Nevertheless, you should watch this show. It will motivate you, explore the pains of love and loss, and show the importance of using the time you have to influence other people.
Anyway, onto the review. A simple summary is that the show delivers an average story in a masterful way. The dialog is the true star of this show, it often reads like poetry evoking genuine happiness and concern for the characters.
Story 7/10
The core of the story is used throughout anime in many sorts of genres. An apathetic main character who is struggling with a dreadful past is pulled from his despair by his seemingly polar opposite.
For this anime, the vessel for plot progression is classical music competitions. It doesn't really matter whether music interests you. Just like in many sporting anime, you watch to see whether characters can overcome their internal struggles to do well in these competitions. Sometimes you wonder whether they'll even turn up at all.
Characters 7/10
You watch this show for the characters. Specifically Kousei and Kaori. And you genuinely care about these characters, the show makes you care. You hope and think "please play", "please succeed", "please fight". And when they cry your heart sinks, and when they succeed your heart jumps. It's as if they were real people that really connected to your life.
Kousei especially is one of the best developed, three dimensional characters I've seen in anime. Which is why it's so surprising when most of the other characters are so poorly made. They all exist for a single reason, as if the writer said "I need someone to look up to the main character" or "I need a mother figure" and then drew the character model and moved on to designing another character. The worst example of this is Watari, who doesn't change at all, existing for the sole purpose of being Kaori's boyfriend.
If the author had limited the number of characters and fleshed them out to a similar extent as Kousei and Kaori, I would rate the characters 10/10. Heck, this show would get 10/10.
Execution (dialog, art, sound, etc.) 10/10
The true star of this anime, and the reason for its success. As mentioned before, the dialog reads like poetry, using imagery to sculpt the beauty of Kaori's outlook of life into our minds. It is often the trigger for sorrow or happiness within the viewer.
Additionally, sound is used brilliantly to reinforce emotions by exploring character backgrounds at the same time as they perform common classical pieces. It is a true credit to the author/director that the show was able to link the desired emotions of stories to that of the music.
The art is used splendidly to convey the ideas of "colour" in music. It should be fairly easy for you to judge the overall quality of the art yourself.
The only real issue I had with the execution was the dragonball Z style flashes of character's faces whenever something significant changed in the song. Usually this was okay because the characters would have a meaningful comment to make, but sometimes they would just flash five faces one at a time with each of them saying "wow".
Overall 8/10
The show did good. I cried lots. But there are clear shortcomings within this anime which seperate it make it fall short of the true masterpieces within anime.
