These recaps are getting annoying for this series.  We’ve already seen Emi’s performance and what does the director do here?  Completely change Chopin’s Étude in A minor Op. 25, No. 11 with small guitar riffs and a drum beat.  What?  This isn’t even part of the performance and yet they throw this in there to emphasize how passionate she is.  It would have been nice to leave the piece the way Emi wanted to play it without all the slow rocking effects.  The way this was written it was too much and should have at least left this up to the previous episode if they wanted to further develop Emi’s role in this.  After the opening sequence now that was a splendid act of anger from Emi.  That’s where they should have started this!

Regardless, both Emi and Takashi’s performances built up what we should be expecting with Kousei’s skills.  Kaori’s admiration for Kousei really shined through this episode and I like how the foreshadow of her death possibly by the end of this show correlates to Kousei’s mom strongly.  The flashbacks while pertained most of the episode ended up familiarizing me with how Kousei relates to his mom.

She hits him, trains him even harder at the piano and what we’re left with is a Kousei up on stage by himself once again with an empty feeling of the loss of his mother never resolved.  However this time things are different.  He’s met Kaori a musical blessing that could get him out of his rut.

What I really enjoyed previously in this series is the imagery that is used when he’s not able to hear the notes:  stuck underwater and feeling abandoned.  Powerful because we are gradually getting to see him mature further.  This also works out well when we’ve got a confused love struck Tsubaki in the background too!  Relieve him of the pain he’s had in his heart all this time as he’s going to change his piano playing away from sheet music into a style all his own.  I really like that visual at the end where he’s playing the piano and the sheet music is spotlighted underneath him.  Great imagery there.  Nice build-up to the performance we will get to see hopefully in the next episode.  Let’s see Kousei break the mold here and surprise everyone!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 7/10

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