The best part of this anime is how it ties character growth to musical ability. You can have fantastic piano technique, but if you're temperamental, immature, or just plain boring, it will come across in your music. Kousei's character growth comes across well in his playing, and that goes for the other characters too. The show manages to make multi-episode piano competitions interesting, which is itself quite the accomplishment.
The other good part is how it depicts the characters' struggles to figure out what they want from life. Becoming a world-class musician requires immense sacrifice, and finding the motivation to pour your heart into one of Chopin's Etudes for the hundredth time is no small task for a child. The struggle to produce collides head-on with the cold reality that sometimes you're just not good enough... something that's mirrored in the athletic careers of Kousei's two friends.
The characters are well done all around. They all get to show their strong and weak sides, they have motivations and doubts, they lie and do things that they'll regret. Kousei's mentor, Seto, is refreshing when she arrives, because she brings both a mature perspective to the situation as well as a more adult set of problems.
But there are two issues.
First, this anime has no business being 22 episodes long. There is simply not 22 episodes worth of content. It matches the source material rather closely, but I would rather have seen a couple filler episodes with new content rather than have it stretched out so much. Some parts drag on a bit, and in a few parts, the events are depicted in anachronic order to pad out the time a bit.
Second, the drama is far too obvious. Did you see the ending coming? You should have. This is a very "architected" plot: everything that happens supports the plot, and the characters never get the opportunity to go off the rails.
Reviewers on this site are a bit too fond of shows that try to make you cry. This show currently sits at #14, not far below "Clannad: After Story" at #6. Yes, "Your Lie In April" is good, but it's not that good. It hits all the right notes but it never gives you any doubt about what's going to happen next. You'll enjoy the show but it will never challenge you.
