Episode Reaction: Your Lie in April (四月は君の嘘) Episode 1 – Beautiful

It's time for music, because today (or in reality, yesterday *cough, cough*) is the first episode of Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, also known as Your Lie in April. This is to be our drama-filled, romantic music anime of this and next season (it's two-cour, guys!), and I'm looking forward to this emotional roller coaster.

Our story opens up with our main protagonist, Glasses-kun the Third (seriously though, so many Glasses-kuns this season, tsk, tsk), who is composing a song on a sheet of paper. Things go awry, though, when his childhood friend accidentally throws a softball through the window where he's sitting at and hit him perfectly on the side of his head. After cleaning up the blood and shattered glass—

Dude, please go to the hospital ASAP: that's way too much blood.

—Glasses-kun's friend asks if he'd go on a double date with her, since their other friend (for the sake of this reaction post, we'll call him Playboy-kun) is going on a date with her friend. Glasses-kun agrees to go and they agree to meet at a park.

On the day of the date, Glasses-kun is the first to arrive—or so he thinks. He hears the sound of an instrument playing, and when he goes to investigate he is met with the sight of a beautiful girl.

Can someone please remind me what the name of that instrument is? 'Cause I'm too lazy to look it up. >.>

After a few mishaps here and there, the girl is introduced to be the childhood friend's classmate, who Playboy-kun is going on a date with. The date location is revealed to be in a music hall, and when he sees this Glasses-kun is hesitant to attend and says he'll be leaving. However, the girl stops him and pulls him with her to the music hall, and the episode ends.

I thought this episode was an evenly paced and enlightening one, and I look forward to the rest of the series. I really liked the atmosphere and mood the episode created, and I very much want to listen to the OST when it comes out.

Uh-oh. Is this foreshadowing I sense?

Our main character, Glasses-kun, may seem like a nice guy, but he has a dark and sad past. His mother taught him how to play the piano, and would beat and scold him if he did something wrong. She crafted her son to be a master pianist so he could go to a European competition in place of her (who was stuck in a wheelchair for an undisclosed reason). I honestly found the relationship between him and his mother an uncomfortable one. I understand she may have been a traditionalist who believed in "tough love," but beating your kid until he has bruises and is bleeding lightly isn't the way to go about instructing them. At least that's what I personally believe.

However, immoral or not, her teachings did turn Glasses-kun into a skillful pianist who can play better than I ever could. Yet, due to his mother's early departure, Glasses-kun plays the piano with no heart or soul, and he finds that he could no longer play the piano when he was eleven.

Playing like a machine: with no emotion or passion.

She may be cute, she may be adorable, but she's a demon from hell!

I feel bad for referring to our second main character as "the girl," but I am awful at memorizing names, so please bear with me. Anyway, "the girl" is a very likable and pretty adorable person. She obviously has a strong love for music and seems passionate about any and all instruments (her forte being the violin). I also really like her design (maybe because my favorite anime girl designs are blonde hair/blue eyes). I'm kind of expecting some sort of sad past, but then she could just have a pretty good one. Either way, I look forward to getting to know her.

Nice colors, I noticed.

I can't say much for the childhood friend, but I guess we can infer a few things. For one, like the image above may suggest, she's an athlete—a softball player, to be more specific. Second, she may or may not be in love with the main character (but I'm pretty sure it's the latter, since I've seen plenty of romance anime). However, she is not forcing her love for him down his throat, but instead trying to help him find happiness through love. So she's a pretty nice character in that regard.

Nice lighting too.

As for the last main character focused on, I have almost nothing to say (even less than the childhood friend). We don't know too much about him yet, but he's also an athlete (a soccer player) and apparently a playboy. Being in his final year of junior high, he's already been with three girls (hey, not too shabby there, son).

Everyone's already said it, but I'm gonna say it again: animation quality is amazing, higher than most standards. What I really enjoyed was how colorful everything is, mainly the bright pink of the cherry blossom trees, and its strong contrast to the gray moments. After seeing all these colors, we learn to appreciate them when we enter the world of monotone.

I wonder which image is more eye catching. Hmmm???

The animation was also very good in the opening. Speaking of, the opening song was good but I've already forgotten how it goes. But I expect I will eventually come to remember and love it.

Is the other person the character appears with gonna end up being their true love? Hmmm???

Now prediction time! I guarantee the obvious ships will sail, but I will be caught off-guard if the anime decides to switch it up. I expect sometime in the future there'll be some big misunderstanding or fight and the characters will avoid each other for a while, but eventually come back together and have some sort of big music competition at the end (and may or may not win). I hope that Your Lie in April will minimize the amount of clichés and just be a lovely show.

Will they end up as a couple by the end of the series? Hmmm???

But even then, I am getting this strange Bride to Terabithia feeling where the blonde girl is going to die. Very . . . morbid of me, I know, but I just can't shake that feeling off. While I expect plenty of drama, I don't think the anime will go so far as to take away the light in our main protagonist's life.

I highly recommend checking out this episode of Your Lie in April. It's cute, it's uplifting, watch it and see your spirits soar with happiness. And with that, take care, otakus!