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SPOILERS ahead.

Oh boy I'm not sure where to begin. There are some anime where you know that the writers just expect way too much out of their characters for the ages that they are and I strongly feel this is one of them. If maybe this was a story about college aged adults I could take this more seriously, but the idea of 15yo kids understanding the full range of their emotions at 5,6 or 7,8 is just baffling to me.

That aside, even if they were older that wouldn't make the characters more likable to me. Don't get me wrong, the main protagonist is ... the most sympathetic lead I've seen in a series. My heart breaks for him when I see what he has to go through because of his life and the characters around him. I actually liken him to NGE's Shinji in some regards as his family upbringing isn't all that different. The cast around him however is very selfish, enacting their own whims and philosophies upon him without even asking whether he is okay with it.

Throughout the story they show Arima to be a highly exceptionally talented pianist due mainly in part to his mother's upbringing, and all of the characters seem to paint him in that reference. When he becomes unable to continue playing after his mother's death, some of the characters seem to begrudgingly accept it but Kaori the female MC does not. She intrudes into his life to help him overcome his trauma. I say "intrude" because toward the very end of the series it really seems that it was a selfish desire for her that he play again. She is dying, and wants to be with the person she admires doing what she fell in love with him for. Whether he genuinely wants to continue playing or not is irrelevant to her, and at no point do they show that he wants to keep playing just for himself.

Throughout the course of the series I don't really see how his trauma was overcome. He was fixated on pleasing his dying mother with excellent performances, and later on he solely played to please Kaori and be near to her because she continuously provoked him to continue. I imagine his feeling being that if he no longer played he'd have no chance to be close to her and would lose her forever to his best friend. He merely replaced one outside stimuli for another. At the end I see no reason, no personal growth, no inner motivation for him to continue playing, only that he is amazing at it. Throughout 22 episodes none of the underlying trauma is really worked out satisfactorily.

His cast of characters include the secretly in love with him childhood friend who is overly, overly violent. I know this is an anime trope, but whether for comedy or her sadistic nature, she takes it too far. I didn't find it funny and it made it hard for me to care about her or see her as anything other than a selfish character who didn't want him to play simply because it would give her less time with him.

His best friend is a decent guy. He's a lady killer, and the foil in the female MC's schemes to get closer to Arima. I feel a bit bad for him whether he felt as strongly about her as Arima did he never stood a chance with her despite her never saying such. I don't think the other characters got a letter like Arima did that explained her motivations so to him he would just feel "A girl I really liked died". I can't really say he's overly likable because of how he acts at times but he's not the least likable by a good stretch.

Arima's mother, her friend Seto and his non-existent (but actually living) father are probably my most hated. His mother brutally tortured him to become the ultimate pianist over his young life. Her friend Seto recognized his talents immediately and pleaded with her to teach him, which set him on a dark path which she later recognized. This caused her to avoid him for years after his mother died, because further interaction would either hurt him reminding him of the piano or more accurately make her feel guilty. This is an adult woman who was a 2nd mother figure who just couldn't bear to guide him in life, knowing full well he shared the same father as Ash Ketchum apparently (never around).

The two most likable characters aside from the MC were his two childhood rivals Emi and Takeshi. They always saw him as an invincible machine because he presented himself as such due to his mother's strict expectations. He never even knew that the two existed until he returned to play at 15yrs old. But the two came to know him as a person after rekindling a rivalry and treat him as such. Ironically to me the only characters that could separate him as a human being from a pianist were his two rival pianists.

All the other characters simply saw his inability to play as a trauma, forcing him to play despite his turmoil throughout the series or his own desires. "Play because you're good at it!" "Get in the robot Shinji!" At least in NGE forcing Shinji to pilot EVA 01 made sense, you're saving humanity! WHO IS CHOPIN GOING TO SAVE! HE'S BEEN DEAD FOR CENTURIES!?? This isn't properly addressed IMO, and of course now that the series is over it never will be. We aren't even sure if he continued to play piano after Kaori's death. Based on everything I would personally assume not, there was nothing but outside stimuli to force him to. Only thing that might is rekindling some memories of her.

I personally see Arima as a saint for not writing off everyone in his life forcing their own selfish whims on him at their own pleasure. Yes he probably would have never played the piano again had Kaori never interfered, but I don't see where he is now all that different from where he ended up. He fell in love, how it changed him really isn't shown in his views on life. He's just added more loneliness on top of what was already there. The fact that he got over his mother's trauma was most shocking to me: she was irredeemable yet he forgave her genuinely, and the logical steps to do that made no sense. I almost feel as if they could come out with a sequel where more people around him die and he'd just be sadder but older.

I go on about the characters and magical plot disease the female MC had, but other than that it was a well crafted show, just felt hollow. If they'd maybe refocused the motivations of the characters and the dialogue it could have been relatable not just emotional. As it is I don't see it as the masterpiece others make it out to be, but it did get me to write my first review on here which is saying something.

In short

+Sympathetic MC
+Good use of music as a plot
+Animation

-Manipulative/irresponsible characters
-Character progression for plot convenience not actual growth
-Pacing was a little off
-Comedy was wholly out of place many times