Looks like we’ve got a little time loop shenanigan going on here right? Well it’s time to talk about the anime version of this series. It’s pretty similar to the manga, I’d say just sped up in some ways. It has to go pretty fast to adapt everything in time. It’s a pretty solid title for most of its run….until the ending which doesn’t survive any better than the manga. It ends up keeping this one from being a good title which is definitely unfortunate. If the anime could have only diverged from the manga, this title could have been saved.

The story follows a boy named Kousei who is still dealing with a lot of trauma after his physically abusive mother passed away. He was known as a complete child prodigy pianist. He could play the piano better than any other kid using a super mechanical style where he did not add his own personality to the music. Other kids resented him while the adults thought it was really impressive. His mother taught him well but it came at the expense of her humanity and he wasn’t really able to have friends.

Kousei isn’t able to hear music anymore and is definitely not at his best but he doesn’t play competitively anymore anyway. Well one day on the way to a double date (His childhood friend Tsubaki made him attend) he bumps into his best friend Watari’s date Kaori. Kaori also plays music via the violin and she quickly declares that he will support her in the competitions by being her accompanist. He doesn’t want to help her but she isn’t the kind of girl who takes no for an answer. So he will have to really get over the trauma here or it’s all over for him.

Kousei has to go through a lot during this series. You feel bad for him all the way because it’s more than you would want any kid to have to endure. I know that being a musician comes with sacrifice but this gets ridiculous after a while. he’s basically not allowed to live an ordinary life at all. Kousei puts in the work to get better and better but it’s really always matched by a trauma to set him back once again. The hero is a bit too timid for my liking which holds him back but I’ll cut him some slack. He can also be pretty hard on Kaori in order to raise her spirits but considering that she is quite sick as well, it makes a certain degree of sense.

So he’s got his flaws and all but at the end of the day Kousei is doing his best to help out. Meanwhile Kaori is a lot of fun. She always has a ton of energy and really keeps the characters together. She gave Kousei a reason to smile again and made good friends with the whole group in general. Not an easy feat when you are jumping into an existing friendship circle. Kaori just jumps in and it all works out. She definitely has a tough time of things as well but tries not to let anybody worry about her. So she puts on a brave face and keeps on looking forward.

Then we have the rival Takeshi who is a lot of fun. He feels like he could have been the main character in another series. He’s loud and always striving to be better and better. It’s a hard road to the top but he pulled it off. He still yearns to beat Kousei one on one but by every metric he has already surpassed the guy. It’s always nice when you see someone rise to the top through hard work and dedication outside of the main character. It can actually be rather rare.

Meanwhile Emi is the other rival and her skills are also good when she has the right motivation. Kousei is really the only motivation that works on her though. If she wans to be the best then she will need to get over that at some point. Additionally, while she likes Kousei, she never really made any obvious attempts at him. As a result it feels like a doomed romance from the start since none of them are mind readers. There is no realistic way for him to know what she is thinking after all. That’s just not how it all works. She’s a fun character though and the fact that she can reach the top level at all is definitely worth praising.

Nagi may not be at their level yet but she’s another mini rival to show up. Her role in the anime definitely feels quite a bit smaller though. She wants to mess with Kousei but basically drops that as a goal almost immediately. Here she just becomes another friend almost immediately. Nothing wrong with that of course but it would have been nice to have had a longer antagonist. She did good in not letting Kousei sabotage her big moment though. While it was portrayed as a teaching moment, I’d actually say it just made Kousei look bad the whole time. If she had not kept up with him when he started playing off tempo, she would have never come back from that.

Meanwhile poor Tsubaki can’t play the piano so she doesn’t really get to mix it up with the other characters as much. We see her internal struggles as she resents music a lot but her biggest problem is not really getting involved with the others. Her friend Kashiwagi tries to spur her on to get involved but it takes a long time for any progress. Being a little nervous is natural of course but if you stay on the sidelines forever then you will never make any progress. You have to continue to move forward. Unfortunately she is in an impossible situation due to the way the show ended and I don’t see her having any hope now. Ah well, there’s nothing wrong with just staying as friends and she can still be a super valued friend all the way to the end.

While Hiroko sympathizes with Kousei’s Mom too much, she was a solid mentor. I appreciated her being there for Kousei when he needed some help. She is a really solid coach and definitely someone who knew what she was doing. The grownups in this show definitely look rather decent when it counts so I could appreciate that. if anything it would have been fun to have seen her play the piano at least once during the series. We even got to hear the mother playing a bit before she died and that character was rough. There just isn’t any excuse for the way she was hitting Kousei back in the day. The death was still tragic but the series made her as unlikable as possible. There was really no redeeming factor for her here. Kousei wouldn’t have had to deal with so much trauma if she had treated him right.

Then of course we have Kousei’s best friend Watari. Watari’s a good friend who always looks out for everyone. Where he is found lacking is in being a reliable boyfriend. He’s always chasing after all the girls which is a bad look for him. Yes, we do see that he cares about Kaori by the end so you can say it’s one of those things where he cares about all of the girls but there is nothing genuine or noble about that. He comes off as an indecisive guy who chases after every skirt. It’s why he can only be relied on as a friend and definitely nothing more. He’s good natured and fun to have around but that’s about it for him.

The animation is pretty solid. It’s very bright and colorful. The scenes all transition together very well and the movement is good. There is even one death scene near the end that the anime extends a whole lot to really show off the animation effects. In that way it looked impressive but made the scene even sadder. Because it looks like the character is trying to hang on but it’s like the person is blowing up with lots of energy leaving the body. Resistance is futile and it’s a real spectacle. Then you later on have a background that looks like something out of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It was really cinematic all the way around. So I’d say the animation does a good job of elevating the content to a grand level, even if that isn’t quite enough to raise the score itself.

As for the soundtrack, it’s more on the okay side. None of the tunes are all that memorable. The openings are okay but probably not something I would be listening to all that frequently. It all works well enough for a fairly low key title like this one but otherwise I’d still take a more fast paced rock theme or something like that. Sometimes you just have to really surprise people with something new right? At least that’s the way I see it.

While this series is part romance, there aren’t really any pairings for you to root for. First you have Tsubaki and the random guy she had a crush on. It’s evident early on that she doesn’t actually love him a ton though and the guy doesn’t stick around for long. There is Watari and Kaori but it’s clear that Watari isn’t serious about the relationship so by those standards there’s no way you could root for this. Kousei likes Kaori but of course we definitely can’t root for that since she already has a boyfriend. That would be absolutely crazy. There is Tsubaki and Kousei but he doesn’t like her in that way so of course that was a doomed romance as well. Yeah, I guess there were no romances to root for here. It does you just how chaotic and all over the place the characters were. None of them were really ready for romance. At the end of the day they are basically kids so they’ve got a ways to go.

Okay skip these next two paragraphs that will deal with the spoiler content. Unless you’ve watched the show of course in which case you are definitely free to stick around. Just think about it carefully. Okay so of course as you’ve probably guessed Kaori dies. Additionally a random cat also dies to drive home the fact that the end of the series is super serious business. Nobody is really spared from the onslaught of rage and madness. In a lot of ways I think the saddest part about Kaori dying is that it feels like the series could have easily still had a sad ending if it wanted to by having her not able to play music just yet. Keep her in the wheelchair for a while or something. Actually bumping her off during the surgery though? It’s just too cruel.

The whole series is about moving past trauma but now Kousei ends up having a whole new trauma on top of that one. That’s exactly what I got out of this at least and it’s definitely not fitting in with the tone of fighting to the end. Sometimes things don’t work out but it’s still not the message that I would have been sending the viewers. In the end Kaori confesses her feelings but you could argue that’s the worst time to do it because now that she’s dead, Kousei has no way to respond. It’s just giving him more things to agonize over. I don’t see how he will ever manage to get over this no matter how the series tries to hint that he’ll be okay.

For the most part the series is definitely nice and happy which I appreciate. The episodes go by quickly as a result and the pacing is good. While the anime does have to jump past some manga elements quickly, it’s done in a seamless way where you will only notice something is missing if you read the manga. If you just watch the anime directly then I don’t see why you would suspect a thing. That shows just how well the anime was handled here. It is also nice to hear the actual piano playing even if I don’t understand it to the dramatic extent that the characters do as they decipher each note and cry about how beautiful it is.

Overall, Your Lie in April is definitely a pretty fun show for most of its run. I appreciate the themes of moving past trauma and all, at least while the show sticks to them. Ultimately though, a story like this completely depends on the writing and other elements backing it up. If those run out then you’re not going to have a good time. The ending just doesn’t work and it crushes the usual replay value that would be here. Sad stories are the hardest to do for that reason since everybody wants a happy ending. Or if not happy, then your task becomes 10X harder. It is definitely possible to do like the DBZ Trunks OVA from a long time ago. It’s just easy to backfire as well.

Overall 4/10