Forest of Piano: A Touch of Chopin

Kai Ichinose lives in the red-light district with his mother in a brothel, while he attends school and does his best to keep out of trouble. He is enchanted by a piano that he found in woods while he was very young and finding out that it only played for only him. Many years later Kai meets Shuhei a boy that loves to play the piano also, however, Shuhei was bullied by others. Telling him to go to the forest to play Kai magic piano, but of course, Shuhei wanted to refuse only for Kai to come in and rescue him from the bullies. And so we start from there, a friendship developed between two boys that love to play the piano, that wanted nothing more than to continue to play it. So, when competitions and new sheet music come across them both, they seem to declare themselves are friendly rivals. The touch of the piano can always be echoed throughout the room, traveling around and touching our own spirits, souls even. Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin, him being the main one that we hear the most. As we continue their story, we seem them drifting apart, but why? Well, for that, you would have to see the rest of the Forest of Piano.

While Netflix did a wonderful job on the animation, however, they did tend to go back and forth with it, when we watch the piano players start to play. We noticed that the animation changes and looks more cartoonish rather than anime. This does go back forth a bit, and it can be slightly confusing and sometimes not very great for the anime. Even I had to do a double take, questioning if something had happened to the video. However, while the anime continues to progress, we still become enchanted with the story and the characters that come along. While there are an opening and ending song, there is no exact title for it, just a lovely piano playing as the characters walk along the screen. The animation for both opening and endings is more like a painting just playing through. Very beautifully done, while this is another touch of a different animation, it wasn’t as confusing to see, it wasn’t cartoonish either.