Your Lie in April Series Review

After watching and reviewing Love and Lies in Summer 2017, I felt incomplete. Not only were my expectations for this show completely ruined, but it also left me craving for more romance anime. Reading through the 10 Anime Like Love and Lies article, I watched Scum’s Wish, which I had postponed for the longest time, and Your Lie in April, which my sister had repeatedly suggested.

I can now say that my romance-anime thirst has been quenched. Your Lie in April will not provide you with the explicit sexiness that Scum’s Wish offers, but it will give you the perfect love story, and it will make you cry your eyes out.

Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Arima Kousei, the piano prodigy of his generation, is suffering from post-traumatic disorder after inseparably connecting his piano performances with the abuse he suffered from his dying mother. He hasn’t played the piano in over two years and every time he tries to do so he cannot hear himself playing. His life is about to change when he meets and falls in love with Kaori Miyazono, a young revolutionary violinist, who is unfortunately in love with his friend Watari. Kaori takes a great interest in Arima and his relationship to music and dedicates herself to restoring it to its former glory. Arima resists all of Kaori’s efforts, but her persistence and strength of character manages to break through to him. What he doesn’t know is that Kaori has a terrible secret, one that will unexpectedly change his whole life.

Plot & Story

The structure of the story is rather typical for romance-themed anime: the protagonist or main characters are infatuated with someone, but their love remains unfulfilled, probably because their loved one has feelings for someone else. At the same time, they fail to perceive that someone very close to them, like a childhood friend, is in love with them. This creates a love triangle that entangles most of the show’s characters. In our case, Arima is in love with Kaori who claims to be in love with Arima’s best friend, Watari, but is actually in love with Arima, as is his childhood friend Tsubaki.

The majority of the show’s drama takes place in the characters’ thoughts and consciences, as they use poetic metaphors to describe their feelings and process what happens around them. They are quite stereotypical – Arima is the relatable insecure high schooler, Watari is his cool womanizer friend, Kaori is overly bubbly and attractive, and Tsubaki is an awkward jock. The story mostly unravels through the eyes of Arima, and later, Tsubaki. Kaori (who is keeping a secret) and her intentions remain a bit of a mystery until the very end of the show, and Watari is just a flat-out realist (and the only one in the whole show). Other characters pop up but the show could easily work without them and be boiled down to Arima, Kaori, Tsubaki, and Watari.

The story unfolds slowly: 22 episodes take place in a year in the characters’ lives and each one really takes the time to give us a thorough insight to everyone’s backstory and allow us to empathize with them through the delicate descriptions of their thoughts and feelings. Despite being a tiny bit tiring and inevitably predictable near the end, Your Lie in April manages to build up to a magnificent and emotional ending.

Art & Music

The music of the show is, of course, commendable. The piano solos chosen (mostly Chopin, who is one of my favorite classic pianists) are a delight to listen to, and offer the story a twist that constitutes it as something more elaborate than just a romance anime. The most memorable performances are probably the opening one, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight) Third Movement, Chopin’s Etude in C minor op.10 no.12 (Revolutionary), and Arima’s final performance, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op 23.

Despite the music being the main attraction of the show, it would be a crime not to acknowledge the beautiful work done by the illustrators and animators that brought Your Lie in April’s world to life. The colors and their gradual variations are outstanding. The facial expressions and body language of the characters are sensitive and adorable, and the environments feel like they are breathing along with the characters, with wind playing the most important part in keeping them alive and vibrant.

Themes & Trivia

The most interesting way to approaching Your Lie in April in terms of themes and culture is probably the fact that it is a Japanese show about western music. Not a single Asian composer or performer is mentioned throughout the show, and all the instruments performed and discussed belong to western music traditions. It is no surprise that western music tradition is internationally known and taught, especially after its popularization to the East in the 19th century, but it certainly adds a lot of perspective to the fact that it seems to surpass in popularity local music traditions, especially around Asia. An interesting read on the history of piano in Japan is Veronica Gaspar’s History of a Cultural Conquest: The Piano in Japan.

Comments

Your Lie in April is undoubtedly a good show. It has everything a good show needs: a touching story, artistic references, beautiful art and amazing music, fragile and relatable characters with incredible depth, love, death, plot twists, adorable and heart-breaking moments… Can we really ask for more? I’m not sure. Much as I loved everything about it, there is something that was holding me back from fully enjoying it. I think it felt a bit forced, as if the person who wrote it is not really a musician, or has limited knowledge of what musicians are like as people, despite having done the necessary research. That whole ‘being motivated by playing for someone’ ordeal, the constant repetition of phrases like ‘we do this and that because we’re musicians, and that’s what musicians do’, and the fact that Arima had to go back to playing in concurs to validate himself as a musician, felt a bit off.

Don’t lie in April

Plus:

Adorable, deep characters
Beautiful animation
Good choice of music
Deeply emotional
Seto-sensei’s daughter, omg so cute I couldn’t even-

Minus:

The odd feeling that the writer is an outsider
The kitty that died (゜´Д｀゜)

Should you watch Your Lie in April? It depends on what type of anime you like. If you are looking for something focusing on pure, unconditional romance, and you want to enjoy some classical music in the background, then you are in for a treat. And even if you’re not, it’s still beautiful in so many ways, it can definitely compensate for what it might be lacking.