Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Underwhelming and disappointing even though it showed great potential in the beginning.

Pros:
- Epic music (Chopin is guaranteed pleasure)
- Realistic and vivid art
- Interesting main character

Cons:
- Underdeveloped characters. Kousei is the only character who got fairly developed to be honest. Kaori's character was stereotypical, the main character's love interest who lacked depth. However, her "development" or should i say "exploration" came way too late which was unfortunate. Another thing about the characters was the fact that there were so many and most of them served no purpose they only distracted the viewer from the main plot.
- Unrealistic characters. We ... are talking about 14 year old kids, who weren't portrayed as so. I get that Kousei was depressed due to the loss of his mother and his struggles but as a whole the other characters were too dragged to the point of melodrama.
- Failed comedy relief. The jokes were bad and some scenes were cringe worthy.
- Unnecessary and long monologues that were also repetitive. The dialogues were also unrealistic and awkward. Also, there were same scenes over and over again that failed to be entertaining. It would be okay if the anime was shorter only it wasn't.

Overall it didn't impress me as much as I thought it would...

I started watching this after hearing it was very good. It started out okay enough--plenty of sad backstory--typical. But then it just kept /dragging on/. Every episode is half of the main character being all sad and talking all poetic about being in love but still having a tortured past. Not much even happens because the main character literally just repeats over and over how awful his life used to be and how he doesn't know how to get past it. After six episodes I saw zero character development and gave up. The art is pretty but after the first two episodes it turns into ... only a series of panoramic still shots with a voice-over talking about how awful this guys life is. I'm all for sad, angsty anime that makes me cry, but this guy was honestly just pathetic. The art is pretty, but in my own personal opinion the story, nor the characters, were very good.

EDIT: I started again, so the review might change. Keep that in mind.

=======

Now, I hardly watched 11 episodes and I thought I did not enjoy. This review will not be positive. However, take it as a "review of anime", not "review of a person who does not fucking understand from music".

**Story**
Story is, meh.... When I was in 3rd episode, I even realized the problem of Kaori (not saying for the sake of not throwing spoilers, but the attitude of that girl is already a spoiler of a few final episode). The story goes through in the painful monologue of Kousei and this makes it painful ... for us, too. Should we call authors as successful or not for sensing the pain?

**Art**
Art is very good. It has a unique style. For the sake of lips, I give 8.

**Sound**
Yeah. We know the plot is entirely on sound. Very good.

**Character**
This is not a joke: Character development in this anime is a MESS. Anime industry nowadays be like "I'll play a loser ADC and you'll play a crazy support and then we'll tell our success to everyone.". Every... single... character in this anime... is a stereotype. NOT an instance of a stereotype, THEY are the ESSENCE of stereotypes. You can simply take this shit as a cheatsheet on character development in anime if you ever happen to make one.

::Starring::
- A Loser
- An Annoying Support
- The Guy Good with Chicks
- The Girl Waiting for Confess

**Enjoyment**
It is as enjoying as walking through a brick wall.

=========

Pros: Lips, Lips Everywhere
Cons: "It's Your Punishment"

When a show has the ability to make you feel strongly about the story or one of the characters in the show then I believe that to be a really good indicator on how well a show did with the characters in it. In this show, that’s what happened to me. Each character was executed in a way that allowed anyone to be able to relate to them and also allowed you to see them develop in a manner that was unique and grounded in reality. It really made this show a truly fantastic show to watch.

This show did one thing really well and ... that’s work on character development. They worked on showing the foundation of each character and where they come from, it helps out a lot when you are trying to understand each one of their actions in the story. It made it really interesting to watch the characters grow at the end but still there are characters that are not very interesting to watch but still they did add value to the story so I cant hate them so much.

I personally did not like the main character but I did enjoy the story. That did effect how I rated the show but you might find yourself enjoying the main character more then I did. I do have mixed feelings about recommending this anime but maybe you might like it.

Although the artwork and score were beautiful (as expected from an anime focused on classical music), the characters and story pacing were mediocre at best. The show is twenty-two episodes long, but that could have easily been condensed down to sixteen.

The main star of the show should have been, in my opinion, the music and its effect on the characters, but in almost every instance the pieces played were just background noise for four-, six-, and even eight-minute monologues repeating the same thing over and over. At times, whole episodes were made up entirely of two or three of these, and I found myself ... wishing the one episode would end just so I could watch the next and maybe figure out why so many people truly adored this show.

My biggest complaint, however, would be the disorganization. The anime seemed to start out with one clear path in mind--a predictable but worthwhile trope set--but after a few episodes began to jump around without any real direction. Whole episodes were devoted to a single point of minor character development that could have been addressed in a few minutes of one episode, and major events that built up to what the viewer expected to be a pivotal confrontation or interaction simply... fizzled out in the most anticlimactic way possible, never to be addressed again.

Even the writing for the main character, who started out strong in terms of backstory, motivation, and personality, seemed weak at times. Conclusions to certain arcs in his development were aesthetically beautiful in the animation and sound, but I still have no idea how he reached some of his "revelations".

Overall, I was extremely disappointed with the anime. It's art and score were the only saving grace it had to offer, but even they were mediocre when completely washed out by poor writing and endless, boring monologues.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is an anime that didn't catch my attention at first. It has lots of positive opinions, but I thought it was probably an overrated anime (and that's definitely the truth for me). I should have trust this first impression. I have first started the series and I stopped after two episodes because of the art. But I have finally rewatched these two episodes and finished the anime, and I shouldn't have, because I didn't like it at all.

Art : 6/10
I have first dropped this series because according to me the realization was bad when Kaori plays the violin (for an ... anime about music they could have done better). The chara-design is original, backgrounds are well done, but I didn't found it as beautiful as what people were saying. There are inequalities in terms of consistency / animation that were not nice at all. It is not the worst part of this show, but I think it could have been better during some episodes, especially when you compare to the piano performances that were really well done.

Story : 5/10
The story centers on Kousei Arima, a piano prodigy who can't play anymore since his mother's death. Some scenes were moving, especially regarding Kousei when he was little. The problem is that they put several times the same flashbacks throughout the series, and it becomes heavy.
In addition, I found that the anime really insisted excessively on the characters moods, the drama. There were good ideas, but they have done too much, so I wasn't moved at all. It focuses mainly, and too much, on the relationship between Kousei and Kaori, two musicians, but those who don't evolve in their world are (sadly) neglected.

Characters : 3/10
The author should have found another way to make Kousei playing the piano again because countless times I wanted to punch Kaori because she was making him to do whatever she wanted... I also want to highlight that both of the characters have "killed" (and several times) the famous "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." I agree that some Japanese have difficulties for pronouncing English, but in an anime about music, this is not acceptable. Or they should have sung in Japanese...
The worst part of this anime, is Kaori's character, which is completely missed. She is unbearable and selfish, and people like her? Even at the end, I was not able to appreciate her. For me it is really difficult to appreciate a series when one of the main characters is annoying. But Kaori is not the only one. There is also Tsubaki. At first I liked her, but the more we advance, the more I was thinking that she was too selfish. Some people will say that having these flaws makes her more realistic, but not at all! The two girls often went in not credible monologues for people of their age, and yet they behaved in really bad ways when they beat Kousei for no reason (the boring stuff you can find in lots of shounen animes), not to mention that they were crying most of the time. I really disliked the romance. Regarding other characters, they were not well-developed (poor Watari), Aiza apart, his sister (but I didn't like her), Emi and Hiroko.

Sound : 6/10
The introduction of this characters has helped to emphasize the piano performances that were really well animated, although musically speaking I have not found it transcendent. The music has not been put forward I think. For those who know nothing about classical music that may not be bad, but for me, having already heard some of them several times in the past, it was not great. The orginal soundtrack was not extraordinary, except for "Again", and I did not like the openings and endings.

In the end, I did not like this anime. I even regret watching it. I thought that at the end there would be something, a change in all these negative points, but no. This is not the first anime of A1-Pictures that disappoints me, but I made the mistake to watch this anime until the end while it has absolutely nothing special.
Maybe this show wanted to convey the idea that even with bad things happening in someone's life, that person can still move forward, but there were too much melodrama and annoying characters.

If you are looking for an interesting anime about music, and with good characters, Shigatsu won't suit you.

After watching drama animes like this, its easy to slap on a 10/10 because it did its job and got you on a Feels trip. But looking at the big picture it wasn't anything special.

Story 6/10
It was very simple and easy to follow. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the typical slice of life with music being the theme.
Pacing was a big problem. It started off decently and I was enjoying it, but suddenly Kousei started monologuing for what seemed like an eternity. It was straight up 2-3 episodes of him repeating the same things over and over again. It got to the point where ... I stopped sympathizing with him and was just thinking 'ffs quit your whining'. This would keep occurring throughout the show even though it's been stuffed in your face enough.
The only time it ever did get really good was towards the end but that wasn't enough to redeem the whole show. The ending was decent, everything was wrapped up nicely especially the reveal of "Your lie in April", although some of Kaori's methods may be a bit questionable..

Art 8/10
Definitely different than the norm, but very well suited nonetheless. Also animations when they were playing piano/ violin were great.

Sound 10/10
Not a huge expert of classical music, but I could definitely see what they mean when emotions play a part in playing music. OST was excellent, always enhanced every scene.

Character 5/10
Nothing really special about anyone honestly, but I didn't dislike them. Quite forgettable if anything.

Enjoyment 6/10
Even if it was weak as a whole, the cathartic release at the end was still worthwhile. Anyone looking for a feels trip should definitely see it. But don't expect any sort of beautiful heart wrenching scenes/ dialogue throughout the show, only really happens at the end. Probably would've been better if this was cut down to 13 episodes.

This has to be the most mixed anime I've ever watched. Some characters and scenes are animated absolutely beautifully, others are hideous. Some storylines make you binge the show, others toss you away. It has some memorable moments, and others which are just inspirational quotes seemingly read off of a wall.

The most annoying part for me had to have been the characters. Every character was oblivious to everything going on around them, not knowing what was going on or how to respond. It made me cringe at times because their choices were just so idiotic.

I hate to say this, but I don't really think it's ... anything special. While the music was absolutely beautiful, everything else was just very meh. There's nothing really that stands out about Your Lie In April, it's just a generic anime with a slight twist.

very overhyped and overrated. story is a basic "nerdy boy doesn't realize he is a chic magnet and have single-handedly made at least 10 people (seriously) turn into musical geniuses like him when he was like 8 finds love in a bubbly amazing manic pixie dream girl." it's like straight out of a John Green book, cliche and with excessive flowery language and a whole love trapezoid. but does that mean it's not enjoyable? no, it is kind of enjoyable in a way that you wouldn't have to scream because of how bad it is, the flowery language was a bit heartwarming before it became ... really excessive and the music is very great, they captured that messy 14 year old infatuation well, but overall it's disappointing for what you would expect from this much of a hyped anime. it's also very predictable, the main story became a bore and it's very slow and the end isn't as heart wrenching as everybody makes it out to be. they even say the anime was hard to watch because it was "heartwrenching" but on the contrary, it seemed like a heartwarming light anime and they could have made the ending hit harder, make it more emotional, but no. it was like nothing. the only thing they handled well is that 14 year old infatuation love trapezoid as i said before and the character development was great and the music and its scenes was amazing but the main story sucked. they didn't even handle his backstory well, painting his mom in a good light by making Kousei "embrace" his mother instead of forgiving her as he should have, after years of abuse from her. don't even get me started on his dad being MIA (face never shown, never spoken, never there, is leaving your kid alone for a week or a month or more legal in japan)? when a parent is not in the picture, it has to be explained why and what he is doing, or at least let other characters also express their questions and surprise because otherwise it's just saying "the writers are too lazy to build the interaction of a broken family between father and son." there are much better animes than this regarding slice of life and drama and romance, not worth the watch.

although this is a great anime in so many aspects , if you are not all onto music and a long-winded story line, to prove a simple yet moving ending, although i can become emotional over an ending like this one, i didnt feel much, the story i felt could of been summed up in a 90 minute film, too many pointless characters getting a back-story when it wasnt necessary, a long explanation to why **** couldnt hear you know what.. also even though the anime was what i think is far too long, i would of loved to of seen more of the ... main characters personality out-shine the rest which i didnt see :/

People apparently either love or hate this anime. I don't feel that strongly about it. I enjoyed it enough to watch all of it, but it won't rank among my all-time favourites, and I doubt I will remember it much because it neither bowled me over nor did it teach me something interesting.

There will be spoilers, so be warned -- this is a REview to read after you've watched the show to see how others have perceived it, not a PREview to help you decided whether you want to watch it yourself.

Story: Coming of age, perseverance against obstacles, teenage romance and its ... vagaries, what does music mean to a performer. What stood out for me was the melodrama and the tear jerking. I felt manipulated, and I don't enjoy that. Kousei, the story's main character gets delivered one blow after another. Notable: the story's adult characters are absolutely worthless. Kousei's father is completely absent (considering how common this trope is in anime, I wonder how much that is a commentary on the overemphasis of work in Japan). Kousei's mother turns into a physically and emotionally abusive harpy when she becomes terminally ill. Another distasteful Japanese trope is woven throughout the anime: abuse and bullying is excusable as long as the abuser does it for your own good. Get a grip, Japan. Kousei's aunt, who is otherwise an interesting and even cool character, totally fails Kousei even after his mother's death because she feels guilty about having convinced Kousei's mother to make him into a pianist. After her death would be the time to make amends, to be there for him, to reassure him, wouldn't you think?

The romance -- oy. Ok, these are 14 year olds, so one must take that into account. The usual thing goes on with the love triangles; tomboy Tsubaki has a thing for Kousei without even realizing it, and Kousei being totally oblivious to who likes whom. But the central conceit -- the big lie in April -- makes very little sense. I warned about spoilers, yes? Last chance to back out. Kaori, when she realizes that she does not have long to live, casts off a lot of restraints on herself. She decides to eat what she wants without worrying whether it'll lose her that girlish figure (that she even worries about that at 14 is a sad commentary on an appearance-obsessed society). She plays her violin like she wants, even though that goes against the conventional prescriptions at her level. And yet she cannot conceive of how to meet a guy she fancies without pretending she likes his best friend instead? The kicker of the story is that she actually DOES meet him before that pretense and could easily leverage that into more. That makes no sense. She has decided to go all out, and yet, in an area of such importance as love, she makes a really stupid move that keeps both of them from being happy for that brief period. Kids, learn something from this -- don't dissemble; go for what you want. You might not get it, but you will definitely get some tainted ersatz if you don't even try.

The side story with Nagi, Aiza's little sister with the brother complex makes no sense, feels disconnected, and is an irrelevant distraction from the main plot. Kousei is supposed to learn something from teaching her, but I've already forgotten what that was. And what exactly was her dastardly plan? Meh. Poor Kousei, if this story continues (I kinda hope not, but I haven't read the manga); she's clearly transferred her complex onto him. So not what anybody needs.

Overall there is too much melodrama, and too much repetition. And a tsunami of beautifully depicted tears. I think just about every character who is not a stern music teacher actually cries in this show. How, pray tell, is this shounen? ;)

Art: Gorgeous. I'd hang scenes from this on my wall, bright, brilliant pastels. The animation is also competent (A1). The final dream sequence is lovely.

Sound: Beautiful. If you like classical music, there are some very nice performances here. And characters in the audience will always let you know, very ponderously, exactly what piece is being played, so you can go and acquire it later should you be so moved. First opening and ending I liked, but they won't stay with me, second left me cold. Voice acting is competent, but nobody is in the cast whom I follow in specific.

Character: Here the story falls mostly short. Kousei might seem like the best-developed, and my heart went out to him, but he is emotionally stunted and seems to live in a fog, so despite his ever-present inner monologues, he is not exactly Mr Introspection; he is extremely slow to pick up on anything. Kaori is actually the best-developed, and except for that really silly infodump via goodbye letter in the final episode, who she is becomes clear through many small actions. Tsubaki feels more like a prop -- though there are glimpses of who she is, mostly she revolves around Kousei; despite the tomboyish outside she feels like a very 1950s girl, always orienting herself towards what her secret love does. Watari is a prop as well, the self-proclaimed "player" with the roving eye who hasn't gotten to first base with anyone and gets mildly bullied by the girls with whom he goes out.

But they all have moments in which I really like them, and that's what kept me from leaving the anime halfway through. Whenever in other anime the love triangle would lead to really obnoxious overreactions, and plot development via pure stupidity, these characters actually do the kind thing. When Kousei confesses to Watari that he really likes Kaori, Watari handles it like a friend. Now, one could say that is because Watari doesn't really care about Kaori, since he kinda two-times her with Keiko, but that would be unobservant. He does care: he visits her steadfastly in the hospital when others flake out for reasons of their own, and he always cheers her up even after he knows she will probably die. He has her photo as his cellphone wallpaper. There is more to Watari than meets the eye. Tsubaki has some nasty teenage "I'll show you for not noticing me, you bastard" moments, but she's also a firm friend. Even Kousei's musical rivals Emi and Takeshi drop all the rivalry when he seems to be in obvious trouble. There is a lot of kindness between the young people in this anime (it's the adults who behave like utter heels).

tl;dr -- I kinda enjoyed it, but I won't buy it or watch it again.

Your Lie in April is a musical drama anime that told about the life of a middle schooler named Kousei Arima, who was the best child pianist that won several music competition on his childhood. But in fact, he diligently trained with piano because of his mother, who was being strict and harsh on him to play the piano, due to her fatal illness and she knows that if she died Kousei will have a hard time in life due to lack of money. But her plan backfired. When she passed away, Kousei become traumatized that he can't hear the piano tune he played, until ... he met a girl from the same middle school as him named Kaori Miyazono who might change his musical life, and so the story begins.

So I watched this because I see this anime on MAL and it looks that it's quite new as well as have a high rating (8.93 at the time I see it), and it also only has 22 episodes so I think that I might give this anime a shot, and I have a quite high expectations on it. But well as if you people can see on how I scored this anime, my expectations was betrayed.

I used to think of why I was bored watching the first few episodes of Your Lie in April until one day, I figure it out. First of all, it's the dialogue. Since the first episode, the dialogue was really boring and repetitive, they keep talking about the same (if not similar) thing over and over again to the fact that this anime make me sleepy at times. Most of the dialogues are only meant to try building Kousei as a character, while neglecting other stuffs such as the relationship of other characters, etc. Your Lie in April really spend out a lot in order to build Kousei's character, but looking retrospectively from what it accomplished in the end, the negligence of the other aspects that the character dialogue could built aside from Kousei's characterization weakens the foundations of what it tries to achieve for the audiences regarding the ending, notably Kaori's characterization and dynamics with other characters. Second, it's the pacing. Since the anime wanted to give all of it's focuses to Kousei, it's slow paced. Do I have a problem with a slow paced anime? Not if they can give an intriguing atmosphere that can keep me excited to keep watching it instead of being a total sleeping aid, and this is what Your Lie in April failed to give me. In order to make the audiences keep intrigued, this anime throws up a slapstick type of comedy, which includes slapping, breaking window, overly nosebleeds, etc. This type of comedy totally don't fit with the slow pacing and calm tone nature of Your Lie in April, and fits to a faster paced romcom such as Toradora, etc. To make it worse, they don't use another type of comedy and keep doing this type of comedy repeatedly. The overuse of single type of comedy, even if it succeeded to make you laugh during the first time you watched it, gets dried fast. By now you should've realized too that this aspects of comedy also defies psychology realism, as how I have described on my intro that Kousei is a child on his PTSD and this "comedy", should've made a PTSD person's mental state even worse, to the point that they might consider suicide. The second half focused on the drama more rather than the comedy, as well as keep making Kousei develop as a character. But honestly, despite the drama are the main genre of this anime, it isn't really that much for me too (the fact that I'm not easily get moved by drama may also took account too). Good drama should be backed up with the empathy of the audience to the events happening with the story, and what the characters are thinking about but sadly, I don't see that Your Lie in April have achieved it in a brilliant manner. But at least in overall, the second half drama was more well-executed than the first half, even though the love triangle stuff can be handled way better to give an emotional impact to the viewers.

The characters, like what I have said on the previous sections that almost every character on this anime are just there for developing Kousei Arima as a character, while they themselves don't have that much as a character. Due to this nature of characterization, Kousei will make a good character, but it also make the endings gives less feels for people who watched this (except if you can really be drawn by feelings easily.) For example, Kaori and Watari. In the beginning, Kaori had crush on Watari, but I didn't see them hang out together along that much, I even saw Kaori get along with Kousei more than I do saw her with Watari, although it's explained why later, this already give a big foreshadowing to the viewers that there's something wrong with Kaori and Watari relationship, while Watari himself also only there just to support Kousei, as he got really lack of screentime with a proper dialogue to explore his character. Another example are Kousei's rivals during his childhood, they're also the same, being there to support Kousei to play the piano again, and don't seem to have much rivalry too, nor have a characterizations other than they wanted to be the best in music like no one ever was. As for the main characters, I'd like to say that Kaori, based on family characterizations, are flawed. She have a family background, which was from a nice and kind family, but how can she become a tsundere? Tsundere by it's nature, come from a broken family or when a person have a lot people who got crushed on them and/or afraid of falling in love with one of them that it will make the others got jelly, but Kaori had none of this (but well, at least she got a family shown on the series.) Tsubaki on the other hand, also shown a bit of tsundere tendencies, maybe the writer of this story really addicted to tsunderes but who knows? And honestly as a character, Tsubaki has even less to offer than Kaori. As for me who dislikes the majority of this trope, I'd say that I don't like them both too. Another problem for me is the romance. This anime excels at the drama but don't have a complex character chemistry so that as a romance, Your Lie in April didn't stand out that much due to its lack of meaningful dialogue between the characters except when it's related to Kousei (Yes, this anime is the drama over the romance so don't the character chemistry to be on Honey & Clover caliber.) But still, Kousei is a good character at the very least (although some people might dislike Kousei's personality and call him as "dull".) I also have no character that interest me in particular but if I have to choose, I think it would be Saki Arima (Kousei's mom).

The most memorable scene of them all was when Kaori said "Elohim, Essaim, Elohim, Essaim, I implore you." This chanting of Kaori really goes to my brain due to some part of me being a chuunibyou;it gives a mystical vibe for me. And despite being a very melodramatic story (especially the second half) I didn't cry nor feel sad in the slightest. Perhaps my dislikes towards tsundere also took account for this.

The voice acting is well, for me it's mediocre at its best. It doesn't give any strong attachment to the character for me. As for the music, I really like all the classical music piece this anime have played as well as Kaori's violin piece. it's spectacular, but the other soundtrack is meh for me. I barely remember how any of the OP and ED anymore in a week. Also if you noticed the 2nd ED, doesn't it like foreshadowing what will happen in the end of this series? Might took away your dramatic moments too tbh. I'm an Asian and I really do know what "water" element is associated for in East Asian mythology. I hope this give a vague hint to you on what happpened and why do I think Kaori's intense characterizations is really trivial to Your Lie in April.

The best aspects of this anime without a doubt for me, is the visuals. It's rare nowadays seeing an anime (especially in shounen) that uses a watery coloring on the background as well as how meticulous the necessary particles the background has. The character was also drawn in mostly non-vibrant color, but yet still can show that it doesn't look dull at all, but rather refreshing, detailed, and pretty. It was great, and also one of the anime whichi the CGI images doesn't look bad at all. The animation was quite well-executed and sakuga too. I saluted this department of A-1 pictures.

Overall, I would say that Your Lie in April is a shounen series which tries to take aspects from shoujo romance, but can't leave some of its shounen aspects as well as quite underwhelming execution on directing with good production value and classical OST so that it didn't actually stand out much as a story. I might recommend this for a person who can easily be drawn by feelings and not having trouble with tsunderes as well as likes musical drama because in fact, the musical dialogue is what makes the dialogue of this anime the most rather than the actual dialogue during the first half. If you're either not easily get the melodramatic "feels", wanted an fast paced anime or actions, or maybe a connoisseur of drama genre, this series is definitely not for you.

Ah, Shigatsu wa kimi no uso. I was fairly curious to watch this, mostly because of dissonating opinions I'd heard (on the opposite sides of the scoring spectrum) and also because dramatic anime, especially when music is involved, can get hilariously insufferable in the blink of an eye. What I found was...funnily enough, highs and lows and almost nothing that was "just ok". Pardon me the clichée, but a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde-type of anime. Let's get to why.

No spoilers (there's nothing worthwhile to spoil to begin with) so feel free to peruse at no risk whatsoever.


Art: 7
I liked the looks (although the CGI was fairly ... obtrusive when utilised) and animation. It looks lovely and the midway point of the final episode, in particular, looked awesome (not that I enjoyed that moment, but we'll get to it later) and in general, I didn't really find much of anything to complain about. That isn't to say that it wowed me or left me wanting more of this anime just because of how it looked (unlike other shows). I did however find the way mouths are drawn to be rather distracting, because in several instances I had some serious doubts as to what the expressions were supposed to mean. Overall though, an expected A-1 experience, good with some highs but not stellar.

Sound:8
Nothing to complain about here. I won't presume to know whether the piano pieces were played with extreme skill or not; while I have extensive experience playing musical instruments (4 years the piano, 10 the trumpet while in a conservatory), I don't have sufficient knowledge to judge the execution. But, it has to be pointed out, that isn't the point at all; you're supposed to feel what the anime wants you to feel and this is done in the usual way: see how the general audience and the recognisable characters react and tag along, as with all music anime I've watched to this point. Other than the piano and violin pieces played by the aforementioned recognisable characters, the rest of the soundtrack was excellent (albeit a tad too ambient, at times but with this kind of show, it would have been silly to expect otherwise).
VAs were also excellent. There's not much to be said here, the protagonists are all voiced by experienced professionals who do their best with the atrocious writing that they've been given. Full points to them, the performances themselves were spotless.

Story&Character: 3, 4
I had to conjoin the story and character sections because talking about how one pissed me off to no end would inevitably lead me to mention how the other had its fault.
So, why did I disliked both story and characters?

For the story, it's a miriad of problems. I REALLY and would like to underline it once more, REALLY didn't like the way Arima's mother was treated. Specifically, her years-long psychological and physical abuse of her only son. Now, it's perfectly fine for the sake of the story that Arima's mother is an abusive shrew. The audience needs and craves conflict and said conflict is also the major push for the primary protagonist of the show. What I'm most definitely NOT ok with, is how someone who in any kind of reality would have been taken away custody of her son in the blink of an eye, is coated in such a...benevolent light. It's exceedingly creepy and it just feels deeply wrong. I understand his mother feeling impotent, vicariously living through her only son because her dreams never came true due to her illness, enraged to the point of physical and, more importantly, psychological years-long abusive on a kid aged 5 to 12. All of those are, as I said, understandable. Almost the totality of them is also heinous and disgusting. Being deathly ill doesn't give anyone the licence to be a shit human being, and the way this absolutely horrid woman is depicted is so at odds with the way she behaved. Arima, who said to her after years of abuse and her hitting him hard enough to make him bleed, "then I wish you'd just die" spends the whole sodding anime whinging and whining about oh how mean he was to his mother and how could he say that and the anime does NOTHING to contradict the thoughts of someone who was abused and had ended up accepting abuse and indeed found it normal. If this wasn't clear enough, I think it's just sickening. Depressingly, albeit not surprisingly (Japan and mental health stand next to each other much in the way that USA and gun control do), sickening. This is tantamount to someone being kidnapped and abused for years, leading to a Stockholm syndrome and the media depicting it being like "yeah but the kidnapper is human too, nothing wrong with what they did really".

Another fairly major problem with the story is its pacing, which is...really something to behold. That also ties in with a story/character major and I do mean MAJOR issue...verisimilitude or its complete lack thereof. Verisimilitude is a plausible appearance of being real and my god, do these snot-nosed kids all lack it. The first time we're introduced to them the word "junior high" is uttered which means that these kids are aged what, 14? And the writing...it's stupid. I'm sorry but a story that does its absolute best to be verisimilitudinous (yep I love that word) in most things, has these kids (males at an age in which they mostly think with their lower brains, at that, and those thoughts aren't exactly all that complex) speaking as if they were university students. When Arima gets going with one of his monotonous endless monologues, I was looking in disbelief wondering if somehow the subtitles and my ears had completely mis-aged these individuals but no...they really want us to believe that in this painstakingly realistic world, we have not one, but a score of kids (some being 12 year-old) monologuing the way a 23-year old philosophy student would. And not once, mind, but several time per episode. If this wasn't clear, this was a substantial problem for both me and my sisters, which kept insistently tugging at us, making what little immersiveness was achievable, all but non-existent.
Pacing, as previously mentioned, is also fairly bad. The tendency to repeat concepts, scenes, ideas is really felt and it makes the anime seem slower than it really should be. Add to that the fact that Arima in particular is painstakingly keen on monologuing for minutes at a time, stating what has already been stated multiple times in the same or past episodes, and sometimes I really was at the risk of losing my eyes in the back of my head with how much I was rolling them.

Characters...well then. I don't like Miyazono. Bluntly put but her character is awfully predictable, brings nothing of real interest to the table other than being the push for Arima to start playing the piano again and...that's it. She has no story other than "oooh don't you love music I'm so happy go lucky" and her ENTIRE backstory is told at the end of the last episode...which does absolutely nothing to help matters. Heck, even her backstory is predictable (possibly because she basically has the same exact one as another character's) and in the end, she serves as a rudimentary tool to further the story of everyone else and the little actual screen time she has makes it even worse. I wasn't feeling any kind of tie to this character (possibly because of how eye-rollingly obvious her foreshadowing is like, 2 episodes in) and obviously, no emotional attachment either.
Other characters I liked fine; Igawa and the Aiza, other than how hilariously unlikely is for kids to hero-worship someone their age who plays the piano (but sure...it's a story, let's assume that's real and common), serve their purpose, are likable and, if I'm honest, I would have rather known more about them than I do about Arima. The Nagi Aiza "arc", while it seemed pretty odd, rushed and fairly out of place, was satisfying, more so than most other occurrences in this anime.
Hiroko Seto is a fairly compelling character. Quite despicable at the beginning (tied to Arima's mother) but she actually learns her lesson (not that she had a lesson to learn other than "don't be a garbage human being" but still) and actively does her best to help Arima in ways that he obviously wouldn't be able to think of himself. Her daughter is there to look supah adorbs and well, she does, Koharu 10/10 would imouto-chan again.
Watari and Sawabe...Watari is fine. He has something that's actually present in plenty of kids his age (though it's treated as endearing rather than a tad creepy but that's the "good-looking" effect which is fairly common) but in general, he's not awfully stupid and that helps...and speaking of stupid, let's get to Sawabe. Sawabe is in love with Arima (no, this doesn't get to be a spoiler. After the first couple of exchanges between them in the first episode my sister was like "oh, she's in love with him then" so yeah, it's obvious enough) and she spends the whole anime moping about in the "oh I'm not really in love, no what is this thing I feel oh could it be lo...no I'm not in love, it can't be, I've been friends with him since he was a sperm, it must be something else". And when I say the whole anime, I'm not being facetious, it really takes her that long and her character overall is there for cheap "side-drama" because all semi-romantic anime need the "old female friend" trope that is ALWAYS written the same bloody way. I like her just fine, I can sympathise with her but she's so unoriginal that she could have "OLD FRIEND CLICHÉE" stamped on her forehead and I would've been able to guess *every*single*thing* she does by the end of the anime.
Props to Kashiwagi Nao, as she's the only character that is actually intelligent in the entire anime. Then again, maybe other characters are logical and intelligent too, they're not really given much of a chance to prove that but she has like less than 10 overall minutes of screen time so...I don't know, look, I didn't write this crap.

And now the main piece...Arima Kousei. Let's start with the good: I like his character and, in particular, his character growth and the way he uses music to surpass his demons. If we just forget that this stuff doesn't actually happen and he'd need goodness knows how much psychotherapy to actually fix himself (and let's do that, it's fiction, it's an anime, that's fine) I think it can safely be said that his whole arc is satisfying. His fears and problems make him relatable and sympathising with him is extremely easy, which makes it that much better when he eventually ends up conquering his fears and his musical block, even in spite of a second fairly major setback. That's about when the good part ends though...and there's a faire share of, shall we say, "less good". Some I've already mentioned (talking like literally no 14 year old ever would in real life, repeating the same things, monologuing ad nauseam) and as for others...he's that kind of guy who thinks girls don't poop and that a girl he has an infatuation for (while knowing NOTHING of her) is basically an angel. That's...fine. It's verisimilitudinous (why *this*, of all things, but fine) but god can he not shut up about it. The way he goes on and on and on about his beloved angel gets maddeningly insufferable so quickly, it's unreal. Also the way he drones on and on about his mother is unbearably boring. Yes by all means, monologue about that once...twice. But that's it, STOP repeating the same bloody thing on and on and on. Quit it, please, I beg you.

That's not all I have to say on the story and the characters (it's insulting how they use cheap shite as """allegory""" for cheap emotional hits like...wow, you really coudn't think of anything better than that, could you) but that's more than enough as it is. Pacing and too many issues with the story and main characters for my liking.

Enjoyment: 3
I didn't have a great time. I spent a ton of time rolling my eyes (and I do mean that rather literally) or commenting "yeah, I said that when I was 14 too, isn't that so natural" and guessing beforehand what would happen...constantly. Some parts were very enjoyable but it was all dragged by the killjoy pacing and monotone protagonists that...yeah, I was legitimately happy it finally ended. I would have much rather know more about Igawa, the Aiza and Kashiwagi than the "main" characters myself.

Overall: 5
I'll be honest, if art and sound were even a smidge lower, this'd be a 3 without a sliver of a doubt. Thankfully (predictably, in truth) the sound was very good and the art was about what I expect from A-1 so it was overall an average experience and a very average anime that steers dangerously towards mediocrity. If you like cheap drama and a full serving of predictability with some actually excellent musical scores and performances, you could like this. But as for me...I will have forgotten most of it within the next couple of days and I won't be missing anything special at all.

I feel like this anime is extremely overrated, simply because of what happens at the end. It was very hard for me to sit through the whole thing - and I always sit through everything, because I usually start to like something after about 10-15 episodes. Not this one.

Music:
The background music was emotional, with hints of classicalism. I didn't find it anything special, however, nor did I find any pieces extremely moving.
The OPs and EDs were average; seem appropriate for a shoujo romance drama. I enjoyed the first opening above the others, and didn't care for the second opening.

Art:
The art appears shoujo style. Individual ... hair strands are drawn, which gives it kind of a messy hair look, for everyone.
The background sometimes looked 2D. Also, sometimes the background appeared to be missing some things - sometimes telephone poles will have the tops drawn but the pole will suddenly end, as if the top of the pole is just floating in the air. The artists have odd ways of ensuring emphasis on characters - for the MC's glasses, the sides are not drawn (although I understand this is to show his eyes fully); the scene where a girl was talking to another character through a fence, her face appeared as if it was in front of the fence while the rest of her body was behind the fence.

Characters:
The female characters are extremely annoying, violent, and are quick to jump to conclusions. They're so obnoxious; how am I supposed to sympathize with them?
The main girl was not likeable at all - what kind of person bursts into someone else's life without knowing anything about him, and when he tries to explain, she says she gets it even though she knows nothing - then bosses him into doing stuff that he insists he cant do, then gets mad when he can't do it? Then she has the nerve to think she's on top of the world. One minute the MC is depressed and pours his heart out to her, and the next she just says something that isn't relevant and all, (and he eats it up and thinks she is great) and she then goes right back to abusing him.
And the secondary girl was also not likeable and unable to be sympathized with. All she does is be selfish get mad at the MC for no reason, or for reasons that are completely unrealistic - and if she's his childhood friend, why doesn't she know anything about him? She won't even admit to herself that she has feelings for him, yet gets angry if he even looks at another girl - completely distasteful. And when he finally makes a decision about his future, she selfishly doesn't feel happy for him - even though he's been stuck in the past for so long. Like what's her problem? She's so selfish.
The only characters that I ended up liking were the little girl (Koharu) and Tsubaki's friend who tries to knock sense into her.

Story:
At the end of the story, it feels like they just threw away the rival characters' stories - there was no more about them after the last plot point. What was the point of developing them, just to show how great the protagonist is? If you're not going to give them the ending, the spotlight that they deserve after all their work?

Overall, I was extremely annoyed the entire time I watched this anime, simply because of the characters. Story, art, music I found average. I personally don't see the appeal of this anime at all.

I'm not an anime review writer or whatever but something just has to be said about this anime from me, that being it is the most overrated cliche anime ever ( at least one of the most )

I quite liked the story line and the art was really gorgeous.Character development was decent and that seems to be about it for the good stuff (ofc the music was excellent).
I loved Tsubaki and what annoyed me most was Kousei's ignorance(?) about everything, Tsubaki has always been there from the start then this oh so radiant blonde chick who is amazing at violin and plays it in ... a "fuck the system way" and cries easily comes in and just...urghh... she's discreetly one of those girls who's like "I'm different from other girls" said every girl ever.
I know her past and such but she's insufferable in that way.

As for enjoyment, i really couldn't stand all those cliche lines, cliche flashbacks, cliche visions of the oh so radiant blonde violinist, it was unbearable, i almost gave the anime up but i kept going. This anime had potential to make it something perhaps on par with nodame cantabile, obviously keeping their own story line but for the love of god DROP THE CHEESINESS...but maybe the script writers tried too hard to make it one of those "deep" anime and such which ruined it.

Everywhere in the comments box on each episode on kissanime,i saw comments like "OMG IM CRYING SO MUCH" like... okay. Honestly, it had a heart wretching ending but the way the anime was portrayed from the beginning just made it into a laughing stock for me.
I feel like writing this was a waste of time as, so to speak, this is a controversial review but I felt like my opinion needed to be said as this truly is a rather overrated anime.

*SPOILERS INBOUND*
After years of mental and physical abuse, “human metronome” Kousei Arima is left with a piano that he cannot hear or play after the tragic death of his mother. Two years later, Kousei resultantly acknowledges the piano, despite the numerous rivals and friends made with it. That is not to say that he is on the road to fully breaking out of his “sullen” shell-not without help from eccentric musician Kaori Miyazono, pulls the monotone Arima into her technicolor world with the powerful medium of music.
Shigatsu no Kimi no Uso is, at its core, a story about the power of inspiration and change, ... as well as the people who bring it; it’s no surprise that with the right people in our lives they force to realize a part of ourselves that we have forgotten or repressed. It’s also a story about the power of music, which, I think, is self-explanatory. This is a basis for a very heartwarming drama as well as a very compelling romance, but the execution of this plot is very poor.
Despite of all this loquacious criticism, why do people like this anime? Well, A-1 has really pulled out all the stops; the palette proudly shows the anime’s parading optimism; Kaori doesn’t just jump into a lake, she jumps into a pool of sky looked upon by an iridescent sun, characters are constantly placed against an ever blooming and fruitful spring, shown with blushing pinks and blazing oranges. It’s a wonderful feeling to be sucked into free spirited nature of the color palette… that’s what sells people on the anime-feeling.
It’s the feeling of love, of loss, of determination, of death-all wrapped up in an incessant and beautiful spring. You watch this this anime because it is one giant feeling.

Story
It would seem that Shigatsu no Kimi no Uso is spinning a tale much more complex than one world believe. Step back and you will see that this is not the case.
You’re probably still on the last lines of my introduction, these lines where I say the anime “unspools truths”? What does that even mean? Such whimsical romantic stories give life a much more fantastical view (since love and life itself can be a magical thing), so “the world” that the anime presents will be very fantastical and magical, almost making the world seem like a fantasy. Therefore, the world that people will see will be very idealistic to keep any cynics at bay, as it unspools the fantastical look, as well as any emotional impact the story can have. In exploring and supporting those ideals, this makes the characters and story can seem a little far-fetched, and heard to empathize with. (For example, this anime goes on to prove to music is beautiful, but for Kousei, music is associated with pain and grief, why should he even acknowledge music? But I guess that’s just cynicism.)
Without acknowledging darker shades, you can’t have any light. However, with too much light there is no dark. In Shigatsu, there is no different perspective that make this show more realistic, and therefore it makes Shigatsu no Kimi no Uso very narrow minded and biased; instead of providing a little ambiguity that would challenge the viewer to understand the characters and themes better, Shigatsu just spells out what it wants you to believe, and I didn’t like or buy what they are selling.
Simply nod if you heard this story before (and you will). There’s a (young) man in the story, and he’s feeling a little down because something has affected his life either emotionally or mentally, (or even spiritually) and therefore it numbs or weakens his value of life. Until, one day, he meets the girl that will change his life. She’s witty, cute, and will show you how life is to be lived.
Of the abundancy of characters in this anime, the characters that really matter are Kousei and Kaori. Kousei is the melancholic pupil and Kaori the eccentric teacher. In romantic media, the trope most employed here is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and there more problems with the trope than you think. Of the trope reflects how people and the right moment and time, have the power to change lives. However, this also comes with many negative connotations; one waits around for the one that will change his life, or the one that enacts change is bound to come, plus, it makes it seem the way that you live is wrong, or the way that life treats is wrong, and therefore life owes you the one that will solve all your problems? You should know that life does not work that way, so if Kaori is the designated manic Pixie Dream Girl, is this what we can infer from her presence in the story? Much more about her role in the story later.
You could contradict me here in saying that Shigatsu is much more simple than that, that the story is just saying that people have the power to change and influence, nothing more, nothing less. But if you really want change to happen, there’s no point in waiting around for it to happen to you or for you, you must make it happen yourself. If you are depressed or in a mental rut, you do not need to depend on other people to fix that. Yes, you can depend on people to give you a push in the right direction, but you cannot let them drive you down the path that you want to create for yourself.

Characters
Kousei Arima is an introverted, shy, and cynical boy. He is also very awkward and dense, and these traits are played for comedy and laughs-which is precisely why I don’t like his character. He doesn’t feel real- because his nerdy and awkward personality fits well for comedy, I feel that that’s the extent of his personality on the story. Did the writers think making him a victim of abuse first and foremost shape his personality would him seem too harsh to emphasize with? The only thing that the abuse shapes is a laser guided deterrent so the number of episodes goes up.
The impact of his abuse is mental and emotional, but not three dimensional. Sure he’ll stop hearing the piano notes, his mother’s face will haunt him, he’ll get anxiety, but only when the plot allows it. In the 2nd episode, he gets a little anxious for entering Towa hall, but then he grabs Kaori’s hand, so it’s okay. And then he gets mad and Tsubaki for bringing him out because it triggers his anxiety, but it’s okay because he sits perfectly still for the performance. So you want to give the boy mental illness and then take it away next scene, or only when its convenient?
Let’s take a step back here, Kousei is 14 years old, and his mother died when he was 12. Give or take, there is a substantial number of years of abuse that really does not show in the anime, despite the two years of grieving that comes after. Given what he has experienced, Kousei should have a little more to show besides being a shy, obedient child.
For example, You don’t see any bags under his eyes, despite people trying to help him he doesn’t push people away (because victims of abuse have trust issues), he doesn’t try to isolate himself, he’s not showing signs of depression… and if you catch my drift, we don’t need to take Arima to extremely edgy and harsh level, I’m saying that Kousei’s saying that his truthful cynicism about the influence of other people, as well as the power of music could balance out Kaori’s, since she carries the whole show’s tone of optimism on her shoulders Im not saying that we Even though the piano is the number one cause of stress, he does not fight against the people to ask him to play the piano.
Victims of abuse are more than shy, awkward children. In the case of Arima, he really could have been a much more developed a much well-rounded character; he was exploited, used, and then abandoned; he could really provide a darker point of view that could balance out this shows overzealously cheery and optimistic show.
Overall, I feel that the execution of Kousei’s character is bland, just because you add a tragic backstory and make him cry in a couple scenes doesn’t mean you have a character that have a complete character, more like a plot device.
Point is, Kaori is not really a character, but a plot device. She serves as the shows message theme and ideology, aesthetically through bright colored hair, contacts, and personality. But because she’s dying from an unknown disease she automatically special; she covers up her death from her friends, therefore making the Lie in April (and now you realize that you’ve come full circle). Her character is only her death, and because she’s dying she decides to live life to the “fullest”.
I’m not a fan of this trope either. This trope is called Live like Your Dying, it supports an ideology that you should grade life by the horns and live it. This trope sounds nice, but is also very problematic; first off, because you have a terminal illness, why does this put you in charge of showing other people how to live?
Just because Kaori’s dying, why does that require her to become Kousei’s teacher on how to live 101? When ones die of a terminal illness, does one get some external enlightenment saying “Oh, no. That’s all wrong? Here’s how you actually live life!” No! That’s stupid, and could never happen!
For example, there’s an episode where Kaori says “You’re 14, you should be living life to the fullest!” and to illustrate this, she jumps off a ledge into a pool of water. I get the writers are trying to illustrate that we should take risks or leaps, but isn’t she described as frail and skinny? Wouldn’t she then die? This reminds me of a quote I read once: “The risk I took was calculated, but man, I am bad at math.” Second, why do you have to wait to die to start living? You could contract me by saying that death was the push to finally give her the courage to do the things she wanted, but all she did was put blue contacts in and include herself in waffles. Are you telling me you couldn’t do that if you didn’t have a death sentence?
Kaori is every Manic Pixie Dream Girl ever. Kaori is every main character’s mother or guardian that dies to so the audience can sympathize quicker with the main character (therefore negating the need for any further character development for the main character or their supporter).
The rest of the characters are flatter than cardboard.
Did I enjoy this? No. The characters and flat, the story is basic, and not really executed properly. Really, this anime just tells me that A-1 knows good stories, but not good execution.
If there is one great thing about the anime, it’s the OST, uploaded on YouTube for the enlightenment of your ears.

Ok, first of all, please keep in mind that this is my very first review, and that i'm not a native english speaker by any means. Hence why you might find some mistakes here and there but hopefully you won't pay attention to them. Also WARNING, YOU MIGHT FIND SOME SPOILERS TOO, as i don't know what i'm going to write exactly yet, since i'm just gonna write as i'll let the flow of my fingers guide my words.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is a pretty weird anime in so many aspects. I feel like this is the kind of anime which are really important ... to see at least once for the experience it will provide, yet in the end it won't be much more than an "okayish" experience.
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (i'll relate to the anime's name by calling it YLIA now) is a rollercoaster. It's a not-so-reliable student who can score awesome grades one day and yet falls into the mud the next day. That's what this anime is. This a both a major defect and asset at the same time. But in the end it will only prove to be disappointing.

The story, you probably all know it by now, follows the daily struggle of Kousei Arima, a piano prodigy, who has stopped playing piano since his mother passed away prior to a 2 years old recital. Since Kousei had always seen piano as a way to cure his late mother when she was still alive, he became traumatized and unable to play anymore, being unable to hear the sounds of a piano as he plays it.

Now let's stop here already and let me say this very first thing : i believe Kousei is an awesome MC. I dare even say, "almost perfect". His character is the kind that develops a lot / the most during the show, is the most consistent, the one we can relate to the most, and the one which makes the most sense while NOT being annoying in the slightest (aside his monologues, that is). He has weaknesses, which is NORMAL for a 14 years old kid. But he has a lot of (hidden) ressources and strengths as well, the whole making the character really enjoyable. Now you'll realize that i said "almost perfect", because he has that weird male MC anime trait to be bullied, beaten up, dragged into the mud, being sorry and weak almost everytime he faces another character. And i hate that kind of masochistic behavior. Sure we could find some things to blame him for besides that, but overall there's little to reproach him.

That's one of the very problem with YLIA. While the main character is indeed pretty good, the rest of the cast as a whole is meh at best. Going from the tsundere childhood friend who is obviously in love with him since the beginning, the sporty and famous guy who's a complete Don Juan, YLIA doesn't impress at any time. Even worse, it will slap you even harder, by introducing more and more characters, but instead of making them bland or horrible from the get-go, you could see how they could have become awesome characters as supporting or secondary characters. Yet, they won't, being nothing more than mere fillers in the end. Annoying characters are given (too much) screentime while characters with a lot more potential are just forgotten or avoided once their moment has passed.

Now it's about Kaori's turn to be judged. I kept her last for a very good reason : while being the main female character, she's, to put it simply, the worst character of the show. Heck, she's one of my most hated female character of all time. She constantly drags the show down, over and over, by doing - or not doing - stupid stuff which are completely (un)necessary. So where to start ? She's violent, she overreacts a lot, and is overall insane. I mean, the very beginning of the show is basically her FORCING Kousei to do something he doesn't want to do cause of his trauma, going so far as to sneak into her house to pressure him even more. And in the end, what could be described as pure insanity is just hidden by her doing a pretty face in the sunlight, helped with terrible morale lines which (usually) make no sense at all. Being pretty doesn't excuse nor allow everything you know ...

And that's where everything starts to crumble. You could say that Kaori sneaking into Kousei's house is just "for the show", or "to be funny". But that's not it. That's just an instance of 2 other major problems of this show : the "comedy" and the "story".

We could argue over what is funny and what is not. Knowing that, i believe that a lot of people would probably find some parts funny in this show. I, for one, have barely laughed at all. I usually laugh over everything and anything, but this show even failed to do that. The reason is simple : even if i admitted that the comedy was ok, nobody in their right mind would argue over how those pieces of comedy are so badly misplaced throughout the ENTIRE show. I could seriously count the number of times the comedy is not misplaced on one hand. It completely breaks the mood, the feelings you could have and you should have, because it tries to be funny - i dare even say ridiculous - when it's not supposed to be.

This also hurts the story. Trying to be overly funny even if it's not needed means that the relations or even the way the characters act with another is not serious, not honest, or at least it doesn't feel as if it is. Meaning that what could (or should ?) have been a serious story about romance is just a ridiculous comedy club of people being jerks to each others whenever they can, just to "try" to entertain the viewers. Kaori is the best example when it comes to that, as being a half "cute, sweet and gentle girl" doesn't suit at all her "violent and sadistic" part which always comes out of nowhere, but Tsubaki and in a lesser measure some other secondary characters are so inconsistent that it honestly hurts the story and its progress as a whole. Besides that, the amount of unnecessary / boring substories slows the progress even more.

Now let's breathe a bit and talk about the graphics, and the art in general. To begin with, kids in this show are ugly. I mean, really. They are barely stickman except that they have round bodies instead of sticks. A lot of scenes are also poorly animated for apparently no reason. Aside from that, i must give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. YLIA is beautiful. Be it the 2 openings / endings, most of the important scenes, and especially recital parts, YLIA is outstanding by its pastel-like colors and the amount of details given. You could almost feel that from a graphic perspective, the characters were real : they sweat, they blush really realistically, and it really adds to the immersion.

I have little to say about the music. Outside of recitals / competitions, the music is nothing too big. I don't even know if there was some music sometimes, because if there was, it was probably not loud enough, or just not memorable overall. Recitals however will you give your amount of Chopin and any other kind of historical music, so it will only be a matter of personal preference when it comes to the representations. For me, it was a big + to the anime.

I will probably stop here, and it's a shame, because there is so much to say about this anime. I've already written quite a lot, yet it doesn't feel satisfaying enough. Surely a lot of people will think that i hate the show. But it's not quite right. It's just dissapointing :
Because it could have been one of the very best animes of all time
Because it was lost between "let's do romance, no ... comedy, no ... music, no... let's be serious after all" and has no real identity and does nothing good in the end
Because not having a clear identity, and instead of putting the show as a "dramatic and romantic seinen" or a complete "humoristic shonen", it hurts the whole piece with tons of inconsistencies, be it in the story or even the characters
Because it HAD the potential to do EVERYTHING good but so much things were so poorly done on so many levels that it has a bitter taste in the end, when it should just have been a wonderful dream

So in the end, is YLIA a bad anime ? No, it's not
Is it an awesome anime ? Nop once again
Does it have flaws and could have been perfectible ? Yes, definitely
Is it completely overrated ranking wise on MAL ? Yes, i PERSONALLY feel like it totally is
But should you avoid it at all costs ? No, as i said at the very beginning, i actually encourage EVERYONE to watch it at least once, because if there are a lot of flaws i just can't ignore, some people might be able to.
Honestly, i couldn't sleep last night because i was truly shattered about how the show went, and how hard it was to really describe how i felt it. But in the end and for my part, i think i'll just slowly and sadly forget the mere shadow of what could have been one of the very best anime ever.

Thank you for reading :)

This deserves even less of a grade story wise, as the writing felt really bad. Pacing was awful and a metric fuckton of flashbacks didn't help the pacing either. This might have worked a lot better in 12 episode format, if not 6 episode format... I mean since it's not actually progressing the plot 80% of the time. But it did have some memorable and amazingly executed musical performances. Just watch first 4 episodes to see those, and experience the fun introductory parts before the pacing starts going downhill. You can take episode 4 ending as your own cannon ending and that's that, nothing more ... to see here, move along. That is, if you're cynical to the point where bad direction coupled with bad writing (melodrama), renders you unable to really enjoy a show.

Surprisingly enough, most people enjoy it nevertheless. I'd personally ascribe this to amazing art, amazing music, and... Kaori being a lovely character? And I guess some scenes were rather good, not all of them sucked. For me the biggest culprit was pacing and going off on tangents that didn't seem to progress plot in any meaningful way. I'm absolutely appalled romance like this one gets rank #13 MAL rating, while Golden Time, actual mature well written well paced romance thousand times better, with actual romantic progression and development, unlike this one, gets shunned to rank #640.

I guess one could argue this is actually about music conveying emotions, not so much about romance. And I'd almost agree, if most people didn't exalt it for its emotional impact based off of romance. People have problems with Tada Banri? Arima Kousei is infinitely more dense, it's simply enraging how dense he is.

Although I did enjoy watching this anime, I believe that it's incredibly overrated. This anime is very enjoyable to watch, yet at the same time has many flaws that make it not as good as it could've been.

The story is about a boy named Kousei, a pianist that used to win very competition, until something happens. When he was 11 years old his mother died. He then just stops playing the piano due to the trauma caused by his abusive mother. He then meets Kaori, a character who makes a huge impact on his life and encourages him to start playing the piano again. She ... then asks him to be her accompanist.

Now here's my problem: This anime had no idea what the fuck it wanted to be. Sometimes it was trying to be a romance. Sometimes it just tries to just be an anime about classical music. Other times it tries to be comedy, and this just doesn't work. To be honest, it was a terrible idea to try and combine all three of them, because it clearly didn't work here. Sometimes this anime would make you feel sad, but next second you see childish comedy that comes out of nowhere and vice versa. This brings me to my next point

The unfunny comedy really killed off my enjoyment of this anime. Times where the girls would just beat the shit out of Kousei and moments like that. I find that to be unnecessary and it just ruins the vibe. As I said before, this anime tries to include stupid comedy during "depressing" moments. It really lessens the quality and my enjoyment a lot. If only this anime was more mature then I would've enjoyed a lot more. Sadly this isn't the case here.

I will say that the romance between Kousei and Kaori was pretty decent. Any moment with Tsubaki though was just terrible for me though. This brings me to my next point.

Some characters in this show get too much backstory/screentime yet they have no significant impact on the plot. Tsubaki is the perfect example of this. Her entire "romance" with Kousei and jealousy has nothing to do with the story. At least the romance between Kousei and Kaori was significant. They're both musicians so Kousei can understand Kaori more than Tsubaki. And this jealousy thing was just a little bit too cliche for me. I came into this anime thinking it was just about classical music and sad moments. I didn't come here to watch this childish ass romance and jealousy bullshit.

Another example of a character that got her own arc when she shouldn't have: Nagi. What was the point in introducing this character? I honestly don't know why she's even a character. She just comes out of nowhere and becomes a student of Kousei just to play at a festival. After that she's completely irrelevant. I think she had a bit too much screen time for the nonexistant impact she had on the plot.

And holy shit Emi and Takeshi are easily the most annoying characters in this show. Their obsession with Kousei is clearly abnormal, and I just felt like punching my screen everytime I saw that shit.

When it comes to characters in general, there aren't many good ones. Kaori was the typical and cliche female character you see in a lot of slice of life anime. Watari was easily the worst character in the entire show. One dimensional, and cliche. Those are the two words that describe most of the characters in this show. I will admit that this show does a good job of making its characters likeable. Even then, when it comes to actual quality writing they aren't very good characters.

The best written character was Kousei obviously, and also my favorite character. Unlike many of the other characters, he actually got great character development.

Another problem I have with this show is the flashbacks. There's a lot of flashbacks showing Kousei/Tsubaki as kids, and they get annoying real fast. A lot of them didn't really have anything to do with what was currently going on in the story. They just didn't do anything...? As I was watching this I was always asking myself: what does this flashback have to do with anything? I'm specifically talking about the flashbacks with Kousei and Tsubaki. Some of them were relevant, but some of them were also completely irrelevant and served no purpose.

When it comes to pacing, thats one of the biggest problems of this anime. The pacing is just too slow...I feel like the show is also repetitive. I was getting annoyed by Kousei whenever he just stopped playing his piano. It got annoying real fast. That was only for the first half of the show though. The second part of the show got really repetitive as well. First Kousei practices piano, then contemplates on whether or not he should visit Kaori or not. The plot structure is very formulaic, specifically the second season.

The music and animation are obviously top notch. It would be weird to not have good animation or music for a god damn music anime. I feel like the soundtracks for this anime were overshadowed by the piano playing though. I never really noticed the background tracks to be honest. This anime has two great openings that are easily in my top 10 favorite openings of all time. The art was absolutely amazing though. The art is unique and far different compared to most other modern anime nowadays. I'd give the art a 10/10.

Even though it looks like I'm shitting on this anime, I still enjoyed it a lot. There's just many things that I would've done differently if I was writing it. Firstly, it should've been more mature. All that childish comedy and shit can go away, or at least have a limited amount of comedy. Secondly, I would just get rid of Nagi and Watari. Actually I would just get rid of any character that gets too much screen time even though they're underdeveloped and don't have a significant impact on the plot. Lastly, I would fix the pacing. If those three were better then this anime would've been a 9/10 at the very least. Unfortunately they had to make this anime childish to appeal to a younger audience...


Story/Plot: 6/10
Characters: 510
Art: 10/10
Music: 10/10
Animation: 8/10

Overal: 6/10

My views on Your Lie in April are conflicted.

On one hand, it's a beautiful looking - but more importantly, beautiful sounding - anime. There are some parts that give me chills, tears, the works.

On the other, there are some parts, mainly in the 2nd half of this show, that take me out of the experience, and make me care significantly less about the parts that are supposed to have the biggest impact.

Honestly, if they removed a couple scenes, they probably could've ended it at Episode 13, and I would've been perfectly content. I know, they gotta follow the manga or whatever, but it all just ... felt so drawn out, and kind of pointless to the overarching narrative, in the 2nd half. The last few episodes are still good, but they'd better be, considering it almost felt chore-like to watch the episodes before.

Fortunately, the show is saved somewhat by the music. The performances all provide some astounding classical music, and those scenes are all easily the best the show has to offer. Despite how little I cared for the events leading up to the final couple episodes, the music ultimately brought me back in. Which says a lot, considering I have no connection to the piano or classical music in general.

Your Lie In April, up to episode 13, is a fantastic anime about dealing with loss.
I just wish they didn't forget that for the rest of it.