As a musician, I have to say this is the best music anime I have ever seen (which admittedly doesn't say much). More than that, however, I feel this has given me a fresh, healthy perspective on music and life and has left me a better person, which is not something I can really say of other animes.
First of all, they did the musical performances right. I can tell when people playing instruments are animated correctly, which almost never happens in other shows. With one or two very minor exceptions, this show animates the musicians and their hands perfectly. As an amateur audio engineer, I can also tell that they didn't just grab stock recordings of classical music, but that they recorded everything they needed themselves. The quality is superb and the recordings match the story perfectly. I feel like I would mostly have been able to tell what kind of mistakes the characters were making or what kind of emotion their music conveyed, even if the characters were not discussing it.
One of the key messages of this anime is that music is so much more than just playing notes. Early on, you see a few unimportant people just play the notes and it is uninspiring, but then you get to hear the difference when other people pour their heart and their passion into their music. The two key questions are "what is your motivation for playing?" and "who are you trying to reach with your music?" As a musician, it really got me thinking and choosing to be deliberate about pouring my own heart into my music in ways I hadn't before.
This was an all-around excellent anime. The animation was top notch. The characters and the story were very compelling. The messages conveyed by the story were legitimately good ones. This may very well be my all-time favorite anime.
