About Shinji piano learning skills

[Kendrix]

One thing I like about both NGE and NME is that nobody ever even says the word "gay".

I must agree there (Same with the whole maya thing). Usually, ppl will introduce a token gay character who will be just that, but here, Kaworu's essentially male so he can be a shadow archetype for the sake of his role in the greater plot; There isn't this whole ZOMFG non-heterosexual people! reaction.

kinda like Sailor Uranus and Neptune were still in this whole save the world with less cadycoated methods thing and didn't stand out at all amongst all the girly romance in the show?

They have the sheet during the rainbow seq. It's strange considering they didn't have one during the first sequence and based purely on the way scene is directed (without taking context of Shinji's skills), the first sequence feels more real while the second feels more abstracted and montage-like with dialogues, imageries and all. Yet realistic details such as sheets says the other way around.

Perhaps the sheet was just forgotten the first time around?

Either way, I say this first session was actually hours, most of the day perhaps, simply because when they say their goodbyes and Kaworu introduces himself, it's sunset, when the beginning appeared to be midday or morning (We see Shinji leave from his room.)

He made that progess in a day, which is still a lot, but less crazy than 30 sec.

[TruthfulLie]

I actually think it was intentional because of two reasons. One, all the music notation imagery overlapping during the second scene while the first doesn't. Two, the fact that they've rotoscoped the scene for fingers, (and sheets were there if you look at the Making of feature) so it was rather hard not to put them in.

[Kendrix]

How 'bout this explanation for session one:

At first, when he was only hittin those low notes here and there, he was improvising, later, he was repeating something Kaworu showed him in the parts of that day that we didn't see.


Because LOLMAGICS would really cheapen it massively.

[TruthfulLie]

Yeah whatever the truth is, the supernatural power idea doesn't really appeal to me at all.

[Ornette]

Either way, I say this first session was actually hours, most of the day perhaps, simply because when they say their goodbyes and Kaworu introduces himself, it's sunset, when the beginning appeared to be midday or morning (We see Shinji leave from his room.)

He made that progess in a day, which is still a lot, but less crazy than 30 sec.

The problem with that is during all of the piano playing, it is mid-day, the sun doesn't change, until after a cut. The literal reading would be that the first 2 minutes was the first 2 minutes, then the rest of the day was the rest of the day, probably also spent playing the piano.

For the record, I'm totally fine with the loose interpretation of this being some sort of visual metaphor or something, that's really one of the only ways to make any sense of it. I'm commenting (like I noted in my first post) about the problems with a literal reading of the first piano scene, which isn't necessarily wrong, seeing how there's such a clear division between the first and second piano scenes, which would make it look like you want a literal reading of the first and a looser one for the second. There's plenty of ways getting around that as well, like:

The only explanation that I could come up with at the time to appease myself so I wouldn't dwell on it was that Shinji knew how to play the piano the whole time, took lessons or something as a kid, was actually pretty good, but since pianos aren't something you can take with you, he stopped playing entirely when he came to Nerv. Being out of practice, he lied that he's never played the piano before. He also knows the piece, maybe it was a famous song and something that he played when he took lessons, just took all of 20 seconds to get his chops back and the muscle memory of having played the song before came back to him.

But the problems are still going to be there if you're taking a literal reading. (also, by "at the time" from the quote above, meaning while I was watching the movie for the first time, because it bothered me enough to be kind of distracting).

[kuribo-04]

One thing I like about both NGE and NME is that nobody ever even says the word "gay". Anyone coming into either with no preconceptions of homosexuality as other might not even have a clue that it was anything but perfectly normal in those universes. Personally, the word "gay" never even crosses my mind when I think of Shinji-Kaworu love, any more than the word "straight" crosses my mind when I think of Shinji-Asuka [s]love[/s] 's relationship.

I agree with you. I didn´t think that Shinji was gay the first time I saw ep. 24, the sexual undertones are there, that´s undeniable, but immediately jumping to the conclusion that he is gay, even when there were no indications of this whatsoever in the previous episodes, is not a serious approach I´d say. It would be out of character in my opinion, that´s why I think that "kawoshin" doesn´t make any sense (not that I care about that shipping nonsense). What I think is even worse is that some people use kawoshin to defend gay-rights, or will think of you as a xenophobe if you disagree with them about the relationship. That doesn´t make any sense. Other people are incapable of understanding how you can love ep 24 and 3.0 (like I do) but not be a "kawoshin".

Sorry for the off-topic but I needed to respond.
On-topic, I see that many people are taking a very...ehm...technical approach (don´t know if I worded this correctly), which I also do, but we should also keep in mind that this is a film and that "non-sense" could be present just because it is beautiful. I can perfectly imagine Anno thinking "People will think that this doesn´t make any sense, for obvious reasons, but still I want to make it like this, because I just like it".
Also remember episode 9 of the series. That battle didn´t make any sense, and I´m positive that it is the same kind of approach. I loved how it was done in ep 9, and I also love the piano scene, although maybe it was a little bit too strange this time. Still love it.
So in my opinion we should take Anno thinking this as a possibility. For me it makes sense, because if I would be a filmmaker, I would probably take this approach too sometimes (probably not in such an extreme way as in the piano scene).
I´m not saying that this is the answer, just a possibility. Please keep coming up with possible answers, because this scene kind of bugs me.

[cpt. Amarao]

Maybe this scene is like the ones in 80s action films where the protagonist do an intensive training for days with pop music playing all encased in a 5 minutes scene, but again, in those films it was clear that the training duration was days or weeks, meanwhile in 3.0 there is no way to tell the pass of time. maybe Anno wanted us to loss the sense of time to let us get lost into this beautifull scene.

[Excess_Velocity]

I'm pretty sure that the indication has always been that Shinji, for all his weaknesses, is an incredibly fast learner. Throughout Rebuild and the TV series,, we're shown that his ability to adapt on the fly is nothing to scoff at, even if he himself doesn't realize it. His first time in an Eva, he understandably gets knocked out. The second time, he's comfortable enough to formulate and enact a way to kill Shamshel.


In the TV series, he's outperforming Asuka and Rei, who have been training for years to pilot Evas by the middle of the series. IF that doesn't cement Shinji's character as having some sort of crazy adaptive or learning ability, I don't know what does.

[ElMariachi]

Caution though : Shinji surpassed Rei and Asuka on their synchronization rate, and Rei can't have a too high rate because she doesn't have a mother to have her soul put into her EVA, and Asuka was essentially piloting her EVA-02 wrong by closing off her heart to it and her mother and blocking the access to the EVA whole potential.

But in term of actual fighting abilities, Rei and Asuka surpass Shinji : look at the crazy kung-fu stuff Asuka did in EoE, there is no way Shinji could do something like that. What make him compensate is the fact that he opens his heart to his mother so she can intervene when thing gets sour and the fact that EVA-01 is made from Lilith which is implied makes it potentially far more powerful than the regulars cloned from ADAM.

[Excess_Velocity]

Caution though : Shinji surpassed Rei and Asuka on their synchronization rate, and Rei can't have a too high rate because she doesn't have a mother to have her soul put into her EVA, and Asuka was essentially piloting her EVA-02 wrong by closing off her heart to it and her mother and blocking the access to the EVA whole potential.

But in term of actual fighting abilities, Rei and Asuka surpass Shinji : look at the crazy kung-fu stuff Asuka did in EoE, there is no way Shinji could do something like that. What make him compensate is the fact that he opens his heart to his mother so she can intervene when thing gets sour and the fact that EVA-01 is made from Lilith which is implied makes it potentially far more powerful than the regulars cloned from ADAM.

This is true.

I redact my previous statement, then. Shinji is just good with music, perhaps.

Or, again, maybe Kaworu can 'synchronize' with Shinji somehow, because he's a magic space albino.

[ElMariachi]

Now it's not impossible that he has some natural learning abilities(after all both his parents are extremely intelligent scientists), IIRC in NGE(and maybe even Rebuild?) Ritsuko and Maya even say that he's a natural at piloting during his training before Shamshel.

The problem is that we don't have anyone else to compares him too to see how a rookie is supposed to fare piloting an EVA, to see if Shinji really is a natural, or if every rookie could do that.
Toji could have filled that role, but Bardiel though otherwise...

I really hope that the interviews in the 3.0 CRC will clarify that point, after all Tsurumaki even asked Anno if Gendo actually planned what happened with EVA-01 and Zeruel, to know how he must direct that scene, so it's not impossible if he asked Anno if Shinji learning to play that well in what looks like barely 30 seconds was a sign of the passage of some time or some Space Jesus Magic.


EDIT : I just noticed in TV Tropes(I know, I know sorry) that someone who's also a member of EGF; MAI742, mentioned that playing "Quatre Mains" is not hard, and that even playing both part yourself shouldn't be that technically demanding.

Now if there are members playing the piano, can they confirm what said user wrote : is "Quatre Mains" really such a basic piece that it's normal that Shinji manages to learn it so quickly?

[pwhodges]

Given that Shinji is shown not even knowing how to use his fingers on the keys, it's absurd to say that it would be trivial for him to learn - if he was grade 4 or 5 (UK music exam system) it would be not so bad, however, his initial tries would be much better in that case, and he would know enough about practising for his question to be stupid. But I see the scene as symbolic rather than realistic (especially now that I'm persuaded that there's no cello playing in his background in NTE), so it becomes pointless to speculate further.

[tzigi]

I understood the scene in question in a different way (some people here have suggested it but nobody has presented a coherent hypothesis - I'll try to do this). Bear with me while I mix my evidence from different continuities - that's the way I perceive the franchise - as one whole.

In 2 out of 3 "standard" (I define standard as depicting on the most basic level the story of Shinji piloting an Eva as the main storyline - arguably he also does it in the Girlfriend of Steel/Angelic Days manga but there it isn't a really prominent part of the storyline) Evangelion continuities - NGE and the manga by Sadamoto - Kaworu can sync with an Eva without being present in it. In NME he can sync with another pilot piloting the same Unit (or maybe he can sync only with Shinji and Eva 13 - though I doubt it - in NGE Shinji managed to sync with Asuka and Unit 02 in episode 8). So my conclusion is that maybe Kaworu can bypass the need for an Eva and sync with Shinji directly. Kaworu can play well (for all those fans of traditional piano-learning here - he had all the time he wanted to learn) so he could transfer the ability to Shinji. Or maybe rather share it with him - we never see Shinji play on his own so there's no evidence that he can actually sit all by himself at the piano and play antyhing. Think about the scene where Kaworu sees Shinji already waiting for him near the piano - Shinji isn't practicing, isn't even getting ready, he's just sitting there on the ground. If Shinji enjoyed playing piano then he could start practicing before Kaworu came there.
There's also the fact that the inside of the piano is shown in a way quite similar to the images of synchronization (the crazy colours and computer-generated imagery).

[pwhodges]

That's an interesting idea that I missed when/if it came up before. I guess to see how reasonable it is, we also need to consider if there were other times when it would have been sensible for Kaworu to do that, and whether it seems that he did so. My first thought is going down the exposed steps when showing Shinji the ruined world - he offers his hand rather than doing any magic to help him down.

[ElMariachi]

The idea that Kaworu is synchronizing his piano skills with Shinji indeed came up before(that's usually what ti's refereed too when talking about "weird Angel/Space Jesus Magic" at the working), and Kaworu even revealed that it was an exercise to teach Shinji how to synchronize their "tempo" while piloting.

But we do see Shinji practicing on his own : in his room after the rainbow and unicorns piano scene he's seen practicing the piece in the air, and he looked like he knew what he was doing, so Kaworu probably didn't just share the ability to Shinji, but transfered it to him.

As for why Shinji didn't started playing without Kaworu, it's a duet piece, it makes sense only being played in a duo, and Shinji is someone extremely polite(and Japanese) and probably thought that beginning to play without Kaworu would be very rude, especially since it's Kaworu's piano on the first place.

[Ah Q]

It's not like montages are some bizarre, avant garde thing that Anno concocted. They are typically used to suggest the passage of time. The simplest explanation is that Shinji gradually improved over a period of weeks, through practice, rather than virtually overnight with the help of Kaworu magic.

[ElMariachi]

^
The problem with that is that the first time they're playing doesn't have any montage, it's literally only their first session where Shinji is playing piano for the first time and goes in the span of 30 seconds from clumsily hitting the keys with one finger to flawlessly following Kaworu's rhythm. They even exchange their name in the end of the scene to make us understand without a doubt that we're the same day their first session began!

As for the subsequent sessions, yes the montage shows a passage of time, but there are hints which show us that rather than weeks, it's only a few days which passed since Shinji's arrival, the biggest one being the books Shinji brings to Rei Q : everyday he brings her various books first thing in the morning and at the evening after his daily piano session. By the moment Shinji discover the truth about the Ayanami series(which is the day before the expedition with EVA-13), the pile of books indicates a passage of a few days, a week tops.
Besides I really doubt that the Wunder stayed weeks on standby around neo-NERV's HQ waiting for Gendo to make his move.

[Blue Monday]

Abstraction ≠ montage.

[/thread]

[Chroma]

In NME he does have an hobby : astronomy

Wait, what? Since when? I don't remember that in any of the NME movies.

[Sailor Star Dust]

EDIT : I just noticed in TV Tropes(I know, I know sorry) that someone who's also a member of EGF; MAI742, mentioned that playing "Quatre Mains" is not hard, and that even playing both part yourself shouldn't be that technically demanding.

Now if there are members playing the piano, can they confirm what said user wrote : is "Quatre Mains" really such a basic piece that it's normal that Shinji manages to learn it so quickly?

Check out Ornette's explanations back here if you missed 'em: post 01 , post 02.