Basic information about Your Lie in April
Alternative Titles: Your Lie in April, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
Episodes: 22 episodes+OVA
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Premiered: Fall 2014
Aired: Oct 10, 2014 to Mar 20, 2015
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance, School, Shounen
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is an anime I watched years back and felt nostalgic about after writing Top 25 Best Romance Anime of All Time for Romance Lovers, so I rewatched it again. Ironically in april this year.
What’s Your Lie in April is about?
We are introduced to 14 year old fromer music child prodigy Kōsei Arima who lives a monochrome life and has lost his ability to play the piano after the death of his mother.
But all this begins to change when he meets a girl in April, female violinist Kaori Miyazono whose just a ball of fire overflowing with personality.
He becomes enchanted with her and slowly his life begins to gain colour again. She gradually begins to raise him back up and help him move foward.
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is an anime I didn’t know about till it’s release. Back then I wasn’t really involved in the anime community maybe that’s why, I researched it and found out it was about love, music, grieve and I was not interest in it then.
But when I started blogging especially aniblogging, I kept hearing so much praise about this anime from the anime community and seeing it everywhere I decided to give it a try.
Enough about remembering the past. So as I rewatched, the episodes flew by as I watched at least till I got to the last 3 episodes and I found myself trying to avoid watching them. Which is funny cause those last three episodes plot wise were the most put together, not that the previous episodes were not good but maybe because it was nearing the end more attention seems to have been paid to detail, but one thing am sure of was the last three episodes made me feel like I was losing something important that I didn’t want to let go off and that’s probably why I kept delaying watching the last three episodes.
The art style was stellar to me, it was new to me and did take some getting use to, but when you do the lush backgrounds full of detail, with rich color palettes ranging from gorgeous bright pastels to dark and moody grays to convey the emotions of our characters was amazing.
But our main characters being 14 and dealing with so much I don’t know just felt a little out of place for me. The characters were all rock-solid though and great. But I felt it would have been nice to know them more deeply.
Most time the flash backs didn’t contribute to much of what we couldn’t already suspect, so it just felt like most of the time we were going on a journey we had already been on, so there was no real awe and excitement. It’s not because this was my second watch but it seemed to lack subtly to me.
Not that this was bad but I feel Your Lie in April is a fantastic production, with engaging relatable characters and emotions oozing out of the plot but at the end doesn’t seem to take full advantage of that, to set the bar higher for itself and other anime to come.
Also the comedy had a way of not being really funny, there were sometimes it would actually put a small smile on my face but most of the time it just felt overdone and they were trying way harder than they should have been.
Miyazono Kaori & Arima Kousei both felt like the most real and relatable to me.
Kousei would break down, run away or try find coping mechanisms to handle living and with his past experiences. Kaori on the other hand who seems happy, carefree and always ready to help others, actually has her own demons that she hides and who as cute mood swings from zero to a hundred at a drop of an hat.
Which to me really humanised them and made them feel like real people with sad stories and parts of themselves, they would rather hide from everyone.
The opening, ending sequences and the music performances were great, I honestly tried my hands at playing the paino, which believe it or not turns out I am actually completely without a doubt horrible at, I have zero music creativity in me.
Summary
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your lie in April) is a beautiful story about a girl’s lie and an emotional numb boy learning to deal with the lose of a loved one.
It as a lot of ups and downs in it, and for an anime it will really feel sometimes like it has more negative qualities than any real good ones.
But I think what really makes it such a great anime is really how it subtly reminds us of all the things we take for granted in our lifes.
Like just how cruel a mistress time can be, how we should try to live everyday to the fullest and really shows how life can really be about those little moments we share with the people we love and not always about the big major moments but also the quiet and sometimes usual ones we are just so use to having, and how we all yearn to have a place in someone’s heart.
And I think Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso does that wonderfully with all it’s faults and all, it’s definitely a most watch.
