If your soul belongs to music Your Lie in April will speak to you

I started watching Your Lie in April the other day, and, surprisingly it sucked me in like very little I’ve watched has nowadays. But my lack of interest in media is a different story. The story today is about how much this show touched the tiny musician drowning in my soul.

Hate to spoil it for you, so, I’ll try to skim around the details that make this lovely anime what it has been so far. So…as briefly as I can manage of a summary, the TV show is about a middle school boy who loses total interest in playing the piano after his mother dies. His mother is kind of, actually, really batshit, and abusive as fuck, and totally obsessed with her son being an amazing pianist, which, the way he plays within the TV show, I can’t blame her for wanting the best for him, because he has the hands of a god. So, he meets this violinist and she’s free spirited as hell and pushes him to be better (this is what I’ve gleaned so far as I have not finished this TV series quite yet).

Now that that you have a bit of backstory for those who haven’t yet seen it…

This quote: “This silence belongs to us, and every single person out there is waiting for us to fill it with something.” Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And with a couple of tweaks, this could apply to most any art form from dancers having an empty stage to fill with movement, painters and drawers having blank canvases and paper, sculptors having a lump of clay or a chunk of metal waiting to be turned into art. That is what makes this quote so great to me. Actually, it can also describe everyday life; everyone has such and such amount of years to write their own stories. Now that I talk about stories, I remember that I totally left out writers and blank paper and those dreaded blinking cursors of the empty word processors waiting for frantic scribbles, dancing words, and bleeding poetry to stain them.

Also, without spoiling the treat, I think that this anime shows music in a very realistic light. Music for dedicated musicians is something that takes over your life and transforms you. The lovely pianist, upon observing the free-spirited violinist notes that she seems to be two different people: a regular, somewhat obnoxious girl off-stage, and a powerful, wild magician with an instrument onstage.

Even so few episodes in, I have witnessed from these lovely and supportive characters that one must give oneself to the music and everything will be okay.

Okay… I’ve literally been dreading finishing this TV show because I knew pretty early on how it was going to go and I was not ready for the emotional trauma of actually watching it. So I sucked it up the other day and watched the other half of it in two nights where I was both devastated and pleased about how the rest of the story went. I’m going to rank this in my top five anime probably right next to Avatar: The Last Airbender. I cried about 17 times with the blanket held up to my face and tried to yelling at the characters to tell them what they were supposed to not be doing in order to have the beautiful ending that my heart desired.

Obviously, they didn’t listen to me which is only okay because I connected to the story so much.

My BRIEF conclusion is that Your Lie in April is an anime that anyone who likes emotional dramas with strong romantic elements will enjoy, cherish, and connect strongly to. It hits so many elements on the emotional ladder that it probably qualifies as a drama, although I don’t believe it was recommended to me by Netflix based on its dramatic elements. I also feel like Netflix’s recommendation algorithm is trash at matching people with TV shows and movies, so it’s a miracle that I even came across Your Lie in April.

It is intense, excellently written, with amazing voice actors, gorgeous visuals and a storyline that is both creative but relatable to so many children who have studied music. You do not have to be a musician to enjoy this anime, but I do believe there is a stronger connection that may be felt to it if you happen to be a musician. This is coming from someone who plays piano, drums, and viola. Like anything that is a strong part of your life, you will be able to forge a certain depth of connection with others who share your same interests. It is the same with Your Lie in April. The way Kaori Miyazono

Get your snacks and your hanky ready. This is a binge-worthy anime that will leave you forever changed.