Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Jxbinha
Piano no Mori was one of those anime that I didn't expect to affect me as much as it did. At first, it might seem like just another story about talented musicians competing against each other, but it quickly becomes much more about the people behind the music.
I loved the contrast between Kai and Shuhei. They come from completely different worlds, have completely different relationships with music, and yet the piano becomes the thing that connects them. Watching their friendship and rivalry develop was probably one of my favorite parts of the story.
Kai's connection with the piano in the forest was especially beautiful to me. There is something almost magical about the way he plays—not because he is simply talented, but because music genuinely feels like a part of who he is.
And honestly,…
Read at the source50Fiftillididee
🌲🎹A Ballad For The Jerks🎹🌲 °8.5° °Excellent° 💯%🔍minor spoilers only
Here's a quote: "Poland' originated from ‘people of the plains."
Did you even know that Chopin was Polish? Many of you surely do. I didn't know squat about him. For me, classical music is like learning Spanish. It's something I would truly love to master, however, I rarely get around to doing anything. Shows like this get me motivated. Okay, focus:
“Chopin grew up on an endlessly vast plain with an endlessly vast sky, with endless stars at night.” That's a sample of some of the dialogue viewers hear in between piano music of transcendent quality. More than half the show focuses on a single multi-round competition. They took pains with the soundtrack. The different competitors have distinctive styles of play. It'…
Read at the sourceJeliSuli
I really want to give it a higher score...
The story is beautiful, the characters... chief kiss ! Kai's progression was a delight to watch from the "feral" prodigy to the serious player. Ajino's story too (past and in-anime) was moving (I love Ajino). And of course, the music was great, heh.
I don't know if it's listed as such, but I consider it iyashikei, my favorite genre.
The art was fine and fit the atmosphere. But the CGI was too awful to be ignored.
And the still pictures... I don't know.
I've watched the series, not knowing there was a movie. People should rather watch that one, the animation could be less distracting. It is a good series, though.
Read at the sourceAirtag111
There are minor spoilers in this review!
You can practically find an anime about any line of work- sometimes these shows abridge the line of work to have that anime oomph to it, to make it a spectacle, but sometimes they come from a deep appreciation for the subject. This is one of those ones where the show just oozes love for the art of piano and classical music.
I have been a casual appreciator of classical music for some time, but never specifically the piano. Before I watched this show, I would probably get bored when I attempted to watch a piano solo on youtube, but with its love for the art form, it really made me appreciate it. The respect this season shows for the piano is inspiringly amazing. There are just moments where you listen to the piece plainly with minimal reactions an…
Read at the sourceweisskun
You know that feeling of excitement, yet it failed to deliver? Piano no Mori is like that.
(Doesn't contain spoilers)
First thing I'd like to talk about, this anime is to show the classical pieces, and I get that. When it comes to storyline, it was a bomb, not a blast. The series started off okay, the point of view of the character is pretty normal like the other series. MC starting his journey with his interest in piano blah blah blah, we get that. The portrayal of having one of the famous pianist in Japan just shown up at the start of the episode is just a cliché. I've seen this scene so much at the start of the series, it's just boring and predictable.
Second, the overall story is not exciting but not too boring. You can say fairly, but we have different taste, so you watch what you l…
Read at the sourcepolaris97
SPOILER FREE***
Congratulations, this show stands out as one of the worst anime's of all time in my humble opinion. I have not often felt compelled to write such a negative review but here we are. Coming into this anime with an open mind very much did not pay off as this one-dimensional story of nonsense plays out as you might expect out of a children's storybook, not the good kind.
Story:
The chosen one goes through various artificial hardships and perseveres through magic, a magical piano! It's very bad and much is never explained, just turn off your brain and enjoy the piano music. It's much better than trying to make sense of this uninteresting garbage.
Art & Sound:
The art is rough and piano music is OK but unmemorable.
Characters:
The main character is the chosen one who can acce…
Read at the sourceMgnahabastroke
It’s decent. I was skipping through it a lot of the time but I still wanted to know what would happen next. The CGI hurt my eyes. A lot of the characters made me want to die but a lot were also cool. The main guy’s voice after a time skip got higher pitched which was weird. It’s also a really creepy voice to me. The main rival is sometimes pretty annoying. His story is kind of weird and a bit stupid. The less main characters were pretty good and entertaining except for this random annoying girl who is unnecessary in my opinion. I only wrote this review because the main guy’s voice was annoyingly me lol.
Read at the sourceBlu_e616
If you've never played an instrument, you will not understand this anime. I saw a lot of bad reviews here, and this anime did not deserve it.
If you love music generally, give this anime a chance and learn more about classical music, competitions, and Chopin.
I played piano when I was young, so I know a lot about classical music.
The story is about growing up, friendship, rivalry, hard work, tough life but with a happy ending. Kai Ichinose is something like Mozart at a young age and Amamiya, Shuuhei is something like Salieri. The rivalry between them almost destroys their friendship.
A good piano teacher is everything when you are young. He is like another parent and he shows you the world from a different perspective and learn you a lot of new skills. These skills help you a lot wh…
Read at the sourceKays90
I am an avid lover of animes in music genre. This anime is no doubt one of the great animes in this genre but I felt some spark missing in the anime due to direction.
The story presented in anime lacked the depth that story have. They try to compensate the same by adding the depth during music but failed to reach the full potential. Making a story fast paced is one thing but rushing is just another thing. They somewhat ruined the anime by rushing it.
As usual the music is just great as expected and art work is great too. But use of CGI during music scenes were largely unimpressive.As soon as music starts, they jump to the CG which made the characters less real. They felt more like ballon dummies moving with wind to me. That was the only major issue with the animation.
Rushed direction…
Read at the sourceyuas
personally, i'm not really into music. the reason i was intrigued and started watching this show was honestly because the summary on MAL made it look a little bit like a shounen ai or have shippable male main characters, so i picked it up. although it isn't actually shounen ai, i've always shipped kai and shuhei. the reason i enjoyed this anime and watched both seasons was because i was probably a bit more focused on their relationship than anything else, so i stuck around for that!
the show throughout the two seasons went between different perspectives of other pianists, but i would've wished it focused on kai and shuhei just a bit more.
something i have always hated about this anime from the first episode is the animation during anyon'e piano performances. it broke the (general) 2d ani…
Read at the sourceDisfemisef
So, Piano no Mori, or Forest of Piano, is a hearfelt anime about two piano geniuses, Kai Ichinose and Shuhei Amamiya. The former is the son of a prostitute who had no real goals in life till a fateful encounter, and the latter was a rich kid that was the son of a piano legend. The two form a friendship that spans a number of years as Amamiya seeks to beat Kai to become the greatest pianist. So, the story itself is pretty decent, although I had a few issues with the pacing. The characters were nice and real. I really felt the jealousy that Amamiya felt towards Kai, I understood it, even if I didn't particularly like it. While the characters of Kai and Shuhei really got some nice development, sadly I didn't see the same with other characters.
I also had a problem with the art and animation.…
Read at the sourceRaspberihevn
A very relaxing wholesome story.
I love how the protagonist is a warm caring individual despite his unlucky childhood. He didn't pick his mom or birthplace but he found a piano in the forest that basically raised him and gave him strength. And he learned to use the piano to put food on the table.
Through piano, he understands himself better, and his teacher taught him to believe in himself. The world may want him to become someone else but it is okay that he remains who he is. It is endearing when he shows vulnerability and asks for guidance. And even more heartwarming when he returns the love.
Read at the sourcePARODY_QUEEN
I was very excited to start watching this anime mainly because it was a music anime. I didn't like it at first because the voice acting and animation really bothered me. But I continued to watch it and it started to grow on me, not the animation of course. The episodes are paced very well and the time skip wasn't rushed, it happened during a good point in the anime.Unlike most anime, the characters in this show weren't cliche. Going into it I wasn't expecting the type of story that this anime gave, which is a good thing. Every episode I didn't know what to expect, that kept it interesting. I would definitely recommend this anime. Because of this, I give Forest of Piano a 8.
Read at the sourceRed-beak
If you like learning about things then you will like this anime. I've learnt a lot about classical music, it's status in society, people's reaction to great talent, and an appreciation for the art of piano.
Nothing is confusing for people who don't know anything about classical music.
The story is told where we are introduced to the performer's background story/their motivations to compete in the grand stage of piano, before they play their piece. We aren't just listening to the music, but we get to hear the thoughts as they play. This brings an emotional element to the performance where we are able to learn in more depth about what it's like to be that person performing.
The way the writer talks about the music has an artistic style that is impossible to not notice the passion for p…
Read at the sourcenich303
Alright, this anime might be hard to review, but I'm up for the challenge.
Story 5/10
The story was alright but lacking through all the piano playing.
Art 6/10
The art was fine, but the use of CGI was jarring.
Music 6/10
The music was fine. There was a LOT of piano playing. Don't get me wrong, I love the piano, it's one of the most beautiful sounding instruments in my opinion. There was just a lot of it and none of it really stood out to me. Characters 7/10
Here is where it gets hard for me. While watching the show I wasn't all that impressed with the characters. Kai's mom was hot. Takako was my favourite character, but she hardly showed up at all in the latter bit of the show. Despite this, while I watched the final end theme and saw all the characters in front of the piano in the fore…
Read at the sourceChlozoBozo
I've never been so bored binge-watching an anime before. I wanna get this review out of the way so I can ultimately forget about this show and move on with my life.
Story - 5
It's fine and leads to a few fun ideas throughout the show, but none of them are really developed interestingly. I think. Honestly, I don't remember. I literally am writing this review five minutes after binging the entirety of this show and its blandness has led me to forgetting everything about it. Also I'm still irritated about the fact that Kai is apparently "The Chosen One", but whatever.
Art - 7
Easily the most interesting thing to talk about in this show is its blend of 2D with 3D animation, which I completely adored. The 3D animation was beautiful and worked amazingly into the story, but the big drawback was…
Read at the sourcemageryan
Piano No Mori (Forest of Piano) is a solid, enjoyable music anime and one of the better offerings on Netflix.
I watched this first before watching "Your Lie in April" (which I also wrote a review for). I have not seen too many musical animes but I have seen my fair share of animes to consider myself a good judge on whether something is worth watching. Even people who don't particularly enjoy classical music (like myself) will be able to get something out of this. I use pretty simple criteria.
1) Did I enjoy it, or did I want to fall asleep?
2) Did some parts seem repetitive or silly?
I feel like Piano No Mori is definitely an enjoyable, bingeable anime but it can get repetitive, which I will explain below.
Story (7/10):
A boy who is the son of a prostitute can mysteriously play the p…
Read at the sourcePyraXadon
If there's one thing I wish this show did, it was to just cut off ALL dialogue and just let the BGM play. Unfortunately, like most music-based shows, that's never going to be the case, but one can hope.
Story:
Piano no Mori introduces us to two boys, Shuhei Amamiya and Kai Ichinose, each of whom play the piano with different upbringings towards the instrument. Shuhei is from the city and is taught by his father, who is a professional pianist and provides him with the formal training any aspiring pianist would dream of having. Kai on the other hand is from a place called 'Forest's Edge', a slums that gets rotten looks by those that don't live there. After meeting in elementary school, the two embark on different paths in life with the pursuit of playing the piano, their goals differin…
Read at the sourceKANLen09
I have no idea how to judge this, but do have a clear idea of it, so with the anime adaptation of both the Madhouse film and the completed manga itself, let's see what you get with the 1st half of this series while waiting for the 2nd cour to be set next Winter (at the time of this review).
As many would suggest, watching the film made by Madhouse in 2007 is a plus (or how I would interpret it as a MUST) because Gainax clearly rushed out of proportion, seeing that the manga made an extensive approach to cover the emotions felt by the MCs-turned-rivals Kai Ichinose and Amamiya Shuuhei from children to grown-up, full-fledged pianists. And for manga readers like myself, it's a no-brainer with the most well-beloved pianist-turned-teacher, Sousuke Ajino, having an accident wreck his ability to…
Read at the sourceAbeldeMedici
Piano no Mori anime, like the homonimous film, tells the story of Kai Ichinose, an incredibly talented pianist child, whose free style however fails to convince the strict judges of the competitions. Sôsuke Ajino, a former master pianist, takes him as his pupil and vows to make the world appreciate his talent.
If you saw the film, you already saw the best part of it. The problem of this anime is that after the first arc (which was already covered in the film version) the story suddently stops moving forward and keeps moving in circles around the two same ideas: Amamiya (Kai's friend-rival) is frustrated about not reaching Kai's level, and the competition judges are a close-minded bunch who can't appreciate Kai's talent. Competitions become the end of the story and not just plot drives, t…
Read at the source