Piano no Mori can easily be considered as the brother-movie of Miyori no Mori. Both got originally released around the same time, both are slice-of-life movies, both place a lot of emphasis on a forest, and both have a kid of about 11 years old as their main character. In Miyori no Mori, the forest was filled with spirits, in Piano no Mori, the forest has a piano in it.
Both movies have their own strengths and weaknesses. The main characters for Piano no Mori just don’t match up to Miyori, but in exchange Piano no Mori doesn’t have any cardboard-box villain that plagued Miyori. And even though the main characters aren’t as likable as Miyori, this doesn’t mean that they’re bad. This movie portrays quite an interesting rivalry between two polar opposites. Along with the side-characters, they turn into quite an interesting smörgåsbord of a cast.
The major problem with Piano no Mori is the direction. It really felt to me like the creators were going down a checklist of some sorts, to get the necessary developments set up right for the finale. Whenever the creators had to choose between a flowing story and this checklist, they went with the checklist. What’s strange about this is that the director for this movie is top-notch: he’s been behind the critically acclaimed series of Monster and Master Keaton, and his work on the first half of A Spirit of The Sun was terrific as well. While I haven’t seen the first two, I just can’t say that Piano no Mori has been his best work.
Nevertheless, Piano no Mori is a very capable movie, which provided the satisfying ending that I missed with Miyori no Mori. Both movies (or tv-specials in Miyori no Mori’s case) are greatly recommended if you’re looking for a relaxed slice-of-life movie, just don’t expect to be blown away. The tournament at the end of the movie was nicely done, although it would have been better to see more different contestants (some who actually weren’t some kind of reincarnation of Beethoven). Still, this movie did what it set out to do, and that’s enough to make up for two hours that won’t disappoint.
I’ll be checking this out! =D
… And it just dawned on me, watching you type “smörgåsbord” completely correct… You have to live somewhere in Europe, no? =D;;
Holland, yes. It’s not an actual word here, but I like the sound of it. 😛
What’s interesting is that even my spelling-checker seemed to suggest that the special signs were unnecessary.
Ahahahah~ The Å and Ö, along with the Ä are the three final letters in the Swedish alphabet, coming after Z, (Swedish alphabet reads: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÅÄÖ) and they’re really important, as there isn’t a word in Swedish that reads “smorgasbord”. At all. ^_^;;
“The major problem with Piano no Mori is the direction. It really felt to me like the creators were going down a checklist of some sorts, to get the necessary developments set up right for the finale.”
can you explain that (like with an exemple) because i have no idea what you mean by that.
Though yeah,i wasn’t blown away,it was a definite nice watch,i seriously got scared at the start since i thought that with kai we’d get one of those extremely annoying shounen heros but he turned out better than that.
And my dad’s a musician so it was fun to see an anime with so many messages he’s told me.
also,i predicted you’d give it a 82 and you did!Though i guess i don’t win anything for that lol
Well, to me it felt like the creators were really trying too hard to make Kai and the other main character (forgot his name) end up competing against each other, that’s why I mentioned it.
I’d also recommend checking the 2003 series “Hanada Shonen-shi”, based on another manga of the same author. It is a surprising change from the trend most anime series seem to take.
The movie should have been turned to a TV series since a lot is lost in just 100 minutes.
The series succeeds where the movie fails
I really liked how you stated your feelings and compared the two anime movies, but I still have no idea, from your review, what they are really about- aside from the age of the main characters, and a piano in the forest vs spirits in a forest.
.., wow… this is fascinating… wish to check this out…