Story - 9/10
The story centres around a genius pianist, Kousei Arima, problem is he becomes tonedeath. He was traumatize by the death of his teacher, who is his mother, as he felt it was his fault that she died. Because of this he starts to live a boring depressing life, which is until he met Kaori Miyazono, who is the opposite of him and lives life to the fullest. Now because of how inspired he becomes after seeing Kaori perform and live life to the fullest, he tries his best to get back on his feet and make his life like Kaori.
It really is a coming of age story. It deals with the theme of how your depression affects those around you. Kousei only grows as he starts interacting with more people around him, whether their his closest friends, adults and even his rivals. They really throw a lot of different characters at Kousei to help him gain the confidence he once had when he was young, because they all in the end want to see Kousei play the piano again, like he used to.
I think each story line was well placed into the development and growing up of Kousei. Each scenario he is put, teaches him something different about how to enjoy life, rather than it just being one character he interacts with. Yes, some parts of the story does drag on, but it felt like everything made sense into his development.
Characters - 8/10
Because there was so much emphasis put on the development of Kousei, I felt some other characters lost some of their spotlight. No I don’t think they were underdeveloped, but rather not as likeable as I would’ve hoped.
Let’s start with main protagonist here, Kousei Arima, an incredible pianist, who cannot hear the sounds of the notes he plays anymore. Hence he stops playing, but later starts to play again. Because of his mother’s abuse to him as child, he becomes a loner, only believing in perfection, and hides himself from the rest of the world and sees music can only be played through perfection, hence why he doesn’t play anymore, as he believes his mistakes will have his mother haunting him again. After seeing Kaori and wanting to be much like her, he starts opening up to the world and starts interacting with people more and starts becoming less oblivious to the people around him.
Kaori Miyazono is the driving force behind Kousei, she is his inspiration. Kaori is a free spirit violinist, who is actually considered very horrible and disgraceful to a technical standpoint for not following the sheet of music. However she is an amazing violinist, because of her ability to create music exceeds far beyond the other competitors. She is really independent, unpredictable and short tempered, but then she is the happy go lucky girl. It is explained later on why she acts this way, but not going to spoil anything. She pretty much comes out the opposite of Kousei as she really enjoys her life and tries to make the most of it compared, to Kousei who lives his life like under a rock. And she is the person who he wants to become.
Kousei’s closest childhood friends are Tsubaki Sawabe and Ryota Watari. Now Watari is somewhat of a playboy, a lot of girls are attracted to him and he enjoys the attention, but despite that, he doesn’t want to commit to anything and blatantly states it’s obvious he has no intentions with them. He is given the role of a big brother type for Kousei, as he surprisingly says the corrects things at the right time. Sadly he isn’t developed that much, despite being with the main characters in the artwork.
Tsubaki is Kousei’s main childhood friend, and she serves as a sister type to him. Despite having a crush on him, triangle alert. She is rather selfish as she really only wants Kousei for herself, but at the same time, doesn’t want to see him suffer, she is an emotional wreck. Throughout the series you can’t really see what she wants, and becomes that sort of annoying character, which is not a good thing. She has always been more a sporty type and kind of hates music for taking Kousei away from her.
The other characters are well introduced well develop in the series, to give Kousei that push he needs. Because of the other musicians in the show, you get to see quite a variety of music being played to complement their characteristics as well. Kousei’s rivals are interesting characters and I reckon more likeable than the main cast. The series did a really good job with its supporting cast, and each one of them fitted to the storyline very well.
Animation - 10/10
Being animated by A-1 Pictures, you can probably tell this is going to be well animated series. And by god it is. There is so much detail put into each character, their expressions, their body movements and especially their eyes. But that being said, how come every child character is given very little detailed, there are literally bodies with a blog dot on their faces.
Another noticeable graphic change is when a joke is being put out. There are times in the series where the animation just seems normal, but then a joke out of nowhere comes out and the animations either over exaggerates the joke or makes the characters look very silly. And it does well in series to change your attitude for a short second, because they happen really quick and it’s back to normal.
The parts where the animation really shine is the piano playing or instrumental playing. It is beautifully animated, each piano key is timed very well when the player presses the note. It also shows this magical world the player gets into when they are playing music, which itself can be true. It is beautifully lit, so it really emphasizes and focuses around the player. But another thing that really adds to the animation value of the playing is the sound. Oh my god, I literally thought I was in an auditorium whenever they started playing. There is an echo feel to the soundtrack and it sounds perfect as if you were in a classical concert.
Enjoyment - 9/10
Watching Your Lie in April was really refreshing to me, I haven’t watched a slower pace anime in a long time and I really enjoyed it. I loved the animation and music being played, I think you’re going to like this anime if you love classical music. The jokes do a have tendency to really break the dramas here and there, but the fact that they happen so fast, if you were to sneeze you might miss it, and because they happen so fast, it disappears from head quick, which I really like for an emotional anime. Remember when I said Akame ga Kill didn’t time its humour very well, in this Your Lie in April, it happened so fast, that after laughing, you were still in an emotional state. I would say the characters are interesting, but I don’t think there was really a character that I can really say I liked. I really liked the opening of the Anime, especially their first opening by Goose House. The endings are much more slower pace and more emotional though.
Verdict - 9/10
With that all said and done, I can safely say I loved this anime. I thought it was well animated and directed. The story didn’t drag too much, and there is a definite ending. I’m going to be a nit-picky on some of the monologues as I believe some of them do drag. The characters were interesting enough to keep the storyline fresh, but there wasn’t a really strong likeable character, because Kousei stole a lot of the light. Which is why I’m giving Your Lie in April an amazing score of 9/10. If a beautiful work of art to watch, with a very intriguing story and interesting characters as well.
