First thing I have to mention is it's NOT the comedy/slice of life anime. If someone says it is, then he must be your best friend (or archenemy). Anyway, it's a drama in it's finest, just covered with humoristic and "happy life" episodes. It may appear lighthearted at first, but it will strike you right there when you get too relaxed, believe me or not.
Other than that, it's still a pretty astonishing show with it's own ring to it. Here come the sections.
-Story-
It actually seems a bit trite at first - a kid with a cruelish mother, that teaches her son to play music sheets perfectly, note to note, as the composer intended. "Human metronome" they call him. Then his mother dies near the time of his perfomance, and the kid loses the ability to hear the notes because of the feelings. Then he meets a certain girl, which changes his life. At this moment you might think about the "live happy ever after" line, but, well, the reality differs in a certain way... Something to look forward to, I might say.
Other than that, the story doesn't prove to be anything special, but what can you expect from a so-called "slice-of-life" anyway? Can't ask for more.
-Character-
The characters are the main point of this show. Some say they don't receive any growth throughout the entire anime, but it's not quite true. They do, but the process is really slow. The situation changes only with Arima himself. This guy unravels fairly quickly to the point you can actually see and hear his inner walls getting crushed.
The side characters grow much more in the emotional way, which is clearly shown by all the love triangles. I had to literally draw a scheme to sort out all the relations between everyone. Didn't really pay off, though. By the way, at some point most of the feels make nearly a full 360 revolution, which make the show a bit more intense.
There are a lot of interesting lines with "rivals", who motivate you better than best friends. Those feelings were really close to me, so I enjoyed it even more.
The most tricky character in this show is actually Kaori. Everyone says she doesn't grow at all, but I actually wonder, if everyone here has watched this show till the end. Shame on you, guys.
-Art-
The graphics were pretty enjoyable. Interesting fact: all the characters were drawn with the normal lips instead of curly mouth lines too. Overall, art felt fitting: it was really lighthearted and happy when it needed to be, but also gloomy and dramatic in some moments.
-Sound-
The opening. Oh, I loved it so much. Basically, it only was enough to hook me into watching this whole series. Definetly one of the best I've ever seen. The OP songs were pretty good too.
Soundtrack was also really well-made.
Now I just have to speak about the piano and violin perfomances. Have you ever had a crash on something after watching anime? Well, it happened to me after this one. Maybe not to the maximum point, but I actually started to listen to Shopin, Vivaldi and some other composers. Ave.
-Enjoyment-
I did enjoy this title a lot. I've actually swallowed it in three evenings and was overwhelmed by feels to the point I couldn't get certain images out of my head for a lot of time.
This show can really be serious when it wants too, despite the ridicoulous humorous scenes popping randomly here and there. Overall, I would advice you to watch it, but please, don't make the same genre mistakes as I did.
