Kevin C. Wong

Anime - Your Lie in April (2014) [/]

Your Lie in April is a 22-episode high school light romance anime. Kōsei (Max Mittelman) is a former child prodigy pianist who lost his ability to play after his mom died. He meets Kaori (Erica Lindbeck) an aspiring violinist with passion and Kōsei falls for Kaori, but secretly because she's dating his friend Ryōta (Kyle McCarley). Or not so secret because Kōsei best friend Tsubaki (Erica Mendez) can tell, and with that knowledge Tsubaki realizes that she herself is attracted to Kōsei.

That's the romantic subplot. The main plot is that Kaori convinces Kōsei to be her accompanist in a violinist competition and later convinces him to enter a pianist competition. Her intention is to bring out the great pianist that Kōsei used to be. Meanwhile we also have episodes about Kōsei's two rivals, though Kōsei never really noticed them. Things get more dramatic once Kōsei and friends discover that Kaori is terminally ill so now Kōsei battles the memory of his dead mother (who also died of a terminal illness) and his desire to help Kaori perform one more time...

Good animation and voice acting. Great musical performances. Parts of the story are good and some episodes are good, but overall the series kind of dragged and the whole romantic/terminal illness plots just lose their impact. So at 10 or 12 episodes would have been good but at 22 episodes more like average.