Your Lie in April ~ Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

What a bittersweet 22 episodes! This was one of the most touching and wonderful animes I have ever seen. Each of the four main characters: Kousei Arima, Kaori Miyazono, Tsubaki Sawabe, and Ryouta Watari were portrayed with such caring love, but so were all the minor characters too.

For anyone who has not watched it, it is definitely a MUST watch. It was beautiful music (both violin and piano), it has laughs, heartbreak, friendship, memories and so much more. It's a whole ship of feels and it is quite realistic (a delicious slice of life... no pie, but there are desserts included). The animation's art-style is also breathtakingly beautiful and full of color. The opening and ending were stunning and enjoyable. There is also great foreshadowing, some interesting metaphors, and one wonderful ending (the finale of final episodes) that wraps everything up in the form of a letter!

A 10/10 show!

The following contains major spoilers!!!

  

 

Your Lie in April, as the title, was also very clever because in the last episode Kaori's letter to Kousei said, "I only told one lie that day we met and it was that 'Kaori Miyazono likes Ryouta Watari' but that lie has brought me closer to you." I'm gushing with feels!

She is so full of life!

Now of the four characters, Watari's feelings are probably the least exercised, HOWEVER, it is evident that a lot of emotions and thoughts go through him, so in no way is his character two dimensional in complexity. Indeed, it is what isn't showed that will give more meaning to what is showed.  Watari is no fool but he does keep his feelings in check more then others (one great example of that is when his team loses their soccer tournament game and he comforts his teammates. He puts on a smile and cheers everyone up. Then alone, he goes into the bathroom stall and cries full of sadness and anger for letting his team down. He has taken the task of shouldering both his team and his friends.).

Wise words from Watari.

  

And then we have Tsubaki, who has been in love with Kousei since childhood. Her feelings are complex in that she doesn't want to admit to herself what these feelings are. She is in denial through at least the first half of the anime, where she even dates the former baseball captain (who is in love with her). However they both come to realize that she could never love him as the only one that circulates constantly through her thoughts is Kousei.

She is thinking about Kousei

She starts crying and says she is sorry

The captain takes it with a good nature and asks her if they can break up

He thanks her for being his girlfriend

And then there are a lot of flashbacks to Kousei's life from Tsubaki's perspective because she was always been there for him, always next to him.

Who is she trying to fool... she can't even fool herself

Especially because every time he smiles at her, her heart feels like it will burst out of her ribcage!

Just joking around with her normally

The FEELS and the butterflies fluttering!

But with the addition of Kaori, a wall has been built around Kousei that Tsubaki is hesitant to cross, that she is afraid to cross through because of his apparent feelings towards Kaori. 

What can she say to him to comfort him?

She realizes that her time with him will not remain like this forever, that they can't be together like they were in their childhood, especially when he tells her about his plans for high school:

Flashback-time!

She runs away from him... away from her feelings

but it does matter...

unrequited love ~(T^T)~

 And then there is this scene:

Ugh, Kousei is completely clueless in her feelings for him.

How soul-shattering! She finally realized her love for him though!

So she gets mad, a natural reaction for her

she has said that to him before and yet, everytime...

Deja vu!

Kousei is talking here

still Kousei talking, btw

As a side note, but not really because there are so many flashbacks as Tsubaki is wafting through her feelings:

aww, the whole feet comparison and realization thing for Tsubaki is so cute

  

Tsubaki's realization:

unfortunately no...

Oh snap it's a bit of a love triangle though but even if you don't like love triangles for their cliche-ness (like myself) this love triangle is bittersweet all the way through out.... hmm, however it doesn't come full circle until the last episode so it really needs to watched to be fully appreciated. Again, a major spoiler!!! 

Lets go (yay, a confusing chain): Tsubaki has always loved Kousei but played it off like she loved him as her brother. Kousei needed Tsubaki to be there for him through his tough childhood and really opened up to her. Watari is there for both of them and he acts as a middle-man for all their relationships. Kaori supposedly likes Watari and they enjoy their time together. Watari really starts to care for Kaori but he can see that Kaori doesn't actually like him and likes Kousei, also he sees immediately that Kousei likes Kaori. He just doesn't say anything because he is waiting for them to come out with it themselves and plays the middle-man well, though he grows closer to them. Watari also sees Tsubaki's feelings for Kousei and tries to support her too. Kousei realizes that for the first time in his life he is experiencing love but he feels like he is only "Friend A" to Kaori and thinks Kaori only has eyes for Watari. However, in the finale, Kaori makes it clear that she has loved Kousei since the first time she saw him as age five and that she was always trying to become close to him but couldn't see any room for herself in the friendship between Kousei, Watari, and Tsubaki. Now Kousei knows that his love wasn't one-sided, but he can never be with Kaori because she has died. Watari is seen to be having relationship trouble with his girlfriend. Tsubaki finally makes her feelings known to Kousei and is more active in her love. Thus Kousei has realized that Tsubaki loved him all this time and throughout everything he has experience, he has finally matured. Kaori also reveals that the reason why she is a violinist was because she wanted to play along side with Kousei, which is why she switched over from the piano at 5yo.     

AND then there is the relationship between Kousei and his mother. It is so painful because Kousei ends up losing both his mother and then Kaori, which is all interconnected with the music he plays. How? Well, his mother loved music and Kousei, so it made her so happy to see Kousei start to play her favorite piano music. However his mother then got sick with a terminal disease, so her life was slipping through her fingers. She couldn't play her beloved piano anymore and became obsessed with Kousei caring her will on. Kousei on the other hand started to play the piano believing that it would cure his mother and she would get better. He played perfectly because if he wasn't playing well, it would put him mother in distress and she condition would get worse. Kousei finally had enough and wished for him mother to die and that he wouldn't play and afterwards she did die. So when he was playing in the final round of the competition, he subconsciously closed himself off from his playing and couldn't hear his piano music any more. This made him stop playing altogether until Kaori came into his life. She made him look up into the light and pursue music again. She was actually very frail though and also didn't have long to life. When Kousei realizes that Kaori is also close to death, he thinks that it is his music that is taking them away from him. Ironically that is how Tsubaki feels as music seems to be taking Kousei away from her. Anyway, Kaori makes him struggle and keep playing the piano, helping him embrace both if problems with his mother and then with her own illness. Kousei on the other hand makes Kaori keep struggling to live and not give up. They all help each other move forward through life!

his mother's favorite song

a happy memory of his mother

he can finally let go

how beautiful!

 

 Also, there are so many cute moments between Kousei and Kaori:

....and then come the many jabbing feels!

Wait, it's not all sadness of course, there is great humor too!

she's spinning

Saying "I'm a jackass" with a straight face and it is so touching

There is humor and there is the recurring image/motif of black cats!

Then there is there are several touching final exchanges between Kousei and Kaori:

.... but she left him

But it causes him to grow up:

Kaori says this

~I met a girl under full-bloomed cherry blossoms and my fate begun to change

How Great! It really grew on me and I loved how it explored such real themes, like our mortality, the feelings of love, loss, and the connections made with other people; the words said and the words left unsaid. It was quite beautiful and I recommend it to everyone (both girls and guys, old and young) so it is such a great story!


My final opinions on the characters (they are very opinionated):

Well with the foreshadowing the the fact it was called "Your lie in April" I excepted that the lie would be something like she only had a month to live and then she died afterwards, leaving Kousei after the month. So I was pleasantly surprised when the lie was actually pertaining to her love of Kousei. That she was actually with the gang for about half a year because she died in the winter. Then it was a great play on the title because after the winter, spring came and he finally read her letter in the spring, which made it a whole year from the time he had first met her. Of course it was interesting to find out that she had known him since she was five. Thus I did early on that she must have seen his performance because she was always so adamant about him playing the piano.

Then I'm really happy Tsubaki and Kousei can be together, not necessarily because they are childhood friends and then precisely because they are childhood friends. I think that Tsubaki understands Kousei best in a sense because she has seen him grow all her life, however she doesn't know how to express it to him in words. Kaori could because the two of them were connected through music though. Then again, it was only because of Kaori's terminal illness that she grew to realize the fullness of life. Thus I think Tsubaki will get there eventually too, afterall they are all in middle school.

Watari is like the third wheel and in a way I totally empathize with him. He is going down a hard road because he has taken a large burden on himself in a more supporting role, but this role has also distanced him from everyone else (I mean come on, they even call him Watari more often, as opposed to Ryouta). Anyway I really hope he takes some of the burden off himself and shares it with someone else.

I'm happy it ended like that because it gives so much possibility for all the characters, both major and minor to grow. You could even say that it set the stage for them. It is quite the uplifting bittersweet ending it needed!    
 

Thanks for reading :)