"Welp. That was depressing beyond all belief, guess I should watch something fun and light-hearted instead". Cue 2 hours later - "Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, comedy, school, music. I listen to classical, I like comedy, lets do this".
Cue 2 days later -
F**********************************ck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
You lulled me into a false sense of peace by giving me a beautiful, colorful and impulsive world with incredible characters and then you just go ahead and make it depressing by adding love triangles, trauma, separation, misery and more! WHY?! Can't I just be happy for once?!?
I suppose it was foolish of me to expect the color pallet to stick around, soon, regardless of what they drew, what color they made it. It was all grey to me.
Story -
The start of Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is probably not something you would expect from such a highly rated anime, in fact, it was kind of boring, there were so many unnecessary cliches that didn't need to be dragged in, like the rivals, who's stories don't conclude by the way. If it were me, I would have cut this down to 13-15 episodes, even if it meant cutting a few bits out of the manga.
With that said, the latter half of the story (around about after the first solo competition) is when it picks up in all departments. The school life is involving and doesn't get in the way of the music's story line, the writers give you just about the right amount of hope and enthusiasm to keep the ending somewhat unpredictable and Kousei starts to pick up the slack and actually becomes more interesting as a character. I knocked off points for the first few episodes being a drag but, as I will mention in a second, they do have some significance.
Art -
This is one of the few situations where I will give more points to art and sound than story and review them independently. The Art is amazing in this show, every scene or moment is illustrated in the perfect way to provide that extra context that I love so much. Interestingly, this anime has a variety of artistic styles, one for comedy scenes, one for serious scenes, one for flashbacks, one for 'those kinds of moments' (where you stop breathing to check if you heard that right). My favorite has to be the water color illustrations that pop up during 'those kinds of moments', you'll know why if you watch it.
Another thing to mention is that the color pallet changes throughout the episodes. This is also tied in to the seasons but it does such a good job of conveying emotion. Without saying too much, the color pallet not only represents the seasons, but a certain character, bright and colorful at the start, pale and grey at the end.
Sound -
With my Sherlock skills, I will deduce that a music anime with sh*t music would make for a pretty sh*t music anime all together wouldn't it?
The music in this show is amazing, it sticks to that classical theme regardless of whether there is a performance or not and does its job of pushing the emotional aspects of this anime that one bit higher. I won't lie, I don't really know enough about piano to understand the emotion that was apparently being conveyed through the performances, but that's probably why they had characters bring it up. One thing I can say though is that the music that was played perfectly mirrored the personality of the person who was playing it. Good job.
Character -
The characters in this show are very cliche, that's not to say that they are bad, just that they aren't the most unique people I've ever seen in a school life anime... Which may be bad... because I've only seen 3.
However my score doesn't just go to who they are; their relationships, their chemistry and their interactions are more than enough to earn them a score of 9. There isn't a single moment (once it gets going) where I'm not on my toes because of what someone might say or do. I'm invested in these people, they're funny, cute, challenging and more, that's all you can really ask from a good story.
Enjoyment -
Although I didn't perform on a stage or start drowning in an ocean I did used to play the piano. I stopped for a number of reasons but this anime has seriously got me considering picking it up again. Its been so long that I will probably butcher three blind mice if I played it but oh well; The sense of elegance and the mentality that is conveyed by the pianists in this story is probably my minds best argument for me to start again and if you can make someone like ME want to do something besides sit at my computer and play games or watch anime then you definitely 'reached me', as the pianists would say.
Conclusion -
Many people rate this highly because of the high they get from the ending. I am often very prone to this which is why I wait a while so that I can properly look back on what I watched and therefor review it as best I can. 9 may seem like a score that is somewhat hypocritical after what I just said but I honestly think that a story like this is worth so much more than its ending and I honestly hope that you can appreciate it as much I did, along with my utter recommendation.
