Take A Pick Tuesday: You're Lie In April

 Take A Pick Tuesday : You’re Lie In April

 

Can Music Transcend Words? Can Love Transcend All?

 

This might sound strange but watching “Your Lie In April” makes me feel as though it’s daytime even when I’m watching it during the night. Not to downplay the night scenes that naturally are plentiful, it’s only to describe the beauty of the show, it’s beautiful in every sense of the word, the coloring plays into the brightness and makes it shine yet it never feels too in your face, like it’s trying, no it is a natural beauty that flows through the entire show. Music which plays a major part in the show going hand in hand with love seem destined to be the center piece when everything around it is held together so well.

 

       It begins with a chance meeting when Kosei who is asked to tag along as his friend is supposed to meet a girl interested in him, when he gets there alone at first he finds a girl playing with children. The music as she plays is like a spring awakening for him and though he might not know it yet it would be what would connect the two characters, in music and in a unspoken love as they face the trials and tribulations of their past and the things that loom in the future, could their bond through music and the feeling for each other truly give them the strength to face everything that is front of them.

     From the cherry blossoms, a warm pink that rustles with a flair, jumping on to the characters as well as the mood, to the showcase of how Kaori Miyazono plays the violin, the character herself the focus of the main character Kosei Arima is beautiful ,to the point where you might find someone watching it with you or yourself commenting on her beauty, it’s only heightened when they show her playing, even drenched with sweat they do well to show the passion the characters have, by no one’s other tune but their own, especially Kaori and especially in Kosei's eyes, which show that everything about her manages to pierce the character’s long standing armor. They go through lengths to show how a violinist would play on stage, the sound of music matches well with the way she plays, it again shows how well the series is animated, the whole thing is beautiful but they know how to make the individual aspects shine. Once that is accomplished they know how to make them a part of something even bigger. It seems destiny that Kosei would play the piano besides her, she has that raw love for music the way it had always lived inside him and would be brought out.

     You feel it, the main character feels it and everyone in the audience feel it and that’s the point, it hits home to us as it does to Kosei who in flashbacks at first is shown as an amazing pianist, so she manages to match him tit for tat.  Before anything really starts, all of this truly sparks from their first meeting, no words of confession, no words of interest and yet eyes can say a world of things to come, they manage to show what his first meeting of her could mean, a redemption of sorts for him or the sense he no longer needs to ask for forgiveness, she is the color that we see, for him and we hope it’s the same for her at some point, hope in this case might seem insane, any doubts Kosei has of himself could be vanquished in a moment if you could see how Kaori looks at him. That is where their chemistry lies and even through the great ordeals that face them, it is one of the strongest aspects that continue to carry us throughout.

       That is important because of how grey and dim Kosei's world can be with flashbacks of why he is the way he is, his friends know for the most part, yet you feel his isolation during his look back to his sick and dying mother training him to be the top pianist in her place. His face filled with bruises, showing her abuse both physical and mental in the fact that he is willing to accept anything she dishes out to him in order to make her happy. Mind you he is even younger than, so it shows how disturbing it can be that he is so willing to oblige. It makes you long for the world of color and hope again, also allowing him not to be seen as just another depressing character, your given the chance to understand him right from the start. It's the ghosts of these memories that literally come out and attack him as he returns to play the piano through Kaori's encouragement or should I say physical forcefulness. Scenes where he just like when he stopped when younger, cannot hear the notes, scenes of him playing as if he is underwater. Trying to reach something in order to return to the surface. These psychological scenes balance well somehow to the amount of humor that is placed in the show, he is a part of a good deal of it too, showing another of the show’s strength, balancing all the aspects that as said before do not feel forced,  they are all a part of how the show is and how these kids are too.

 

      With it centering around classical music this show is no slouch in how it sounds, not just with how the character play the instruments in the animation, no it's taking the music and running with it, from his first viewing of her playing with the little kids in the playground, how music is involved in everything to Kaori's stunning performance that she managed to own, despite everyone else in the competition playing the same song, it’s blasphemy that she take it down the route she did according to the judges and yet it’s beautiful, it’s free and sort of the point in what he needs to see. Right away before she got on and certainly after you can see Kosei's desire for the piano crawling back and maybe his desire for life too. You'll be witness to an amazing show of piano playing, that reaches unspeakable levels as the show progress by him and the rivals he pushes to have their music speak for their experiences and feelings.

      An interesting way to push him too, for example Kaori conspires with one of his best friends Tsubaki Sawabe (who has been secretly in love with him for like forever, though it isn't much of a secret to the viewer) to have him accompany her violin performance which of course he feels he cannot do, not good enough for them as they plaster notes of the piece all over the classrooms, blast it on the speakers in the school, all around his home and on his phone too. When they’re not doing that they are beating him silly trying to convince him, often you’ll find him bleeding on the ground and what seems like out of his head. Once they manage to convince him, everything between him and Kaori seems ready to spark, of course they’ll will be challenges along the way as well as there is in the performance. Failing and succeeding, overcoming and who allows you to are themes that work they’re way step by step for a conclusion you can only hope will mean everything will be alright. After all the show is riddled with misunderstandings and love triangles, squares and maybe a singular line that was really only meant to be. Yet something greater is on the horizon, a true challenge to any resolution gained.

 

        Even the setting of the characters in middle school which for most of us, those days are long gone but do not put a hinder on the show, we aren’t busy questioning why it’s there because we aren’t placing them in a single time, for them this is a definitive change for all of them whatever may come and that is something that involves their whole life. Bringing an answer to youth with problems, is it really the end of the world some of their issues, perhaps not or perhaps it can be life changing. We understand the weight of it and allow the show to draw us in,  effectively crossing the line from melodramatic to dramatic, easy to tip the line yet the right story it never even gets close to it, things we may believe wouldn’t matter will matter to us as much as it does for the characters. To add to this the problems they have are very real, in fact you wonder how anyone could really come to terms with it, much less children. Love and music save us, directs us and is ultimately our freedom, it might seem on the surface to cause a gagging relax on the greatest of skeptics but there is truth in it, that’s why when a show does it right you can feel it or else why watch it in the first place right?

The show focuses heavily on Kosei and how Kaori effects his world as he wrestles with it’s changes and the deep affection he feels for her even though for some reason he feels like the odd man out. I think personally it’s crazy that he feels like friend A as they say it in the show simply because she was supposed to be introduced to his friend, the ladies man Ryota Watari. Especially after everything they went through. Right off the bat you can tell that Karoi and Kosei connection is deep, so much so there isn't this mystifying question on the character's faces for three parts of the series like in most shows, so how he can believe such a thing is a little strange but it might be more along the lines of the how wounded he’d become over the years than the actual belief of it in normal circumstances.  Eventually we do get into Kaori’s story although they leave a great deal out not because they don’t want to fill in the details but simply because that is going to be the greatest challenge in the show. Once they do it comes almost all at once and by the end of the show all the things you get off of these two characters is completely understood.  

      If you find a purpose through love and a way to stand to it, can it overcome, anything, anything that will come afterwards or do you shatter returning to what you’d been from the start. It won’t take long when you feel certain tragic events unfold, it’s no secret but the show makes you hope, that is a part of what the show is meant to do, you stop lying to yourself  and find any actual lie that was said is only meant to direct you to the truth. No matter what that truth may mean. Yeah it might sound a little philosophical but that’s the obvious meaning seen plain in all it’s complex details and colors. Don’t believe me, listen to Kaori’s own philosophical out views both positive and negative or her quotes from characters of the Peanuts comic strip.

You’re Lie in April is meant to expose your heart and follow it, that doesn’t necessarily have to be categorized as a school romance/ drama, that can be something that many works of arts become.  It accomplishes everything it sets out to do, including moving you to the last moment, powerful in a way that it doesn’t flaunt, this show just is. If by the end it feels like this show has changed something, then you’re in good company and you’re also witness to one of the most amazing animes in years.