For this week’s Roast or Recommend, I will be looking at “Your Lie in April.” This is only natural since it is April now after all.
“Your Lie in April” was a 22 episode series that ran in the fall 2014 season but ran into the winter season given its length (they really missed a chance to debut this during the spring anime season that begins in April).
This anime revolves around a piano prodigy, Kosei Arima, who gave up piano after he has a mental breakdown on stage following the death of his mother. But when he meets a girl named Kaori Miyazono, his whole life changes.
The first thing that struck me in this anime was the gorgeous animation. Just looking at previews before I watched it, I was stunned by how gorgeous the animation quality was. A-1 pictures really knocked this one out of the park as the anime looked like a visual masterpiece. The style of it all was very artsy and fit the mood the anime was trying to convey. It’s definitely one of the better looking anime in that regard, especially coming from 2014.
But this anime hits it awesomely with the stories and characters. The reason I am lumping these together is that I truly think the characters actually are the story in this anime.
A lot of times in anime and other storytelling, the characters seem to just be placed in a story. Sometimes it doesn’t mesh. In this anime, the story and characters evolve alongside each other, to the point where the two seem synonymous. I feel as though this story couldn’t be told without these specific characters. It’s just not that way with many anime.
And the characters are dynamic and nuanced. They all bring their own unique quality to the table. They all have different quirks. They all face different internal and external conflicts that force them to adapt and grow to become a better person at the end. They all are forced to figure out a part of themselves by simultaneously facing both the past and the future.
And because they go through that, the story goes with that. The story reflects the characters instead of the other way around. It’s really nice.
I guess my biggest problem with this anime has to do with one or two specific plot points they tried to cram in there that had no real value and were just shoved away later on. They had tremendous build up and time attached but then were just played off, almost like there was a plan for them they had to cut out later. I don’t want to spoil those plot points, but you likely know at least one of them if you’ve seen the anime or will figure it out quickly if you go to watch it.
I know what you are thinking if you are on the fence about this: “Why would I want to watch an anime about a pianist?” and I understand that completely. To be honest, I wasn’t sure at first about it either for that reason. Most people think that stuff is boring by itself. However, while this anime has a lot of that, it’s not the main theme of the whole thing. The anime is more about characters and deep concepts than it is about the music. The music is just a catalyst of it all. The music is used as the tool to convey the messages the anime is hitting on. So I wouldn’t think of it as a piano anime. It’s much deeper than that.
This anime is super popular and was one of the top anime from 2014-15, and it still holds up even this long after. It’s still an anime that people want to go back to and one that people still consider as one of their favorites.
And there’s good reason for that. The anime hits you with every feeling in the book. There’s happiness, sadness, funny, frustration, agony, fear, embarrassment, anger and so many other feelings this anime portrays and it does it in a way that just hits you hard. They reel you in with hard emotions only to set you free again for a little bit so you can breath before they throw you right back in for more.
And the anime brings its emotional strength from all different angles and in all different ways. Every character, every situation, almost every minute of this anime leaves you feeling some sort of way. And sometimes it lingers and sometimes it leaves and moves on to another feeling. I promise that this anime makes you feel all sorts of ways every time you watch. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel angry and all kinds of other stuff. You’ll feel what the characters are feeling. It’s very powerful that way.
But it also brings with it some insanely deep concepts too. Love is explored from many different angles. Motivation is tackled hard. Planning for the future while escaping the past is a concept dug deep at the core of this series. Death and managing losing someone close is a very powerful concept explored as well. There’s many more concepts explored than that, and they are conveyed with such force that it drives the emotion even further.
Without a doubt, this is one of the best anime I have watched. While I don’t have the biggest library of anime I have watched, I can tell this one is going to be one that will stand the test of time even as I watch more and more anime series. This one will stick firmly in my head for a very long time. It leaves that imprint on people, including me.
This anime is gorgeous in just about every single way. While not perfect, it is certainly top-tier and will be for a long time. A series that can take that wide range of emotions out of a person constantly is quite something to behold. We’ll any other anime be able to match up with that? We’ll see I guess.
Score: 88/100
Roast or Recommend: Very Highly Recommend
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