Anime Fantasy

Forest of Piano Anime's 2nd Season Reveals New Director, January 27 Premiere, Ending Theme Artist

The official website for the television anime of Makoto Isshiki's Piano no Mori (Forest of Piano) manga revealed the debut date, ending theme song, and staff information for the show's second season on Friday.

The second season will premiere on NHK General on January 27 at 24:10 (effectively January 28 at 12:10 a.m.), although it will premiere at 12:50 a.m. in the Kansai region.

Rie Murakawa will perform the show's ending theme song "Hajimari no Basho" (Starting Place), and the single for the song will ship on February 20. The main cast and pianists from the first season are returning for the second season.

Hiroyuki Yamaga (Royal Space Force - The Wings of Honnêamise, Mahoromatic - Automatic Maiden, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Uru in Blue) is taking over as director at studio Gaina (formerly Fukushima Gainax). Gaku Nakatani directed the first season at Fukushima Gainax, and Ryūtarō Suzuki served as series director.

Mika Abe is returning to oversee the series scripts, and Sumie Kinoshita is returning as the character designer and chief animation director. Other returning staff include Hirotsugu Kakoi as art director, Chie Yoshimura as color designer, Akinori Mishima as editor, Mutsumi Usuda as director of photography, Yukio Nagasaki as sound director, and Harumi Fuuki as music composer.

Kodansha Comics began releasing the manga digitally in October on Comixology and Kindle only, and it describes the series:

This is a story about a piano, pitifully abandoned in the woods, and a young boy, Kai, who grew up playing it as his favorite toy. While Kai cannot even read sheet music, one day, he meets Shuhei Amamiya, an aspiring child pianist who transfers schools from Tokyo, and their music teacher, Sosuke Ajino. Ajino was also once a gifted pianist, until a tragic accident stole his promising future from him forever. Each from a different background, the trio's personalities gravitate to one another and rebound. All the while, the piano sits patiently, awaiting a hand to play it.

The first anime season premiered on NHK on April 8 and had 12 episodes. Netflix is exclusively streaming the anime. Netflix debuted new episodes inside Japan immediately after they aired on NHK, and debuted the season outside of Japan on September 28.

Sources: Forest of Piano anime's website, Anime! Anime! (MoA)