Reviews

This story is basically about a boy, Arima Kousei who is rediscovering his love for the piano through the support and urging of his friends. It sounds like a nice general idea for a story, but the way it was presented in the show made it a dull experience for me. It starts off with Kousei as a piano prodigy who wins every competition, but apparently cannot 'hear' the piano anymore after his mom dies. This issue of his becomes the goal of the violinist, Kaori, to solve, despite her own issues that are only revealed more towards the end of the show. Many people liked this show, and I guess I did too. The music and art were all amazing, and the choices for the pieces performed were pretty on-point and went well with the story. My only issue, and it makes a huge difference in how much I liked the show, was the fact that Kousei couldn't 'hear' the piano/his playing. It was unrealistic, not to mention rather ridiculous. As a piano player myself who has spent more than 7 years practicing this instrument, you don't just stop hearing the sound of your playing. In the anime, it might just be he can't put feeling into his playing, or something like that, but at the same time...REALLY!? It's called PRACTICING for a reason! I just found the fact that the entire plot is based on this preposterous 'issue' quite unappealing and unrealistic. In addition, do people in Japan not go to therapists or something, since if he was so haunted by his mother's death, he really should be seeing a professional. And I know that people in anime just don't solve problems like that, but the premise of the story bothered me too much, and the ways the characters tried to drag out their problems *coughtheotherpianoplayerscough* and make it so much more 'intense' through the music was rather off putting.
Overall, I would recommend everyone to watch it. Just don't take the actual music performing part too seriously, and do keep in mind that the story moves along soooooooo slowly. But it wasn't a bad show, and I found the music very nice.