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Your lie in April
Episodes 1-2

by Rose Bridges,

Kosei Arima is very talented, but very troubled. He was groomed by his stage-mother to be the best pianist in the land, but after she died, he was never able to play piano again—to the point of literally not being able to hear it when he put his fingers to the keys. It's hard to tell if it's due to trauma, a lack of desire, or both, but either way, his competition days are over, even if he's still recognized as "that piano prodigy" wherever he goes. That is, until he meets the gorgeous, talented and, uh, "spirited" Kaori Miyazona, a violinist with no regard for rules or scores but whose passion for music inspires Kosei—and everybody else—like no one else can. Before you can say "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", it's clear we've seen the basic blueprint of this story many times before.

However, in music as in life, the devil is in the details, which is where Your Lie in April succeeds. For starters, it's easily one of the most gorgeous anime of the season, from its watercolor opening sequence to the incredibly detailed sheet music covers that dot every stand. The score and its placement is also stellar, as would befit an anime about performing musicians. The characters may be based on familiar archetypes, but the rough edges are new enough to make them memorable. (For starters, Kaori seems a little too independent and tsundere to quite meet the "MPDG" requirements for me). The show lulls you into a false sense of security, setting up a familiar trope only to dash it—or switch it out for an opposite one. In the first episode, Kosei meets Kaori entertaining little kids with toy instruments in a dreamlike daze, and we assume she'll ask him to join her—only for her blow up at him by assuming he's a peeping tom when she spots Kosei carrying a camera. In the second episode, Kaori takes the stage after several mediocre performances at a violin competition, and we expect she'll blow away the competition. She does, but she scandalizes the judges by getting the tempos and techniques all wrong, and confuses her accompanist in the process. Therefore, Kaori only makes it to the second round because she received the "audience approval" award.

In another example, Your Lie in April sets up one of the most familiar dichotomies in fiction about music (or any performing art): that of the technician vs. the capital-A ARTISTE. The series showed hints of this in episode 1 with Kosei and Kaori's wacky meeting occurring on the heels of Kosei's tragic backstory with his achievement-obsessed mother, and the Kreutzer sonata competition in episode 2 brings it to full fruition. Classical music is usually about reproducing someone else's work, where every little detail from tempo to how much pressure your bow puts on the string is precisely notated in the score, so attempts to "do your own unique thing!" would obviously fail in a professional competition. Lie in April, to its credit, seems aware of this. One of the judges remarks about Kaori's performance, "You may as well be picking a fight with the composer!" (Considering the composer in this case is Beethoven, though, it's hard to imagine that he would argue with someone playing his sonata—even inaccurately—with so much fervor.)

In spite of all this, there are enough clichés still here to argue that Your Lie in April isn't really adding anything new to the art of classical music anime. "Why would you watch this when you could be watching Nodame Cantabile instead?" Even so, the point is that Your Lie in April is not purely a "music anime." It's primarily about romance and character relationships, with music as the garnish to make that other tired premise interesting. When it is about music, it's less about "days in the life of professional musicians" and more about the power of music to inspire, to energize, to bring sunshine back into a life that's lost it. In that case, it certainly does its job, not only for protagonist Kosei but for the audience. Heck, I went on a Beethoven sonata iTunes binge the second I finished episode 2.

At least the formula of the ARTISTE inspiring the technician (instead of competing with him) is in a somewhat different flavor than what we usually get from music shows. It's much closer to what you tend to see in the classical music world too, as I've met many Kosei-types who entered the discipline to please their parents and wound up finding a favorite style, composer or career path by connecting with their more enthusiastic classmates. So even considering Kosei's bizarre syndrome (he's selectively deaf only to the piano—and only when he's the one playing it?), Your Lie in April is a musical romance with enough of a mix between reality and fantasy to keep it both believable and emotionally resonant.

It's hardly the most original or dynamic anime this season, but it's not trying to be, and the top-notch production—full of pastel colors and gentle, minimally-orchestrated scoring—means even when the pacing lulls, it feels like a dreamlike breather rather than a bore. In a season full of bombast, violence, horror and shock treatments, Your Lie in April is a happy melody that will lull you to sleep—in a good way.

Grade: A-

Your Lie in April is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a graduate student in musicology, who has written about anime and many other topics for LGBT site Autostraddle.com and her own blog. She tweets at @composerose.


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