(L+CR) Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (NoitaminA)

[HandofFate]

Very pretty episode 02.

The constant self-reflecting from the MC reminds me a lot of Honey & Clover

[FlareKnight]

That was definitely a great concert scene.

Had the kind of performance that the crowd could get absorbed in, but obviously was outside the scoring system. Though in the end I doubt she'd complain. Had a lot of fun out there and made a big splash by standing out. Could considering it a pretty good tactical move to get a bigger reputation in some ways. An interesting question as to why she hasn't made a name for herself before now.

Kind of props to Watari for some fair advice. Not often going to find someone who isn't interested in anyone at all. Feelings don't aim where it's the most convenient. Of course the guy being a big playboy is a negative as well, but at least he's a good friend.

[Stark700]

Kaori has so much talent. That music...I'm going to replay this episode later today so I can remember the sound of it by heart.

[Eclipze]

After hearing Watari's advise to Arima, I get the feeling that Watari may have been projecting...that the person you love is going to be in love with someone else. Seems REALLY likely to that he is in love with Tsubaki.

[dniv]

Wow. Just wow. If this keeps up this may not just be one of my favorite anime of the season, but also maybe one of my favorite anime of all time. This is just too good.

That violin playing was very good for a show...

[garbage]

good....really good...really

[Guardian Enzo]

To call that episode impressive would be an understatement - it was staggering. Interestingly enough even as I was in awe I was still noting things which didn't quite work, and subtle elements that could cause problems down the line (though some of them may be intentional) - this was by no means perfect. But when you achieve transcendence, perfection seems like a very mundane standard to measure by.

Kaori is an interesting case, both in terms of her own personality and what it says about art and being an artist. I haven't decided if the mangaka Arakawa-sensei is portraying her as a kind of narrative Mary Sue, a pure free-spirit and genius who we're supposed to admire and adore, or something else altogether (and indeed, this seems to be exactly the dilemma Kousei is currently wrestling with).

What are to make of Kaori's performance? To begin with the depiction of it was magnificent, as was the entire competition - I especially loved the sequence when poor Boy #3 struggled badly, and Kousei revealed his compassionate nature by agonizing for him so deeply (this sequence took me back to the nerve-wracking school play scenes from Hourou Musuko Episode 6). But what does Arakawa want from us here - are we to unambiguously admire Kaori's brilliance, her rejection of form and structure that won over the audience? Or should we pause and consider that to honor the spirit of the composer's wishes (Beethoven was no piker, either) is a worthwhile expectation, and that to enter a competition intending to mock it and to intentionally ignore your accompanist is disrespectful and arrogant?

[Sphire]

This is definitely something I'm keeping my eye on. There's a bit too much familiarity for me with regards to setting, drama and potential love polygons, but the music aspect 'sounds' brilliant. And even if somewhat predictable, I wanna see the MC overcome things and play the piano.

Originally Posted by Eclipze

Seems REALLY likely to that he is in love with Tsubaki.

I enjoyed the OP so much that I kept re-watching it after ep 1. Too bad it looks like it's hinting at certain developments. Watari's comments pretty much confirmed it to me.

[BBOvenGuy]

Hmmm... great musical scene, to be sure, but I'm still not sold on Kaori. She's still too much of a manic pixie for me. What does she want? Why is she there? If she doesn't care about the scoring in the competition, then what does she care about? So far, the only purpose I can see for her being in the story at all is to provide life and sparkliness for the grim and depressed leading man. There needs to be more to her than that.

I was curious about her pre-performance mantra, "Elohim Essaim." Elohim is a Hebrew word for God, and so at first I thought it was a sign that she's Jewish. However, a quick search on good ol' Mr. Google tells me that several manga and anime stories have adopted that phrase as some sort of generic mystical incantation. Oh well. At least it was interesting for a little while.

[Flower]

Ep 02

That was a really good ep. Really good. But the best part for me was not the performance by Kaori (which was superb) but the internal commentary by Kousei.

I loved how the entire ep pulled us into his head and into his most painful experiences at the same time as a few drops of precious water were sprinkled for the first time in his inner land scape which has been dry, cracked, parched and in which most everything cannot grow - and we get to not just see, but also co-respond in a way with that puzzled amazememt and having no practical heart-knowledge based drawer to file the experience in yet greedily lapping it up and being unable to forget it all the while.

It is as if he is literally haunted by a reality he has no experience of, yet perhaps unknowingly yearns for at his deepest conscious levels.

For the anime to be able to convey that experientially like that is brilliant work. Absolutely brilliant.

[Reckoner]

A-1 is ****ing pathetic to have this severe of a budget drop already in episode 2. All the stills... They only animated one of the violin performances too. My god.

I like this show, I really do even if the story is predictable, but A-1 is making a pitiful effort in the visual department and it's only EPISODE 2. I hate to see what happens some episodes from now. I used to compare A-1 to JC staff in terms of overall production quality, but maybe they're even lower than I thought.

[Dr. Dahm]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

A-1 is ****ing pathetic to have this severe of a budget drop already in episode 2. All the stills... They only animated one of the violin performances too. My god.

I like this show, I really do even if the story is predictable, but A-1 is making a pitiful effort in the visual department and it's only EPISODE 2. I hate to see what happens some episodes from now. I used to compare A-1 to JC staff in terms of overall production quality, but maybe they're even lower than I thought.

To be honest I thought it had at least 2 episodes.

[Benigmatica]

I'm worried about A-1 Pictures's budget after Kaori's performance from Episode 2. But hey, that was so damn amazing!

[Kanon]

Wow. That concert was absolutely stunning. The last anime that left me feeling like this was Ping Pong, which is the biggest compliment I can make.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

What are to make of Kaori's performance? To begin with the depiction of it was magnificent, as was the entire competition - I especially loved the sequence when poor Boy #3 struggled badly, and Kousei revealed his compassionate nature by agonizing for him so deeply (this sequence took me back to the nerve-wracking school play scenes from Hourou Musuko Episode 6). But what does Arakawa want from us here - are we to unambiguously admire Kaori's brilliance, her rejection of form and structure that won over the audience? Or should we pause and consider that to honor the spirit of the composer's wishes (Beethoven was no piker, either) is a worthwhile expectation, and that to enter a competition intending to mock it and to intentionally ignore your accompanist is disrespectful and arrogant?

Honestly, I have no idea why you're even asking yourself that. Absolutely everything was made so that we would admire Kaori, going even as far as to make a fool of the one judge who was horrified by her performance. The message is crystal clear to me. The author is rejecting the idea that an artist should be "tied down" by the original composer's wishes. It makes perfect sense to me. Art is a mean to express yourself, even if you're using another person's work as a basis, you should insert a bit of yourself in it. Textbook performances are soulless. Barakamon explored the same theme.

[Guardian Enzo]

It's not so simple as that in the real world, and it's my hope that the author is going to paint both sides of the story. Kaori has some serious narcissism issues to begin with, but strictly in terms of interpretation of a piece of music there are very legitimate and reasonable arguments critical of what she did.

[Kanon]

Well, I'm definitely no music expert, but that's how I see it. And from what I've seen so far, the show seems to share my views. This episode felt highly critical of concours. We'll see how the rest goes.

[Guardian Enzo]

Glenn Gould was one of the great bad boys in classical music history, and he did a hugely unorthodox recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955. It wowed casual listeners, and deeply split critics who felt it was unfaithful to Bach's intent with the music. Years later, Gould came out and said he disliked that version intensely - parts of it "sounded like Chopin" and the tempo was generally grotesquely fast. In fact, he disliked it so much he re-recorded the piece in 1981 in what he considered to be a style faithful to the spirit of the music.

"I can no longer recognize the person who did that. To me today that piece has intensity without any sort of false glamour. Not a pianistic or instrumental intensity, a spiritual intensity."

[Kaoru Chujo]

I think Kaori is being portrayed as fairly complex. She's a terrific musician, basically a good person, and a wonderful tonic for Kousei, but also arrogant, violent, two-faced, and attracted (like everyone else) to the school Casanova. But I also think we are only being let in to her mind at a quite shallow level, so far.

Concours were the bane of Kousei's early life, so it's understandable that they are being put down so single-mindedly in the anime. I recently went to a concert (not a concours) that included a young violinist (age 14) who was not just technically excellent but had feeling for the music in her playing. But I was left wondering if the musicality was actually hers or was drilled into her by her teacher. You would not wonder that with Kaori. It seems that she treats concours as just an opportunity to have people hear her playing, not something she has any intention of winning. The head judge is right to be so upset at her attitude, since he regards concours and their rules as something sacred. But at this point I am quite happy to think of him as a fool, lol. That's what will do Kousei the most good, liberating him from his past, and from his mother. And that is what's important in the show, right now.

I like this frame from the manga of Kaori beginning to play in the concours.

Images

Kaori playing

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I am definitely not upset at the animation, or at the idea that they scrimped a bit. Art is how you you use what you have, not how detailed you get or how much money you spend. I know I say this kind of thing a lot, lol, but it's how I feel.

As for Glenn Gould, I think the 1955 Gould was a genius. He was apparently only 22, and had a spiritual fervour for the music that comes through. He may have gotten more perspective on the piece later, and maybe more perspective on himself (or maybe not), but those recordings, with their mumbling and wild pace, are masterpieces in themselves, and worthy of being as remembered as they are. Sometimes the experts, particularly in music, have such theoretical and social constraints that their opinions are too considered.

[Guardian Enzo]

And sometimes in youth we think we know everything, only to discover in time that we really knew very little.

This is a complicated matter, not a simple one. All I hope is that we don't see this portrayed as Kaori the glorious free spirit triumphing over the evil establishment toadies who lack imagination and don't truly love the music, and liberating Kousei from his chains of inhibition. Those elements can be part of the picture but we really should see the other side, too.

[Dr. Dahm]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Honestly, I have no idea why you're even asking yourself that. Absolutely everything was made so that we would admire Kaori, going even as far as to make a fool of the one judge who was horrified by her performance. The message is crystal clear to me. The author is rejecting the idea that an artist should be "tied down" by the original composer's wishes. It makes perfect sense to me. Art is a mean to express yourself, even if you're using another person's work as a basis, you should insert a bit of yourself in it. Textbook performances are soulless. Barakamon explored the same theme.

Without going into any specific detail all I can say is that you are correct, there is a running theme in this story of artists interpretation and the value of not necessarily playing the music as it's written on the sheet but playing it "your way" and how it results in true and moving emotions that only the enlightened characters in the story like Kaori and some future ones to be introduced. The work is very VERY critical and harsh in terms of it's portrayal of the established conventions of the music and performance community and it's old standards and not very flattering with it's portrayal of the characters that represent that viewpoint. You can already see it coming into play and foreshadowed very early as a recurring theme here.

I think it's very important that people remember we're dealing with a shonen manga here which quite often try to invoke that youthful spirit and borderline anti-establishment vibe, not a seinen manga or one considered with seriousness, realism and an accurate portrayal of the music and performance art community. For example though it may kind of resemble it in color palette and character design we're not looking at something like Chihayafuru here in terms of maturity and character growth. Shigatsu is very on the nose and pretty straight up about how it wants the viewer/reader to see as the right and wrong way to approach music.