共鳴 – Resonance
Finally we unravel the mystery behind all his self-antagonism. But before that…
Having been told that his achievements were the best medicine for her, Kousei believed that if it made his mother better, he would take first place again. No matter how difficult the piece (yeah.. Haydn is challenging), as long as it made her feel better, he would practice as hard as he possibly could, sacrifice all his play time, so as to clinch first place in any and all competitions he participated in. She was all that he played for – he wanted to make her feel better, to make her happy. And when the opportunity for Kousei’s mother to watch him perform came about, he promised to present her with his best ever performance. It was really sweet to see little Kousei get all excited about his mother watching his performance, and to see his eyes go all sparkle and shine. Evidently, Kousei loved his mother dearly and did all that he could to be a better pianist.
And yet, that was not enough. Despite playing the best anyone has ever heard him play, his mother threw a fit and took her rage out on Kousei (in public no less) because he ‘messed up’ a couple of bars. That was severely harsh and unfair treatment, especially on such a young and impressionable child. He had put up with his mother’s abuse all his life, spending hours on end practising in hopes of meeting her expectations. Then again, when is a child’s effort ever enough? It all went for nought of course, when Kousei, finally at breaking point, told his mother that she should just die – the last thing he ever said to her.
Ah yes, so that’s why he keeps blaming himself. He wished his mother’s death, and she died. Like I mentioned earlier, young and impressionable. I am pretty sure most children would be severely adversely affected if that ever happened to any of them. So of course Kousei was going to blame himself, and continues to do so to this day. Two years on, and he still can’t break away from it. As we saw during his performance: the entrance on the left side, facing the audience – a spot where he could see her. That was his mother’s special seat. And it was also a reminder that that was his punishment.
Be that as it may, it is a shame that Kousei is not aware that his piano playing served as such an inspiration for other aspiring pianists (Emi, enthralled by his performance as a child, abandoned all options available to her to be a pianist. I very much admire her conviction. As a child, she was dead certain she would be a pianist. And I admire Kousei for having made her feel so strongly about it). That said, I guess, to a child, a parent is his everything. So it did not matter that he pretty much changed the lives of many of his age, because all that mattered to him was his mother’s well being.
From the way things have been going, it is obvious that Kousei is not the mechanical, devoid-of-all-emotion character that he has been portrayed to be. He remains deeply affected and traumatised by his mother’s ‘untimely’ death, and it looks like he will not be recovering any time soon. Worse still, now that his hearing is starting to fail on him during his performance yet again, will muscle memory pull through? My guess is that it is highly unlikely.
Classical music heard. Chopin’s Etude Op. 25 No. 11 in A Minor; Chopin’s Etude Op. 25 No. 5 in E Minor; Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in C-sharp minor, 3rd movement. Since I had previously posted links of all the classical music heard this episode, I shan’t be posting them again in this review. However, in line with the ‘remixed’ version of the A Minor Etude (amazing how adding some percussion-y stuffs is able to give the piece such a drastic makeover. Music, never ceases to amaze <3) that we heard, I thought it’d be fun to post this ‘remixed’ version of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in C-sharp minor. So if you’re interested, click ♪ ♫ to listen~ The guy on the violin, Teppei Okada, also does a mean version of the Super Mario theme song, lol ^^
And in keeping up with the spirit of randomness, because kiseki is a Hanae-twitter addict, here’s the link to Hanae’s latest tweet on KimiUso (because it was so aww..): Kousei, my friend. He’s changed his display picture~
Before ending this post, would just like to comment on the amount of medication seen this episode. Kaori’s as well as Kousei’s mother’s – if that was not foreshadowing, I don’t know what is.
☆ koekara ☆ 