Pianist is a sweet and touching love story between a man and an, err, android. Yuna and her master Seiji live far off into the future where underpopulation has become a serious problem. For some reason, nature caused humanity to devolve and sperm count has lowered drastically. As a result, human-like robots were built to answer the labor shortage problem as well as fill other baser human needs. Must be a depressing era.

Despite all this, Seiji’s relationship with Yuna is something pretty rare for a hentai feature. While other humans abuse their androids and use them only for their own selfish purposes, he treats her like a true girlfriend. She is officially his maid, yet he teaches her so many things and enjoys spending his time with her. Finally, he teaches her how to play his favorite musical instrument. Since Seiji could no longer play the piano due to a wrist injury, he projects his dreams onto Yuna. Conflict arises when Seiji tries to sign Yuna up for auditions and recording contracts. Producers wouldn’t hear of it, as they claim it is no better than hearing a mechanical piano play. (And I agree with them, though Seiji doesn’t quite see it the same way.) Yuna becomes depressed and runs away, making Seiji panic and fall into depression as well. How these two lovebirds resolve their issues is something that is worth watching—a tale of love against all odds. I just wish Yuna could’ve been a real woman, though. That would have been more romantic.

The artwork is pretty although the animation would seem very primitive now, in the age of the Great Digital. The music is beautiful, as various classical pieces are used as background. English voice acting is okay, definitely more bearable than Dream Hazard. Pianist, by the way, originally came with Dream Hazard and packaged as part of the Secret Anima Series. They’ve been separated when NuTech got the license to publish the DVD version.

Just a little note: This is the first of the android maid themed anime I have ever seen—long long before Mail Order Maiden and Buttobi CPU.

Writer’s Apology: (Yare yare…forgive me for sounding like I haven’t slept and hadn’t eaten breakfast and lunch…Ragnarok Online got in the way of my real life…)

Individual Rating: Art/Animation: 8 Story/Plot: 9 Characters: 9 Sounds: 9 Ecchi Level: 7

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2001 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Pianist, Anime Hentai. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.