huge problems in life. Overall it's boring. I would never recommend this anime to anyone. There are better ... anime about music than this like Nodame Cantabile(both seasons) and La Corda D'Oro(season 1 and Blue Sky).

Piano is the type of anime where nothing out of the ordinary happens and it has brought the meaning of “slice-of-life” to new heights. Because seriously, nothing happens....this is just the day to day living in the life of a young girl. But I actually liked this show, now if you read my Madlax review you might be a little surprised by what I just said since I basically condemned that show for being to slow and too boring. But the reasoning is very simple, Madlax is supposed to be an action series and Piano is simply not that type of show. I fully understood ... and expected Piano to be the type of anime that it was....a very mellow, easy-going show with subtle dramatic tensions. And that too is what you should expect if you choose this title to watch.

~art
the art and animation for this series is pretty average, there's really not much to say beyond that I'm afraid.

~audio
I watched this show in English And I have to say that the voice actors were pretty good. I very much enjoyed the casting.
Most [if not all] of the music score was piano music, which is awesome because you hardly hear that in anime and plus I like piano music, it's one of the classier and more intellectual types of music out there. it can also be much more romantic and expressive music compared to that of other genres. So I am definitely going to give a "thumbs-up" to the musical choices for this anime.

~story
There's really not a whole lot to say about the show...since nothing really happens. As already written in the synopsis section, the show is basically a coming-of-age story about a gifted young pianist, a 14 year old girl named Miu Namura. It's about how she interacts with her family and friends...and also about the budding romantic feelings she has for a boy in her class. Anyway I think this type of show would probably best appreciated by those of us who are more introverted because that how the story is told, from that one, singular perspective of the main character, Miu.

~cast
Even though I can relate to Miu on some levels, I also found her to be slightly annoying, maybe because she isn't a very strong character. I don't expect her to be this sword wielding chiropteran slayer like Saya from Blood+, but would have liked her to have been maybe less timid.
That being said, I understand fully why the creator would have decided on making Miu as timid as she was....because that's where the real conflict of the narrative really was. It was there in Miu's mind and heart with her decisions on whether to move forward with her career as a pianist and also whether to make her intentions known to the boy she likes. These are things that we can all relate to on that basic level because we have all been there.
I also really liked Miu's best friend Yuki because she really is a good friend to Miu also she is very supportive and optimistic. That once wordless scene where Yuki finally confesses her feelings to the guys she likes is probably my favorite scene in the series...i felt happy for her.

~verdict
This is really not a bad show, it's light, it's sweet and it's optimistic. But because it was so true to form as far as "slice-of-life" goes, it was probably a good idea to make it only 10 episodes long.

I was drawn to watch this anime by the teasers promoting it as a "slice of life" story about a young girl. I normally like those kinds of shows, but Piano turned out to be too much "slice of life" and not much else.

The story is about a young girl who plays the piano and her quest to get better to the point of performing in a big concert. The problem is that there just isn't much going on to hold your interest. I don't need science fiction in every show I watch, but there has to be SOME kind of drama ... to hold my interest. There is a little, but NOT MUCH!!

I can only quote Gertrude Stein to summarize this show: "There is no there there".

Piano misses the main thing that anime needs: fantasy. Piano is way too close to real life for comfort.

When I say fantasy, I don't necessarily mean fairies and goblins and magic and other worlds, I mean something that is not likely to happen in our normal lives. Take Cross Game for example, how many high school boys can bowl at 150km/h? It's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. It's not something that an average high school boy can't do. But a lot of people can do what the characters of Piano can do.

The art of the anime doesn't match my taste either. The ... main characters hair is just over done and the art overall is a bit "simple" for me. Neither is the sound quality particularly good.

The only reason I didn't drop this anime earlier on was to see the piano teacher criticize her. However, this wasn't that interesting since he wasn't without reason and seriously, my piano teacher can be much worse.

I would say this anime doesn't do the job of entertaining me at all.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
I hoped for more Piano playing in some music genre Anime. I.E Nodame Cantabile or so. But instead we got the most slice-of-life Anime we can get. A daily life of a young girl who is lost at what she is doing. Whole whole story is basically about her of self-discovery, her good moments, bad moments and some hardships. Saying anything else would be a spoiler probably. Point here is that if you like simple slice-of-life, then you probably will enjoy it. But I can say certainly ... it wasn't anything special. I simply finished it because it was short and wanted to listen to some piano.

✦Art & Sound
Art was good enough, nothing special.

As for OST & Music I wanted give it higher as I have a sweet spot for piano, but in this Anime piano tracks were short and climax track was underwhelming. So on music side I actually found it oddly disappointing.

✦Character
A cheerful main characters friend who seeks for love. Tomboy.
Main girl who is lost, reserved, shy and probably depressed. Could relate things with her and found her enjoyable character.
Rest of characters aren't really worth mentioning. Maybe the piano teacher, but cannot be bothered.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
Found it the dullest Anime I've seen in a while. But still did enjoy for the fair share. So basically slice-of-life with not much going on with it. Probably people who don't like reserved characters won't probably like this Anime much.

I'm not going to lie- I was a bit bored with this series. It was only 10 episodes and it took a different approach than most anime. Female protagonist, and it's basically a music anime. If anyone liked La Corda De Oro then you'll like this series. It also has some romantic parts but nothing too detailed or definite.

The Story itself was basic, and yet unique. It didn't have mystery or kick-butt action, but it toned down to simple things that most people in the audience could possibly relate to; with family, friends, relationships, and balancing out ones passion for something. There is some ... conflict with the main character and a few things around her, and you see a good development of her character.

The Artwork and Sound were both 8's for me. When you see the artwork, it's nothing to go all out fr but it is detailed and realistic I'd say. The backgrounds were good, pastel-looking. Did give additional emotion to the anime. The sound was great- hence the main focus of the series- a piano (basically). The ending and opening sequences were gentle and soothing. Again if one is a music lover then you can appreciate the scenes where the heroine plays.

I enjoyed this anime for its simplicity and minor things that most anime do not have. It didn't have too much drama or over did anything. It was still a bit boring in some places, but that can be over looked. Also it will depend on the time you watch it, cause the music may put you to sleep.

This is one of my favorite anime despite poor graphics part.
Because its real and warm in same time. I like its melancholic mood, i like family relationship, i like characters - complicated, strange but good peoples.

I can understand why its not popular - i skip it first time i seen poster. It look cheap and outdated but in same time i can tell what it have soul inside. I can compare it to old hand-made toy by which you pass in the store, but if you find it in the chest in the attic you can feel the love with which it was made. So ... just wait until you will be in mood to find this treasure.

Romantic parts not usual - if you like stuff with happy-pair you will disappointed. In same time parts about friendship and self-realization - the best.

So this show definitely not for entertainment, its more like warm cup of tea in cold autumn evening - you can feel it when you frozen.