The matter of digital and analogue music is an interesting one: there are things that digital technology outstrips what musicians and instruments were previously able to do but it’s still necessary, for the benefit of both performer and listener I think, for old-school technology. D$igital distortion and delay effects for example are considered harsh or cold while analogue units are described as more expressive and musical. A combination of the two yields fascinating and surprising results though!

Sorry if I misunderstood your sharing of you own performance, but even if it’s not perfect it’s still a personal interpretation unique to the individual performer, which is the distinction I see between humans and, say, an android or Vocaloid software (the latter is, at present, merely another instrument for musicians to use to express themselves). I still enjoyed listening to your recording!

The whole question of music caught my eye (ear?) more than Chie and Shimei’s relationship as well, it’s one of those timelessly fascinating questions. It’s kind of off-topic, but I never cease to be fascinated by musicians who work largely in a digital domain, yet deliberately “break” their compositions with distortion, running it through analogue equipment and what have you to bring it back to something more “human”. Back on topic, I suppose if you’re tackling the question of whether an android could ever “feel” emotion, then once they reach that point they should also be equally capable of expressing those emotions via music.

The umbrella scene was a great multi-layered one – On a basic level, sharing an umbrella in Japan is considered a public display of affection of sorts, yet of course in Rikou and Sammy’s case the association of that shared umbrella (and being seen to share it by others) goes way deeper and transcends simple like/dislike into other directions entirely.

There seem to be so many things that the final episode of this show needs to tie up, I can’t imagine how they’ll manage it. I’m expecting some big surprises/twists though considering the way Yoshiura’s other efforts have finished.

Anyway, I read bits here and there about Eve no Jikan but this is the first time I’ve become really interested in checking it out because of that piano subplot you’ve mentioned. Using piano to explore deeper themes is one of my favourite things in a story (many favourite movies of mine are piano-related in fact), and this also seems to delve more into human/robot. I remember the movie I-Robot, where Will Smith asks the robot, ‘can a robot paint on canvas? can a robot turn a piece of paper into a symphony?’. My memories are bit fuzzy but later the robot claims that he can not create art, but he can dream, and he can copy that dream, and then starts ‘printing’ a brilliant landscape.

I haven’t watched Eve no Jikan, but I see you’ve tried to avoid the word ‘soul’. I think to have your own interpretation of music, soul is what you need. Maybe one could reproduce a maestro’s performance by ordering a robot to play this piece in such a way, but that is not interpreting a piece, that is just copying. It’s not just an intellectual process it’s an emotional and spiritual one (assuming your skill is good enough to not worry about your physical abilities…), and whether a robot can interprete a music I think, will depend on its capacity to feel emotions. I wonder if in Eve no Jikan, the barrier between man and machine will be blurred through such a symbolism?