The Unexpected Is Really What Makes Jazz Fun, Isn't It? | Kids on the Slope Analysis
Jazz plays a large part in Kids on the Slope. Its in the music, the visuals, its apart of the story, its even the theme throughout the entire show.
A theme is the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a persons thoughts, or an exhibition. The theme can shape the way a story is presented, even affecting the events that happen in that story. It is the underlying motivation to drive the story where it need to go. Some themes are noticeable as they’ve become so overused to the point of being clichés and others aren’t so obvious. You may need to look over the story or rewatch the movie a few more times before really taking notice. So what is the theme for Kids on the Slope? If you pay close attention to the dialogue in the show, you will hear the line being said.
Kaoru Nishimi: “The unexpected is really what makes jazz fun, isn’t it?”
This is not only just a line spoken in the show but it is also a line that is telling the audience directly what the theme of the show is. The two noticeable words being “unexpected” and “Jazz”. Lets take a look at these words.
Unexpected is anything that is “not expected, unforeseen, and is surprising.” Any form of entertainment uses this as a way to keep the audiences attention. Whether its to make them laugh, or to flip the way they think about your story. This is why it is used so much. Most likely the most memorable moment in any movie is the “twist” or “unexpected moment” that changes the story.
Now let’s look at Jazz. The genre of jazz is characterized by improvisation, syncopation and regular or forceful rhythm. It doesn’t always follow the typical rhythm other genres follow. There is still structure but there is also that sense of spontaneous in some composition.
How do these two relate and connect to each other in Kids on the Slope? Well jazz played a big part of Kids on the Slope. It was the catalyst that got the story started and the McGuffin that moves the story forward. The line and idea that unexpected events are in common with playing jazz in the show is the running theme and reasoning for the many events that happen.
Now that we know the theme and how it relates to the show lets find out what specific events are related by the theme. There, we are going to look at just a few. Specifically following Yuriko and her relationship with Brother Jun, and accident that takes place in the series and that last following Kaoru’s life at the tale end of the show.
Yuriko is a character that is very conflicted with herself. Living a very high class life but not really getting any interest out of it. It’s no t until she meets Brother Jun when that all changes. She falls for him and even though he has his own goals in life, she wants to follow him. This leads to a very climatic moment where Brother Jun is about to leave the city for good. Yuriko meets him there and tries to run away with him. He tries to convince her not to and even she begins to doubt her decisions and listen to him. Its when her parents show up and try to stop her from leaving when things get tense. Everything builds up and the train begins to leave. Its not until the very last moment when Yuriko decides to change her life forever and run away with Brother Jun. This was unexpected because of the way this was building up to. It was starting to look like she wasn’t going to make that decision and not run away after all. The possibility that she was just going to accept that life she already has. Its unexpected as they leave the story to start a new one.
There is always that point in a story where something happens that changes everything for the characters. This is just one of those moments In episode 11, there is a moment when Sentaro decides to go give Kaoru his music. This is an important action on his part because the two character at this point in the story have had their friendship come to an end and this act on Sentaro’s part could change that. He Storms out of the basement and gets on his bike to catch up to him. One the way he makes a turn only to run into a truck causing an accident. This was a surprise, yes, but the real unexpected moment happens that day after the accident. Kaoru finds out about the accident on the next day and rushes to the hospital and talks to the family, at this point he has assumed that Sentaro has been that one injured. To his and our surprise, Sentaro wasn’t the one who was injured all that much. It was his younger sister who he brought with him. This was probably the most unexpected moment in the entire show. Unlike the others this one completely changes the story and the dynamic of all the characters. From this point forward nothing can be the same again or even go back to the way things were before. This leads to Sentaro having so much guilt that he leaves, leaving his friends and family behind.
Jazz plays a part even in the most serious moments here it was the McGuffin that lead to the tragic accident. Jazz is what brings these characters together but here it didn’t make it in time.
The last episode of the show goes in a different direction. Its years later with Kaoru much older, he has finished school and now works a career as a doctor. He has moved on with his life but still feels that something is missing. He runs into a familiar face one day and she shows him a photo of an older Sentaro. This begins a journey in locating Sentaro based on a photo he has. He travels to this location and thus begins the unexpected events, mostly involving Jazz
Getting to the location at the photo. Kaoru notices that there is a piano organ and begin to play it. This catch’s the attention of Sentaro and he joins along on the drums. They both get caught playing when they are not supposed to and run away. They run until they can’t run anymore and bump into Rikuko who happened to have just come to the same location as them. This ends in an reunion of the group that have unexpectedly been brought together again through jazz. Concluding the series on the theme it established.
All of these events relate because they all coincide with the theme of the show. Every event involves an out come that is unexpected to what the viewer and characters were expecting. It wasn’t as obvious until the end of the show but then when I look back I realized that it happens much more than you would expected.
This has been just one of the many aspects of storytelling that this show contains. Kids on the Slope is a great show that successfully intertwine its themes along with its narrative and characters developments. Through the use of unexpected events to further develop the series and push the characters forward through the one thing they have in common, jazz.
