Alternative titles:  Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
Manga Adaptation by A-1 Pictures
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Kousei Arima is a former child prodigy. After his mother’s death, he swears off the piano, instead deciding to spend his time like any other normal middle schooler. After being cajoled by his best friend Tsubaki, he goes to a get-together where he meets Kaori Sawabe, an energetic violin player. She has her sights set on his friend Ryota, but for Kousei, it’s love at first sight.

Marlin’s verdict: Music to My Ears

This show was absolutely beautiful in every way I could have wanted. To start off, the show hits you with some amazing use of color composition. Add some high quality art and animation on top of that and the show really springs to life. After all the CG hands of Nodame Cantabile, seeing Kousei actually move a drawn hand across the piano, even if it was only briefly, was massively impressive. The music is sharp and engaging, which is a must for a show partially dedicated to the craft. That performance of the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata was definitely the highlight, a perfect piece to accompany what happens later in that very scene.

The characters are also a big draw for me. Some people were wary of the premise, especially considering the idea of a peppy girl bringing life to a sad sack is not exactly a new storyline. Still, Kousei does a lot in this opening episode to show he’s not completely shut out from his old life. As Tsubaki points out, he even still does work associated with music, even if he’s sworn off playing professionally. The idea of him being brought back to the joy of music is a lot more believable when he starts out like this. I liked the interplay between the three friends. They definitely seemed to act way more natural than you’d see in your average show. I hope this isn’t setting up the childhood friend as pining for him, but I don’t think that would be a terrible thing if true. What I liked most is how much chemistry the main pair have off the bat. Kaori is definitely out there when it comes to space cases, but she still seems to have a small amount of grounding. I like that Kousei stood his ground instead of letting her berate him. It seems all to often the accidental pervert angle is just there for the male character to get beat on, so this was a nice change of pace. The fact that she’s actually attracted to Ryota is a curveball, but not an unwelcome one. I do hope the show handles that properly, though, as those kinds of stories can easily become overwrought if they don’t. This show may be playing to my tastes, but I still think this is an absolutely fantastic start.

Aqua’s verdict: Pitch Perfect

A-1 Productions are so big at this point their releases vary from embarrassingly atrocious to matching the likes of Kyoto Animation, so it’s nice to see them hitting the top end of that spectrum once in a while with a show that looks positively stunning. Your Lie In April takes the noitaminA timeslot back to its roots with a musical coming-of-age drama based on an award-winning manga, and while it doesn’t exactly match the description of an ‘alternative’ show that treads beyond the traditional anime safe space, it has countless strengths its genre has come to overlook over the years. For starters, it’s nice to see anime being unequivocally pretty again, which seems to be a somewhat recurring feature of the season. The ever-present cherry blossoms effectively set the atmosphere as they hardly ever fail to do, but it’s especially the performance scenes that stand out. Chief animation director Yukiko Aikei used real musicians as reference and it shows, with dynamic movements and attention to detail setting the bar higher for the medium as a whole.

Characterization-wise, Your Lie In April has a bit less going for it, with most of the action skipping back and forth between mournful internal monologue and loud comedy shenanigans. It’s hard not to draw comparasions to Hyouka, with the main four’s personalities matching up perfectly with Oreki, Chitanda, Fukube and Ibara, though Your Lie in April finds itself teetering towards the extremes of the emotional spectrum more than the almost perpetually laid-back Hyouka. Its presentation nicely fits its more psychologically weighty content however, with the interactions between characters being a particular standout. At least in its earliest moments, Your Lie In April avoids the soap opera melodrama of shows like Anohana in favour of dialogue that could come out of an actual teenager’s mouth. Sometimes introspective, other times silly, the goings on in Your Lie in April are never not at least interesting. Especially Kosei and Tsubaki form a highly entertaining duo, averting the usual awkward (and one-sided) semi-sexual tension and acting like actual childhood friends for once.

Your Lie In April kicks off with a promising first episode which spotlights its gorgeous artistic vision and a sympathetic cast that should be strong enough to carry a full two cours. There are countless pitfalls to look out for on the road it has set out on, however, and the show has not yet done enough to convince me it won’t choke on forced drama and irresolvable love triangles. Nevertheless, I want to believe in Your Lie In April. I’ve seen worse first episodes turn out fantastic, so let’s hope for the best.