Under the spring and cherry blossoms, the human metronome found a reason to become a melody of his own. Your lie in April takes its viewers through a devastatingly romantic, comical, and melancholic ride throughout its episodes.
Kousei Arima is a fourteen-year-old, whose rimmed glasses and bent head make him see nothing but grey around him. His world is a monotone shade of black and white, like the keys of the piano he abandoned yet goes back to.
The character of Kousei Arima is designed with such beauty, no one can help but empathize with and love the protagonist. His journey is filled with little milestones from the day his mother started to grow her dream of making him a famous pianist. The piano had become the mirror that exuded Arima's soul in colours through the sound of the keys.
The pressure of winning was imposed on little Kousei since the day he won his first competition. Regular and non-stop practice without care for his mental health and his mother's receding health made him into a human metronome, a robot who was blindly following his mother's dreams for himself.
His music was soulless, a spitting image of the score, devoid of personality and filled with perfection.
It made him a prime target for competitors and made him an idol in everyone's eyes, but he was a flawed character, growing without a say in his wish. When his mother died, he lost his will and support to play, which led him to develop an auditory inability to hear his own playing.
Just when Kousei was in the prime of his life, unable to live up to its colourful beauty of youth, Miyazono Kaori gatecrashed into his life on one such spring. She was a woman who was rebellious and refused to blindly follow the composer.
She brought perspective into Arima's life, and he started to acknowledge his love and longing for playing the piano.
He understood that the shadow of his mother's past was the abusive side that stuck to him because of his insecurities and self-doubts, which cleared when he realized that he had the sound that his mother, Arima Saki left for him.
Leaving behind his doubts, whatever dragged him behind, he participated in a competition, not for the sake of winning, but for bringing out his sound and understanding of his playing.
Kaori's unwavering support and presence were a constant reminder to him that he was gifted and talented, his inhibitions were holding him back which he needed to conquer.
Your Lie In April takes the viewers through the sufferings and personal emotions of never giving up and realizing one's own potential through the protagonist.
He participates in the piano competition, and despite losing his sound in the middle of it, he faced it headfirst and played with his entire body, imagining the sounds.
He got reacquainted with his mother's best friend - Seto Hiroko at the competition, who makes him realize that his mother, Arima Saki did not hate him at all, she failed as an instructor but her intentions were not to hurt him but to make him an able pianist who would be able to earn his living by being a great musician.
His mother's favourite piece, Liebeslied's Love's sorrow Rachmaninoff/Kreisler's rendition, becomes his performing piece at the gala function, where he gets to bid his mother a proper goodbye, from his shadow of insecurities to the remaining beautiful memories of his mother.
Your lie in April shows a beautiful moral of music and human life, as Kousei says, "Music might just be able to transcend words".
Throughout the course of events, with new acquaintances, and growth of friendship, Kousei becomes a grown man with so many dreams and aspirations revolving around music, viewers get to feel the story untangling among themselves.
This is a series that is not easy to recover from, as each character creates a special place in everyone's heart. Kousei is such a character who is an inspiration to people, particularly the musicians who are finding meaning and imagery in their music.
