Recap

Kousei goes on to play alone. Meanwhile, his mother gets a bunch of flashbacks that try to make her seem sympathetic. The attempt fails. The show goes on to further cement itself as a bad melodrama as more allusions to Kaori’s death loom in the final minutes.

I cannot begin to describe how frustrated and betrayed I felt about this episode. All of my fears, all of my worries, confirmed in one fell swoop. They tried to redeem Kousei’s mother. They tried to redeem the woman who viscerally abused her own child just to make him better at the piano. What’s more, they try to justify in the most insulting way possible: saying she was doing it for his own good. It’s acting as if she needed to hit Kousei, needed to abuse him and deprive him of his childhood in order to secure some vague livelihood after she’s gone. And it’s absolute bullshit. I can’t believe this is even trying to be serious, that Saki’s actions could somehow in any way be construed as the tragic consequence of her imminent death instead of the deranged actions of an uncaring mother. If she really cared about his well-being, she would have made sure he grew up happy, and she certainly did not.

Hiroko also spouts some more melodramatic nonsense this episode, confirming my suspicion that the excuse they give for her staying out of his life is some misguided sense of guilt.  Did she not love him? Was her drive to get him to play the piano not motivated by her love of him and desire to foster his growth? What proper adult, when seeing a child all alone and needing support, would shy themselves away just because they feel some guilt? It’s despicable behavior, and I sincerely hope the show doesn’t let that fact go unnoticed.

Kousei’s performance once again seemed a slap in the face to anyone who has ever had to actually practice and perform music. The idea that he could just automatically switch over to the arrangement when he’d been practicing the accompaniment the whole time is insulting. I get that Kousei is some kind of genius, but I think even genius has its limits. The idea that he’d be able to perfectly play (notes-wise at least) this performance, especially one subtly different than what should have been on is mind, just seemed weird. Add on to that, what he did literally was try to steal the limelight away from a 10 year old. How mean can you get? Thankfully, that little kid was able to show his stuff as well. I hate how everyone is congratulating Kousei’s rude behavior though.

And finally, we learn what happened to our delicate flower Kaori. I’m not sure what other outcome of her absence there could have been, but I guess this show is so far up its head that it thinks the idea of her being sick again is a legitimately shocking turn of events. Kaori’s sickness has been hanging over the show forever, so at least hopefully we’ll finally learn more about it. The voice-over by Hiroko was melodramatic nonsense, though. This show is really getting in over its head about how art is suffering, and how Kousei is going to have to suffer the death of Kaori to somehow become an even better player. I hope, I truly hope this show is better than that, but after this episode, I am highly skeptical.