[Story]
Your Lie in April starts out as a colorful, and lighthearted anime, but all this contrasts the life of it’s main character, Arima Kousei, which is described as monotone, and dull. The lightheartedness is contradicted yet again as deeper, and much darker past is revealed as Arima falls deeply in love with Kaori. You get a large glimpse of his dismal past revealing the actual reason behind why he can’t hear his own music, but his conditions steadily improves as he ventures into his first love. Though only calling him “Friend A” Kaori slowly begins to drag him back into music, as well as showing him a new side of life that was colorful, and vivid.
I enjoyed the story as well the storytelling methods of Shigatsu. The story is told mostly through Kosei’s point of view, and the anime utilizes a unique way of narration, much of the story is told through internal monologues, and thoughts. There are several pros and cons of this method, and a pro is the fact that you can see the character’s thought processes, and the con is that too much monologues can be quite overwhelming as well as annoying at times.
[Characters]
One of the things that made this anime so great was the characters. The anime heavily centers in on the past of the characters, which proves to be an excellent way of characterization. Every single character in the anime no matter substantial or minor is given a great personality. And as far as character development goes, most of the main characters display a considerable amount of it, especially Kousei.
I really enjoyed diversity between the personalities of Kousei, and Kaori. Kaori seemed like the incarnation of freedom, a happy go lucky girl. Yet Kousei is a sheltered person, he seems to withdraw himself from others in order to protect himself. They were polar opposites of each other, yet they were also made to be together.
[Sound]
Amazing put together, the soundtrack to the anime emphasized every aspect of the anime making it so much better. I’m definitely no fan of classical music but, they were essential to the show, as to any music anime, and it turned out I really enjoyed them because the songs were part of the story. Each time Kosei performed a song it revealed to us a little bit of his past. As a person who always skips the OP and ED of an anime, I made the exception for this one since they all were so well written, and complemented the tone of the anime.
[Art & Animation]
Original, would be the word I would use to describe the type of art style in the anime. Personally I thought it was okay but it was fairly compatible with the show, it used a lot of vibrant colors which thoroughly emphasized a lighthearted mood.
[Negatives]
No show is perfect, and this show is no exception. Not really sure why people had such a big problem with the overly dramatic scenes but it’s true there were a lot of drama, especially towards the end. Personally I thought the drama made the show more realistic, but honestly do a couple of 14 year olds need that much drama.
Pacing, one thing I learned after watching this anime was that the author really likes to drag things out, and I understand that this might not be a problem for some people, but honestly, do they really need to spend a whole episode on the past of a supporting character? I really wish they would’ve made the last part of the show longer rather than adding in too much detail.
[Overall]
I really enjoyed this anime as a whole, it took a very clichéd plot, and with it’s added elements turned it into something original. And taking it’s genre’s into perspective, it really excels at each of them except the humor it could’ve been done a lot better. The jokes were poorly placed and overall just caused awkwardness. The anime is a real tearjerker it made me cry twice, and I pride myself in being a real macho person. But as far as masterpieces go, this definitely belongs in the best of the best. It’s an anime that I wished would never end, but nothing lasts forever, except true love.
