Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Kousei Arima is a child prodigy known as the "Human Metronome" for playing the piano with precision and perfection. Guided by a strict mother and rigorous training, Kousei dominates every competition he enters, earning the admiration of his musical peers and praise from audiences. When his mother suddenly passes away, the subsequent trauma makes him unable to hear the sound of a piano, and he never takes the stage thereafter.

Nowadays, Kousei lives a quiet and unassuming life as a junior high school student alongside his friends Tsubaki Sawabe and Ryouta Watari. While struggling to get over his mother's death, he continues to cling to music. His monochrome life turns upside down the day he encounters the eccentric violinist Kaori Miyazono, who thrusts him back into the spotlight as her accompanist. Through a little lie, these two young musicians grow closer together as Kaori tries to fill Kousei's world with color.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Miyazono, Kaori Main

Taneda, Risa Japanese

Arima, Kousei Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Sawabe, Tsubaki Main

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Watari, Ryouta Main

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Igawa, Emi Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Seto, Koharu Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Seto, Hiroko Supporting

Sonozaki, Mie Japanese

Aiza, Nagi Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Aiza, Takeshi Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Kashiwagi, Nao Supporting

Ishigami, Shizuka Japanese

Saitou, Shunsuke Producer

Fukushima, Yuuichi Producer

Kimura, Makoto Producer

Tateishi, Kensuke Producer

Reviews

Sep 10, 2024

CaptainSalty

Recommended

A beautiful story about love, memory, identity, passion, and classical music. Animation is wonderful, and The characters and story take their time to develop. Whole episodes dedicated to one performance may sound daunting to some but I have no shame in admitting that it was perfectly paced. Seeing the goals, tribulations, inspiration, and every inner-working of a character felt very well done. But this is only part of what this anime has to offer. It has a great outlook on someone who's dealing with trauma, as well as the complicated feelings of love and inspiration. The first half of the show is damn near perfect ... in my eyes, but that's not to say the second half is awful either. The only reason I don't like the second half as much as the first half is:
1, I learned to dislike a character for being very selfish.
2, I found the change in direction to be a bit less powerful for what this story was initially about.
With that said though, Your Lie in April is a solid package for lovers of music, people with trauma, love's complications, being inspired, and so much more. A very heartfelt and sad story, this anime is a great choice to at least look into.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 5, 2023

TinoTheThortino

Mixed Feelings

This is the first time ever I need to write a review 'bout an anime.
Why? Because I feel it was good but not enough to make me say "This is a real masterpiece".
What a clichè: initially, the main theme (music) kept me away from watching Your Lie in April because it is slightly away from my main interests but I wanted to give it a try.

Let's start with the first impressions, then I'll go for the scores.
The first episode is nothing special: introduces the characters and the plot, vaguely.. the music is almost absent.
From the second episode, the "first" part of the plot actually ... starts: the main character, Arima Kousei, is going to face his biggest fear with the help of a violinist girl, in order to get back playing piano as he was used to do before his mother's death.
After about 10 episodes, the "second" (and the most annoying) part of the plot transforms the anime in a really boring teen-romance where the characters keep repeating the same things, just to extend the story as long as they can: the music doesn't even look like the main theme anymore.. but the storywriters are trying to convince you otherwise.
The unnumerable signs pointing to what was going to happen make the ending obvious but I thought that, somehow, it didn't look so bad.

Now, let's go with the scores and I'll go from the best to the worst point:

MUSIC (9): that was obvious, how can I not give this score to the music? It is surely the most important thing that kept me watching this anime, even if I'm not that into the classic genre: it just sounds so good!
And that's enough.. I don't know anything about the topic so I can't say anything else.
ANIMATIONS (8): especially when the characters are up to play an instrument, the animations looks incredibly smooth and relaxing, practically realistic and the camera angles are managed very well.
ART (8): pretty similar to 3-gatsu no Lion but more colorful. Awesome scenes and pretty-well refined details.
PLOT (6): yeah, we're starting to go deeper. As I said earlier, the plot switches from a young-pianist growth to a 3rd category soap-opera where the music is set aside, leaving room for the characters' relationship """DEVELOPMENT""" topic.
Just a boring sequence of scenes where the characters are never pleased about Arima's behaviour: sometimes they want to be ignored and the next two minutes they need attention.
It's just an unpleasant never-ending circus where no one is satisfied of his own situation and new useless characters are introduced in the plot doing the same thing and repeating the same quotes.
CHARACTERS (5): if there's something worse and more mundane than the plot, here we are.
The characters are just awful. Saving Arima and Kaori, who somehow create a nice although clichéd love-story connected to music, the secondary characters are just living stereotypes who Arima needs (maybe.. or maybe not) in order to grow both as a pianist and as a person.. nothing else.
As mentioned, they're incredibly obvious and repetitive, acting like never-changing immature teens with zero development. They're existance is only aimed to create filler dialogues and comedy (like Watari and Tsubaki) or just to create unnecessary rivalries with the main character (like Igawa and Takeshi).

ENJOYMENT (7-): I quite enjoyed Your Lie in April because it treats an uncommon thematic in a simple way: just showing it without focusing so much on the plot itself.
The story is not that original, but it is stable and connects every element so it can flow regularly.
The main reason why I hated it so much is because it lasts too long. There are so many episodes filled with unnecessary events, making the entire show extremely annoying (10 episodes would have been enough).

If you want to give it a try in order to listen to some well-made music, I totally recommend it, but don't focus too much on the story because it's not worth your time at all.

Definitely OVERRATED: playing good music is not enough to put on a good show.

OVERALL: 7

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 30, 2023

CynicalLOL

Not Recommended

Funny

I don't get the love behind this show. Your Lie In April is a romance with a neat concept. A kid who used to play piano, not wishing to anymore, suddenly finding a girl that completely changes his view on piano and life in general. However, this show is poorly executed and a lot more plain than it looks. If you're watching this show for the art and soundtrack, then you'll come back completely satisfied, as those are the two things that Your Lie In April excels at. Other than that, this show fails in almost every other way.

Story And Pacing - Your Lie ... In April has a huge pacing problem. Despite being 22 episodes, it fails to develop the characters and ideas in any way than the typical 12 episodes of a romance/slice of life anime. The times where the piano competitions begin and end take forever, sometimes an entire episode or two, of characters and situations being constantly overdramatic. I can understand the show is trying to show the fear and difficulty that comes with getting on stage, but Your Lie In April strecthes that out for an absurd amount of time. Its like in a shounen anime when a character pauses to spend an hour to explain his or her move. Its fine if you do that. Do that over and over, and it just becomes annoying. The only good part that comes from Your Lie In April is its ending, which I actually liked and found it to be quite a surprise from the typical romance anime. However, building up to that ending was a mix of boredom and frustration.

Theres another thing about this show, and that it relies heavily on comedy. However, its not funny, and never is. Your Lie In April seems to believe that all a show needs to be funny is misunderstandings and the MC, Kousei, getting beaten up constantly. I'll admit, its funny the first time, but the show does this over and over and OVER again. After a while, I could not stand it. The show always subverts itself unexpectedly, from a goofy lighthearted romance, to a depressing and sad show about depression and anxiety. The pacing is all over the place, and it causes a lot of the more emotional moments to feel far less impactful. I really don't get why the comedy is a central part of what is overall, a pretty sad show.

Art and Sound - Like I said, this is where Your Lie In April excels at. The songs are beautiful, the art is gorgeous, and in terms of art and sound, its one of the best in the industry in my opinion. If theres anything thats annoying, its that when the show tries to be "funny," the animation and quality goes from Level 10 to Level 1. Its done on purpose, but I personally hate when shows do that, and Your Lie In April always does that when its trying to be "funny." Overall, nothing really wrong with the art and sound.

Characters: Oh boy, the characters. This is by far the worst part of Your Lie In April. I have never met such unlikable characters and terrible writing in my entire life. So without further ado, lets get straight into it...

Kaori Miyazono - Meet the most annoying and terrible female character in a romance anime. I hate Kaori so much, its unbelievable. For the whole show, Kaori seems to come off as a kind, loving and sweet character. However, I personally disagree with this. Kaori is trying to help Kousei get his love back for the piano, but she does this by bullying and hurting him until he feels like doing it. How Kousei ever fell in love with Kaori is beyond me. She is a brat, and very mean to Kousei, and she even expresses this through her letter at the end of the show. I get that she wants to help Kousei, but that doesn't mean its okay to hurt and beat him when he has essentially done nothing wrong. The show tries to make this bullying seem "funny," but its not. Its rude and careless of her, and makes her seem like a spoiled child who gets angry when things don't go her way. Even though she has an "illness," and you learn this very early on in the show, that doesn't make me feel bad for her. Being sick doesn't contribute to abusing and bullying someone. She is by far one of my least favorite characters in all of anime.

Tsubaki Sawabe - I hate Kaori a lot, but Tsubaki gets on my nerves. She's a terrible character. Through most of the show, she serves as nothing but Kousei's lover, jealous of him spending time with Kaori instead of her. The show tries potraying her losing a best friend she has known for years, but its hard to like a character that yells and screams at the main character constantly. Worst part, she barely changes. Even at the end, she's still a mean and horrible character just out for Kousei. Her change of heart is poorly written and doesn't make me like her still. At the end, she's still a terrible character, existing to give Kousei a dilemna about his love for Kaori, and thats it.

Kosei Arima - The only character in this show I actually like. His struggles of being a pianist, and how he grows to love it again is a very nice story. Its to bad that he is surronded by characters that are rude, disrespectful and arrogant. Kosei is an amazing main character, surronded by awful side characters.

Other Characters - None of them are any better. Either they're like Kaori, where they are rude, abusive and mean for no reason, or like Tsubaki, who have no depth other than they have a huge amount of respect for Kousei's piano skills. None of them are interesting, and they all fall flat.

Conclusion - This is one of the worst shows I've ever seen, saved by the amazing art and sound. The characters, except Kousei, are horrible and rude from start to finish, never redeeming themselves at all. Its not funny at all, and its a slog to get through. The ending was a surprise, but I disliked Kaori so much that it meant nothing to me.

As a pianist myself, this show offends me. Its poorly written and completely unrealistic. I cannot recommend this show to anyone, unless art and music is all you care about, and you don't care at all about a good story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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