One Last Kiss - Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Theme Song [Piano] / Hikaru Utada (Animenz Arrangement)

Well. I'm back again to upload something I've been working on for a bit. The song I decided to play is "One Last Kiss" by Hikaru Utada. It's the ending theme of the final Evangelion movie.

I still find it strange that they decided to name it "3.0 + 1.0" instead of just "4.0". Just some unnecessary math I guess...

Anyway, I haven't watched any Eva, but I really enjoy the music. The legendary "cruel angel's thesis" is a groovy song that pretty much everyone knows. I'll probably play that one sometime. "Soul's Refrain" is another solid song with a nice bass line. I'll definitely be playing that soon. "Beautiful World" is a good one as well. I like the "It's only love" lyric in the song. In fact, there is a version that is meant to play right after "One Last Kiss." I know Animenz played it in a live duet. And you can't forget the "Fly me to the moon" ending song that was derived from Frank Sinatra's classic.

Whoops, I went on another tangent. Anyway (again), "One Last Kiss" was a song I first found on Animenz's channel. The western pop-esque style piqued my interest, so I went to check out the original. Not going to lie, I was not a fan of the song. But, after some time it actually grew on me. It has a trance feel and contains lots of looping and synths. It is a nice song to chill to. In fact, I would listen to it on car rides to the gym before the sun was up or long rides in general. The notable "I love you more than you'll ever know" vocal loop. I mean if it's up your alley, I definitely encourage you to give the original a chance.

The arrangement itself is really fun once you learn it. It is definitely one of those "harder than it looks" pieces. The rhythm is tough. And the repeated looping-like right hand after the second chorus requires some stamina. And the second chorus itself was harder than I thought. It was not comfortable for my hand size when I first tried it.

This video has given me more trouble than Claire de Lune. 😅My two previous attempts earlier this year had a problem where the audio did not match the vide due to random spikes and speeding up. I finally got my software to work correctly and got this video itself. In the end, I settled for this recording. I don't think I did this arrangement justice. But it was fun to play.

Lately, I have been finding less time to upload consistently. As I want to create better quality videos, the recording process has become much more tedious. However, I can assure you that I have not stopped playing and practicing. The majority of my focus has been towards learning a piece for my last piano recital before college. Hint: it's a famous Liszt piece that is harder than anything I've played. When I do get some time, I do practice other styles and genres. I have been playing some Olivia Rodrigo and other western artists. I have been playing with "Riptide" a lot lately. It's fun to play. I also have been playing Animenz pieces for some practice.

I'm not sure what I'm going to play next tbh. I want to get something together for valentine's day, because I found a suitable jazz piece, but I'm not too experienced with jazz so we'll find out. If not, probably another Animenz.

Social media-wise. I pretty much disappeared. Sorry about that. I haven't been on discord in a hot minute, so I am not up to date with anything in the ani-piano community. Special thanks to Aki. I used your video synthesia to learn this. As far as YouTube goes, I haven't been commenting on videos lately. I really do apologize for that. Y'all are pumping out quality content. Louis, James, Bamboo, Aki, Piano VI, Andy, Yeh,Tinlo, Moody, JHShen, and the plentiful other names I can't think of right now. Oh wait, Nyan that animation with all of us was amazing. Totally made my day. Once I get the chance, I'll probably be more active on social media and discord and YouTube.

Well, I'm running out of space, so... This the end for now. If you read to the end, thank you and congratulations. You have just met your reading quota for the next decade. Thank you for watching! I do appreciate it! I'll see you next time :)