Recap

At a pitstop on the way home, Kaori reveals she’s heard a lot about Kousei from his years as the Child Genius. Kousei is goaded into playing the piano for some adorable twerps until his trauma forces him to stop. He reveals to Kaori that he believes he can’t hear the music if he plays for long enough. After accepting that this is kinda ridiculous, Kaori goes on a vendetta to make him her accompanist for the next round of the competition.

It’s quite refreshing to see teenagers act like teenagers. Not to say there is no basis for Kousei’s claims of trauma, but the way it manifests and the way he talks about it is so melodramatic that it makes his characterization really believable. It reminds me a lot of Chuu2 in a good way, how a character took tragedy and masked it with needless drama. I am worried for the precedent the recruitment as her accompanist is setting. I think I would have been a lot happier if it was just his interactions with Kaori that started to get him out of his mental block, a natural progression due to her love of music rubbing off on him. Now that I know she’s specifically aiming to get him out of his funk, it seems so obvious how this romance is going to develop. The idea that she’s still into Watari will be interesting, but I can think of some quick ways that can be taken out of the picture.

I’m also starting to find it hard to like Kaori wholeheartedly. In the first few episodes, I think there’s a solid case for why she was so spazzy around Kousei. In this episode, even though she starts to get more familiar with him, she’s still beating him up and overdoing everything. I know she’s supposed to fit that free spirit mentality, but a little bit of grounding wouldn’t hurt. I’m hoping now that they’re going to interact in a professional relationship, she’ll at least tone it down a little.

If there’s anything that never disappointed, this show remains absolutely gorgeous. The color choice pops in every scene, and the motion remains completely fluid. This show still has the best reaction faces of anything this season, and it’s making screencapping a lot of fun. We did see the appearance of the inevitable CG hands at the piano, but considering the leaps in CG artistry since Nodame Cantabile came out the effect thankfully isn’t as glaring. I do hope they still animate the important parts with regular drawings, but I can accept they’ll take the easy shortcuts for little scenes like the one in this episode.