Your Lie in April

"The music... is dyed in color." After such a long time not reading romance stories I'm finally getting into some lately. First I started off with some popular shoujo titles, and when I'm running out of new books to read, I stumbled upon Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April). I thought this was just going to be a casual read about your typical romance + bits of music. Boy was I wrong, for this manga has proved to be a really emotional ride I shall never forget. Story - The story is interesting. The beginning was rather predictable, it started with the introduction ofArima Kousei, a prodigal pianist who stopped performing the piano because of a traumatizing event. Then one day, a hurricane came into his life and wrecked his everyday routine. This hurricane was a seemingly loud, cheerful, and free-spirited girl named Miyazono Kaori. By the arrival of this girl, Arima's life did a 180 degrees turn as he's forced to face the piano again. Past memories resurfacing, meeting former rivals, and the bittersweet feeling of love and affection were what followed next. It started off as a sole growth story of Arima, and the initial atmosphere of this story was fun and touching, but later on metamorphosed into something more melancholic, more intricate, and a hell lot more depressing. Regardless of what you feel about the ending, you can't deny that Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is a really beautifully crafted piece of work. It builds up emotional attachments to the characters and by the time you've finished it, there's a warm feeling inside your chest. The story really flows and I especially love the dialogues. The words are spot-on and not just fillers for the story. Art - The art is, ok I guess. Moderate at best, though. It's not sparkly nor is it particularly beautiful, but still okay. What I'm bothered of is the lips. Sometimes the author colors the lips and it looks like they're awkwardly using a bright red lipstick. It's disturbing. Character - What's the most impressive here is really Arima's character growth. He has always been a warm, gentle individual, but later on he will mature a lot. By using his past experiences and finally realizing what being a musician is, he no longer runs away. He learns to face his past, makes peace with himself, and that shows in the music he plays. I would also like to highlight Miyazono Kaori. She starts off as your typical heroine the male lead likes, but later on you'll also realize that that's not the only thing to her. Her character isn't something the author randomly pasted on a girl to make her likable, but she has something that drives her to be the way she currently is. Her background is not messy, but really well-written. Tsubaki is also a really nice character, she bullies Arima a lot but deep down we all know she cares a lot for him. This is not just about the male lead and the female lead, but about everybody's characters and everybody's stories. Enjoyment - This, ladies and gentlemen, is indeed a really emotional ride. The atmosphere changes very quickly and unexpectedly and I want you guys to brace yourselves for what's about to come (though I doubt you can't guess what's the ending going to be like). But it's a really beautiful story. It makes you feel something, and that feeling lingers for a while inside your heart even after you have finished it. All in all, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is really enjoyable. I recommend this to everybody. Even if it may start off as cliche, believe me, there's more to it than what it seems. And in the end, let the title -- Your Lie in April -- sink into you. Once you do, though, I doubt you can forget about this amazing piece of work for the next few months, or maybe throughout your life.

Reading this feels like listening to a talented singer with great voice, who unfortunately keep making the same mistakes and hitting the wrong notes over and over again until the whole performance is kind of ruined. Er, random musical analogy aside, there's actually a lot that I like from this manga's set-up. For starter, the fact that the the main characters are middle-schoolers/pre-teens, which I don't see very often in manga. It's a great period when kids are mature enough to start exploring complicated feelings and emotion, while still retaining the sense of childhood innocence lacked by high-schoolers. Naoshi Arakawa's art hits similar kind of sweetspot by combining the intensity of typical shounen art and sensitivity of shoujo style, creating a signature look that's both powerful and very easy on the eyes. He's very, very, good at paneling and impactful framing, too. Someone once said to me that "a comic/book about musician is kind of useless because you can't hear the music", however, Arakawa's art has enough power and details that the characters absolutely resonate with me during their performance scenes. I like the main character, too. Arima Kousei is an unusual protagonist for this type of comic, quieter and more perceptive than your typical lead. Most importantly, his mental block makes for an intriguing internal conflict and a very realistic depiction of a real life issue. Physical abuse by a parent figure is a serious thing, and watching a fundamentally good kid struggle to come to terms with it and overcome the guilt he shouldn't even bear is simultaneously gut-wrenching and inspiring. It's also very interesting to see Arima's past as a child prodigy, as well as the bond he formed with his two lifelong rivals. .....Now, about those "wrong notes". In addition to music and internal struggle, there's a lot of comedy and romance in April. To be frank: they don't work at all. The comedy first: nowadays I've been bothered a lot by the sense of humor in many shounen/shoujo manga, as it often try to pass off abusive, sexist, and/or problematic behavior as something 'cute' or 'funny', and I also find that issue here. April's main joke is to have Arima routinely abused (physically and emotionally) by the two main female characters, which is not only unfunny, but becomes extra disturbing when you consider the boy's background. Like... I dunno girls, your friend there was severely abused in his childhood, maybe you shouldn't kick his kneecap/throw his head with softball/choke him with recorder/emotionally blackmail him? It happens too often to be coincidental, which leads me to suspect that Arakawa-sensei really think that brute force and aggressive girls are the best therapy for abuse-induced trauma. I'm not an expert on psychology... but yeah, that doesn't sound right at all. The problem with the comedy ties directly to the romance one, since the aforementioned two girls are also Arima's love interests. It's basically a tiresome love square, with the second boy never becoming significant or memorable enough. I couldn't care less which girl Arima ends up with, as they're both selfish, petulant, and manipulative. Teenagers are never perfect beings, I know, but these girls are just too damn unsympathetic. The occasional melodrama makes it even worse, as some of the characters like to suddenly break out of character and wax some purple prose. Imagine watching kindergarteners have a childish fight, and seconds later quote Shakespeare out of the blue-the effect is as jarring as that. (there's another girl character that I actually like, just because she's much wiser and more mature than everyone else. Unfortunately, her only role is to be the thankless Best Friend/Adviser character). The music performance scenes are the biggest strength of the series, but they're not entirely free of problems either. As I've mentioned above, Arakawa's art is more than good enough to convey the emotional state of the musicians during their performance, but he also frequently have a bunch of random people in the audience providing unnecessary amount of corny commentary. "That boy looks nervous!" "Ooh the melody truly comes from her heart!" "I could feel the emotion coming!" Yes, yes, please shut up, Random Audience #3. In spite of all that, I'm actually happy I got to read this manga and learn about Arakawa. There's such a great deal of artistic talent on display here that I'd definitely still check out his future works--I just hope next time I can truly get behind his characters and narrative.

"Color." Yes that's the word I use. Do you know why? This manga is black and white on the surface, but the feelings and the story are just so much more. I wanted to find a specific quote to start out my review, but this word in the story just stuck out so much more than any single quote. On that note, lets get into the story. Sure the basis of the story is pretty basic and common (protagonist meets tragedy and meets girl who changes his life), but the way it is portrayed is truly remarkable. This manga will really make you think and besides reallyneeding to think out of confusion in other mangas or animes, this really makes you think of various things in life. I went into this manga thinking it'd be another simple happy read; it seemed to start that way, but you could just tell that the story gets much deeper. The art was fantastic. It stuck out to me in how it was a bit different from what I'm used to, but it was off and on for me. Some scenes, especially performance scenes, would just scream detail and you could practically just feel the music. The characters! This is a fantastic change of pace from the static characters of most mainstream mangas/animes, our characters truly develop and start to change. Don't want to spoil. Seriously just read and find out. If you look at it generally, the characters do have that really mainstream, if you will, personality. I do feel that Watari could have used a little more development, but other than that, the characters were vivid and wonderful. I probably don't need to write much for my overall and a enjoyment, but that was a perfect 10! Anything that can make think this much and feel so many feels will usually be up here. P.S. listen to the songs they are playing on piano/violin while reading the manga, it really heightened my experience!

Don't waste your time on this. I started this and at first, I enjoyed it but at around episode 14 it took a nosedive. They don't explain how Kaori ended up in the hospital besides saying she fell. How though, how did she fall did she fall because she had some sort of disease, or did she just trip. And the ending, oh the fucking ending. The ending was so fucking depressing but it was horrible. What should've happened is kousei was at the hospital while Kaori is having the surgery and she wakes up and starts dying but in their final moments together theyshould've confessed their love for each other. Not some dumbass she appears in his mind they play together and then gets fucking smited. And the dumbass letter she wrote to him. It was so mediocre i wanted to vomit, don't get me wrong the shit made me cry. And lets take a minute to look at kousei. Hes a fucking idiot that cant take hints at all. How in the world did he not realize Tsubaki liked him. And how he's always just fucking standing there and not doing anything made me wanna reach through my monitor and beat the living shit out of him. And at the end instead of going to the hospital to stay with kaori he still goes to the fucking contest. Imo i kinda think he could've been written way better. Overall I think that you really shouldn't waste your time on this and watch something else.