Piano 6/10

I know alot of people who took piano lessons as kids and now I know what they went through. Of course they were mostly guys so I doubt they treated it as seriously as Piano does.

A newer show, the character designs and backgrounds are great though the main character has crazy hair considering how true to life this show tends to be. And odd design choice. The music here, including the OP and ED themes, is really quite nice as most of it is quiet piano pieces. This of course comes as no surprise considering the title.

The story is about a grade 8 girl named Miu and her everyday life as she approaches a big piano recital right before she starts grade 9. Miu lives at home with her parents and attends piano lessons after school at a piano school where she is taught by a moody, distant young man named Mr. Shirakawa. Since he offers little feedback or praise, Miu is losing interest in the piano and at times even skips her lessons to avoid having to face her teacher after having made no progress since the previous lesson.

Miu also attends school of course and has a best friend named Yuuki who is the standard track team, tomboy type, and who has a proper hairstyle. The two girls also have crushes on a couple of boys and Miu's pretty shy so this adds to her daily crushing depression. As the show moves along, Yuuki gets her man and Miu is selected to play an original piece in the next piano school recital. This sends Miu into a spiral of depression and she ultimately kills herself with a sherry enema.

Not really, I'm kidding.

Miu spends the series worrying about her current situation but it's not the whiny annoying complaining that could terminally cripple this show. Alot of this show is about a teenage girls insecurities and how her friends and family support her through her tough times. (Having spent my adolescence as a teenage boy I cannot confirm nor dispute the accuracy of the portrayals in this series. I can however confirm that teenage boys can be as clueless regarding teenage girls as the boys in this series are.)

This show is a quiet progression through everyday life with alot of everyday events here between the main plot advancement and I found myself enjoying those parts more than the whole piano playing plotline. I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory as little is ultimately resolved by the end of things so I can't give this show a better score. Recommended if you like slice-of-life shows.