during the past few months, i have developed a benign fixation on the 2017 anime classicaloid. what is classicaloid, you are probably and rightfully asking, as it was a supremely unpopular show in japan when it aired and received even worse of an audience overseas. i am here to tell you: classicaloid is not a very good show, and thus it is one of those things that enraptures my imagination. having just published a play and feeling creatively bankrupt for most of the 2024 autumn season, exploring something derivative was… well, there’s kind of a circle of derivatives when it comes to this show.

classicaloid is about an absent father who has neglected his family and racked up insane amounts of debt in pursuit of creating artificial human life, which he decides to base on classical composers. for mysterious reasons the classical composers all have magical girl-esque powers that they use in their day to day lives, all based on historical musical compositions of the respective composer. for example, schubert has the power of “die forelle” or “the trout” which allows him to transform people into fish. tchaikovsky’s swan lake magic forces people to fall in love with one another. so on and so forth.

chopin, the central character of these pieces, is an intense shut-in obsessed with the internet who is skilled in various ambiguous forms of ‘computer business’. in episode 10, he becomes infatuated with an inanimate computerised vocal synth, which he subconsciously transforms into a sentient ai using his “grand valse brilliante” magic. this character is known as jolly, and she quickly becomes desperate for fame and attention, growing more and more terse with chopin and effectively abusing him. she threatens to leave him if he does not aid her in her mission to become a famous pop idol. in response chopin decides he is going to use his magic to live inside of a computer forever, because he is in love with jolly, in spite of her manipulative behavior. an external threat sends out a virus to wipe jolly’s memory (effectively killing her) and in a moment of remorse, she entrusts chopin with killing her before “someone else does it”. the two make up right before she dies and then chopin returns to the real world, deeply distressed. it is revealed that jolly is a warped memory of chopin’s ex-lover, george sand. the next time jolly is mentioned is about 20 episodes later, and it is completely inconsequential. she does not matter. chopin’s feelings do not matter.

midway through watching the first season with my partner i became interested in the life of fryderyk chopin, partially because the chopin in the show was the most under-utilised character in there to me, and partially because the show naturally fulfilled the edutainment property prophecy of getting someone interested in the thing the show is about. also, i quickly learned chopin spent a significant part of his life coughing up mucus every morning and being generally very sickly, which i relate to a lot. regardless, after a couple trawls on wikipedia and other online repertoires of information (most probably much, much less reliable) i decided i needed something much more direct to sink my teeth into. so naturally, i decided to read every single letter chopin write during his lifetime translated into english. i learned a lot.

next reflection.