×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Your lie in April


Goto page Previous    Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
zensunni



Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Posts: 1291
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 4:12 pm Reply with quote
Paragon Flynn wrote:
Let me ask you this, random reader, under a different perspective. If there's someone who's afraid of cars because that person went into a terrible car crash, would you find it proper if I just kick said person, told him to stop being a wimp and using that trauma as an excuse and just learn how to drive? Or if, God forbids, a rape victim. If that rape victim was afraid to go on dates or staying alone with the opposite sex , I wonder if kicking said victim and scold them for being a massive wimp for blaming their trauma is a good way to fix their fear. Man, it probably is if I was a hot anime girl and I was kicking in a funny 'laugh out loud' style.

There is a huge difference between the situation in this story and the examples you are using. A person who was in a car crash doesn't have "cars" as a deep, ingrained part of their self and the trauma of rape is entirely different and also, for most people, sex isn't how they define themselves. (If it is, they most likely had problems in the first place.)

For an artist, losing the ability to create is like losing a part of oneself. Both Tsubaki and Kaori recognize that Koesei is going through the motions of life and not working to replace what he has lost. That is why getting him to confront the issue and either overcome it or fully put it behind him and move on to some new passion is a good thing. One way or the other, he will be better off.

(I realize that this is a very old comment, but I wanted to address it, since I felt that the logic behind it was flawed.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kaioshin_Sama



Joined: 05 Feb 2005
Posts: 1215
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 4:49 pm Reply with quote
Not that I'm complaining in this particular instance, but how is it that ANN reviewers always seem to manage to slip in some comment about the depiction of women in anime and male gaze at just about every opportunity that presents it. Like to me it was never on my mind that the character was being depicted in such a way because she's female so much as she's just that really passionate sort of archetype you see in a lot of shonen stories that gets really into whatever the topic activity is about.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:06 pm Reply with quote
Episode 8

Grade: A-

I am finally starting to enjoy the musical performance aspect. I disagree a bit with the reviewer in that I think that the typical romantic melodrama is necessary to better round up the series.

The performances are well crafted and can really draw the audience in, but I think they can become unbearable because of their high intensity. I want to see more typical slice of life episodes. They do not have to strictly be romantic, but I think the best place to see the characters grow is outside performance halls.

Maybe I am in the minority, but I would get very stressed out if this anime spends too much time on watching the characters being obsessed with music. A healthy dose of typical melodrama stuff can make this anime a more enjoyable and endearing experience.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:12 pm Reply with quote
Rose Bridges wrote:
Your Lie in April would be a near-perfect show if it could nail its transitions between the serious and the silly

Bravo for this observation. It escaped me but seeing it written now seems obvious.

It just didn't seem natural for hard-eyed, obsessed, tense and wound-up Takeshi to go all gooey over just a couple of congratulatory words from Kōsei. Then again, since the absence of that was all that was keeping him motivated perhaps it was justified? Eh. Rewrite!

The truly worthwhile thing is this episode sets up Kōsei's performance perfectly: we just really don't know what is going to happen next week. The story so far could have him winning first, second, any other position including not at all because he chokes and never plays a note. Personally I just can't call it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SailorTralfamadore



Joined: 25 Feb 2014
Posts: 499
Location: Keep Austin Weeb
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 8:31 pm Reply with quote
Kaioshin_Sama wrote:
Not that I'm complaining in this particular instance, but how is it that ANN reviewers always seem to manage to slip in some comment about the depiction of women in anime and male gaze at just about every opportunity that presents it. Like to me it was never on my mind that the character was being depicted in such a way because she's female so much as she's just that really passionate sort of archetype you see in a lot of shonen stories that gets really into whatever the topic activity is about.


Based on your previous posts, I'm pretty sure you're a guy. So of course you wouldn't be "looking" for that stuff (stuff about women's representation and how accurate it is) in the media you consume, and a lot of it would fly by you, because that's not your perspective and not your life experience. When it is, that's not only something you notice more but something that affects the way you engage with media. Therefore, it's only natural you'd bring it up if you were asked to write about your thoughts on it. It's the same as how people who aren't classical musicians probably aren't going to notice a lot of the weird nuances of being in that world that I can bring up because I've been there.

For some reason, sharing that extremely limited perspective over and over in these reviews is okay. I even spent an entire paragraph in this one sharing a personal story from my early music career, and that's fine. This is in spite the fact that I know that most people reading this are likely not classical musicians themselves. And yet, I have one sentence about its portrayal of women, a category that includes half the world's population, and that's too "alienating" or "inappropriate" for a general review?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 11:39 am Reply with quote
HaruhiToy wrote:

It just didn't seem natural for hard-eyed, obsessed, tense and wound-up Takeshi to go all gooey over just a couple of congratulatory words from Kōsei. Then again, since the absence of that was all that was keeping him motivated perhaps it was justified? Eh. Rewrite!


Are you familiar with the term "yaoi"? The performance, it's all about the passion...

SailorTralfamadore wrote:
For some reason, sharing that extremely limited perspective over and over in these reviews is okay. I even spent an entire paragraph in this one sharing a personal story from my early music career, and that's fine. This is in spite the fact that I know that most people reading this are likely not classical musicians themselves. And yet, I have one sentence about its portrayal of women, a category that includes half the world's population, and that's too "alienating" or "inappropriate" for a general review?


It's too extrapolated. Emi's teacher, a woman, was talking about Emi in particular as emotional roller coaster of a performer and you ran with it.

Did you take it too mean that those who play emotionally or in cycles {ah ha! Or huh?} are all women? Emi could just be manic depressive which is more an artist description than a sexual characteristic.

I take characters as individuals and not as representatives of their entire sex. Now, if Kaori, Tsubaki and Emi all had the same "emotional foibles" or portrayal type {and I've seen plenty of shows like that} then you'd have something at least.

Picture Emi's fixation with Kousei also happening while she went through puberty and what do you see? I'd have thought the flashy red dress was a dead giveaway...

"Combative"? Tsundere. It's nothing new in anime but there is a general underlying cause with it this time around, rather than just being a personality quirk. Even if she's unaware of what she wants to destroy exactly...

Also: three girls equals harem. Now we're getting somewhere.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SailorTralfamadore



Joined: 25 Feb 2014
Posts: 499
Location: Keep Austin Weeb
PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 12:19 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
I take characters as individuals and not as representatives of their entire sex.


Of course you do. It's so easy for men to say this, the same way it's so easy for white people to say they "don't see color." You don't have to deal with when people take stereotypes about your gender in fiction and use them to limit your opportunities in real life. You can go throughout life not "seeing" these things because you go through life thinking that your circumstances are the default.

Women don't have that luxury, because we're made painfully, constantly aware of how our gender impacts us throughout our lives. As are black people with race, LGBT people with sexuality, and so on. And this is reflected in how fictional characters are written, because this mentality of "men are the default, women are the deviation from the default" is entrenched in everyone from an early age. It's also going to affect the messages people take from fiction, whether they realize it or not. No one actually "doesn't see gender" (or color, or whatever), some of us just realize that better than others.

Anyway: "Women are combative creatures" is a direct quote from her teacher. How is it "extrapolating" to say it's about something that she literally says word-for-word? And how is some fan theory you just came up with about her being "manic-depressive" so much more likely? (I mean, besides the fact that that what you said about that is pretty ableist in its own way, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

You can argue that we're not meant to agree with the teacher. But acting like I got this idea out of nowhere when it's a direct quote is just strange.

Quote:
"Combative"? Tsundere. It's nothing new in anime but there is a general underlying cause with it this time around, rather than just being a personality quirk. Even if she's unaware of what she wants to destroy exactly...


"Tsundere" is its own sexist stereotype so it doesn't really work if you're trying to prove "this isn't sexist!" Anytime you try to reduce a particular "personality type" to a gender (as again, the teacher did, she connected being combative with being a woman), it's sexist. I love how often this comes up when guys are trying to tell me they understand sexism better than I do, though. "It's not sexist...because it's really [other sexist thing]!"

For the record, I'm not saying at all that you have to agree with me on this because you're a man and I'm a woman. A guy friend disagreed with me on Twitter about this yesterday and we had a good, lively discussion. But there's a way to do it, and to condescending lecture women about how you know so much more about how to "handle" this topic (while usually telling us nothing we haven't heard 100 times), is not how. And yet, this happens so often we even have a term for it!

You want to talk about "extrapolating" or "running with" something? This is one line in this review. One sentence. And it's probably the only thing I've written about gender issues in all my reviews here. And yet, you and other posters are spending multiple paragraphs angrily ranting against it, and even suggesting that ANN writers "bring up gender issues all the time" because of it. You don't think that's kind of an excessive, outsized response?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 1:19 pm Reply with quote
How could someone possibly look at this anime and conclude that it promotes girls as emotional and boys as not? Just who was it that was throwing up in the bathroom or who was it that that is presently panic-locked on the floor of the hallway? Hint: not Emi. Or girls (women) as combative and boys are not?

The one remark by Emi's mentor is not the theme of the whole story. It supports the idea that Emi was not just going to curl up and submit without a fight and that's it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SailorTralfamadore



Joined: 25 Feb 2014
Posts: 499
Location: Keep Austin Weeb
PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 4:26 pm Reply with quote
I deleted my big long post here when HaruhiToy clarified they were disagreeing with Animegomaniac, not me. Sorry about that.

My points stand--just not in response to HaruhiToy, but to others in the thread. I get a little defensive here because this keeps happening when reviews have so much as one line on sexism in media, and the arguments are the same every time. Even when I disagree with the review myself, I find it irritating watching the forum fill with the same defensive arguments that make me think people are less taking issue with a particular claim, but more the idea of sexism being discussed in them at all. But these discussions need to happen; how groups of people are characterized in media, especially groups with histories of marginalization, affects people's attitudes about them in real life. You can disagree with the specific points being made while still respecting the larger discussion and the people in it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
sunflower



Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 1080
PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 11:02 pm Reply with quote
Kaioshin_Sama wrote:
Not that I'm complaining in this particular instance, but how is it that ANN reviewers always seem to manage to slip in some comment about the depiction of women in anime and male gaze at just about every opportunity that presents it. Like to me it was never on my mind that the character was being depicted in such a way because she's female so much as she's just that really passionate sort of archetype you see in a lot of shonen stories that gets really into whatever the topic activity is about.



That's the problem-- it should be on people's minds. If people would stop to think about this whenever they create or view a female (or other stereotyped) character, they'd soon realize the stereotypes surrounding the portrayals and make an effort to avoid them. It's pointed out so everyone starts to think about it and make a concerted effort to avoid it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Hameyadea



Joined: 23 Jun 2014
Posts: 3679
PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 5:24 am Reply with quote
(About Ep. 8)
About 10 minutes in, just when Igawa Emi starts to play, the animation movements of her fingers and hand (slightly pulling back, and then fluidly places them of the piano and starts to play). That is some high-level production right there
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 6:32 pm Reply with quote
Episode 9

Grade: A

Probably the biggest strength of Your Lie in April is its ability to draw and hold the viewer captive when the characters are performing their musical craft. Not only are the performances powerful, but the thoughts and emotions that the characters go through during it are very revealing and can leave you emotionally drained.

However, this fury of thoughts and emotions can be the biggest detriment to the show. I feel uncomfortable when the anime tells the viewer that it is fine for the artist to be consumed by their craft, and that whatever happens around him/her is of little importance. I am all for passion and dedication to the things that drive you, but I am against it when this can produce monsters like Kousei's mother (yes, based on what the anime has shown us so far, she is a monster).

I have gradually come to accept that I can enjoy (and probably come to deeply appreciate) Your Lie in April if its main focus is going to be Kousei's journey of redemption from a traumatized child to a healthy young man through the power of music. But I get really uncomfortable when that same power of music can also become a detriment to someone's life.

Regardless of my mixed feelings, I still give this episode and the series in general high marks because it is a well crafted show. I just think that the series needs to be careful on how it handles and conveys its messages to the viewer.

[Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading it]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime





PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 8:33 pm Reply with quote
This show reminds me of some of the best parts of Nodame Cantabile. The way the performances are described from the performer's point of view is completely enthralling.
Back to top
king 47



Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:32 pm Reply with quote
Episode 9 is where I drop this show.

There is just so much manufactured drama and flashbacks that I can tolerate. Most it is of the stuff feels forced in this show. And pushing the same struggles over and over again doesn't make me sympathize more with the characters, but rather annoyed.
Oh well, it had promise.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:25 pm Reply with quote
king 47 wrote:
There is just so much manufactured drama and flashbacks that I can tolerate. Most it is of the stuff feels forced in this show.


To me manufactured is trying to create something when there is not enough material to begin. This is not the case with Your Lie in April because the main characters (especially Kousei and Kaori) have enough potential depth to build a compelling and well told story.

In order for this anime to become great it needs to stop delivering character drama in such a brutal fashion (like it did with episode 9). Episode 6 is a great example of how the drama can be conveyed in a more subdued way that allows the viewer to savor the story and characters.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous    Next
Page 6 of 12

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group