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Information

• Member: Kionon
• Studio: |: Serious Business Studios :|
• Title: Boy at the Piano
• Premiered: 2008-11-24
• Categories:
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Vienna Teng Eric's Song
• Anime:
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV)
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie (Adolescence Of Utena)
• Comments:
  
  This video has been a long, long time in coming. I started work on the story boarding for this video while still in the United States, and I left the US almost exactly one year ago. This was my next serious project after starting Countdown earlier that year.
  
  This video represents a combination of approaches to the idea of concept synthesis. I have a lot to say about Utena; if I didn't, I would not produce so many Utena AMVs. Covered by whacky and surreal situations, the characters are quite seriously flawed. To stop and look deeply at the characters of Utena is to look at a group of young people suffering from a wide range of emotional and mental instabilities. The characters, Utena, included, suffer from arrogance, elitism, obsessive compulsive behavior, possessiveness, self-loathing, bigotry, sexism, depression, bipolarity, and not the least of the list, violent behavior. In several cases, we do get episodes which seem to focus on how profoundly disturbed some of these characters are, and just how cruel they are to each other... and to themselves.
  
  To this end, my favorite character is Miki, who suffers from co-dependence with his sister, stress from being overworked and overpraised for being a genius, and what is a very noble heart without much common sense. I initially set out to make a video about him. This was what I call the concept first approach, something I very, very rarely ever do. Largely because I have such a back log of song first ideas, and finding a song for a concept first amv can be quite difficult. So I started looking around for songs that were about boys and pianos. I came across a song by Vienna Teng called Boy at the Piano. Turns out, the actual title of the song I had was Eric's Song, but I did not find that out until later. What I cam across was a live recording of the song, that had a very eery quality. And when I listened to it, the song was definitely about Miki... but from someone's perspective I had not originally considered. Miki's twin sister, Kozue.
  
  Kozue is a disturbed and disturbing individual. Despite Miki's frailties, he is rather sane. The same cannot be said for his sister, Kozue. Both were pianists when they were children. According to Miki, she was actually the better player. They had a very close relationship as children and apparently had a very good family life. One day as they were about to perform in front of many people, Miki got sick, and Kozue had to play on her own. She told her parents they she did not want to, but they made her go up anyhow. She had a nervous breakdown on stage... the ghosts in the attic that never quite... leave... From that moment on, she is never quite the same. She alternates between hating her brother for getting sick and leaving her alone and being violently obsessive to the point of threatening him and actually harming people she considers to close to him. She actually goes so far as to push his piano teacher down a flight of stairs. It is not shown on screen, but is heavily implied through both creative cinematography and through a conversation Kozue later has with one of the other characters. That conversation strongly implies this is part of a pattern. There is strong behavioral evidence to suggests that she is both jealous of the attention Miki gets because of his ability to overcome any obstacle... like a phoenix he rises from the ashes, over and over and over... and also seemingly able to reconcile that with the view that two twins are not actually distinct personalities, but rather that she is part of him, and he is part of her. Like when they were children, she sees it as though they succeed or fail together. In the world according to Kozue, Miki cannot be allowed to have his own separate life, since she cannot understand her life without him as its defining context.
  
  Due to the eery quality of Eric's Song, its mismatched title, and the lyrics as viewed through the lens of not a love song, but rather a creepy obsession, the video has slowly come together. The biggest issue I had was being able to present the fact that they are twins clearly to the audience. Initially, Koopiskeva suggested I use text to present a sort of internal dialogue of Kozue to make it clear, but the results looked silly and destroyed the creepy mood I was going for. Discussing this with MeteorDragon, I eventually decided to make a family photo for the beginning in photoshop which would strongly imply the characters are at least siblings, and I think there is a strong visual quality for assuming they are twins. The family is actually Ayukawa Madoka's family from Kimagure Orange Road, and the sheet music is KOR background music.
  
  strange how you know inside me
  I measure the time and I stand amazed
  strange how I know inside you
  my hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
  
  and of course I forgive
  I've seen how you live
  like a phoenix you rise from the ashes
  you pick up the pieces
  and the ghosts in the attic
  they never quite leave
  and of course I forgive
  you've seen how I live
  I've got darkness and fears to appease
  my voices and analogies
  ambitions like ribbons
  worn bright on my sleeve
  
  strange how we know each other
  
  strange how I fit into you
  there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease
  strange how you fit into me
  a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs
  
  and with each passing day
  the stories we say
  draw us tighter into our addiction
  confirm our convictions
  that some kind of miracle
  passed on our heads
  and how I am sure
  like never before
  of my reasons for defying reason
  embracing the seasons
  we dance through the colors
  both followed and led
  
  strange how we fit each other
  
  strange how certain the journey
  time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see
  strange how this journey's hurting
  in ways we accept as part of fate's decree
  
  so we just hold on fast
  acknowledge the past
  as lessons exquisitely crafted
  painstakingly drafted
  to carve us as instruments
  that play the music of life
  for we don't realize
  our faith in the prize
  unless it's been somehow elusive
  how swiftly we choose it
  the sacred simplicity
  of you at my side