Review of The Piano Forest

First of all: i cannot judge who was played well or badly - i do not know Musics well enough. As well i do not know how (un)realistic the explanations on "virtuoso piano playing" were. To me it seems unrealistic, but not impossible, tha Kai - never having had lessons - can play the piano very well. That he cannot even read notes looks like an allusion to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was said to be able to replay a composition from his hearing. The whol drama about the "little children of prodigy", who nearly were defeated by a natural, competition and stage fright - andthe friendship being stressed by this - seems credible to me and is shown very emotionally. It has quite the intensity of Hayao Miyazaki, who shurely would not have shown it less dramatically - and maybe some more hokey.
All in all the movie does not really feel like an anime to me - the story matches Japan with the overdone focus on effort (which nevertheless is not finished consequently), but might as well happen in America or Europe. And although it is clearly said that bullheaded training and learning do not make you a good pianist, i am disappointed how the fate of these children is accepted without any criticism. You even learn only from a side note that Shuuhei is no prodigy child but is simply born into this destiny because of being the son of a famous pianist.
The piano in the forest - well, on one hand it is of course absolutely implausible that a piano should have been in the forest for years in all weathers and nevertheless should have remained playable. On the other hand, it can only be played by Kai; i did not really understand this point: shall all of this be unreal - like Kai being chased by the Mozart's ? But that would not to Kai and Shuuhei trying it together and wondering that only Kai can play the grand piano; even Ajino later hears Kai playing it in the forest and is enthusiastic about it.

The musics is purely aligned to the subject: apart from the ending only classical piano soli.
Concerning the graphics i was irritated by some reflections (mainly on the grand piano) which for sure were computer-generated - for me they did not match the cell-shading movie. But this is just my opinion.