Your Lie in AprilI finished episode 16. This anime is very much up my alley. I love music, emotional tales, romance, self-growth, self-realization, competitiveness (which is sort of odd in a way cause I think people wouldn't describe me as competitive). I'm enjoying very much so far. Sometimes the music sets up the emotion in the scene so well, oh it's great. Though I have some qualms. More so in the first 5 episodes perhaps rather than now.
At some point I got tired with the main character not being able to hear the notes. Or rather, we know that, but the anime keeps on showing it in a very descriptive way and a repetitive way. We know his issue. Stop putting us in his head when that happens. Give us other people's reactions. Stop flashing back to his dead mom.
Now I know that it is all consuming and that's not my issue. It's just how the anime always deals with scenes when he goes into "I can't... hear the notes again... I'm drowning in the nothingness." The way the show expresses this has gotten monotonous.
The other thing, and I almost can't believe I'm saying this cause I love nothing more than an anime that makes me bawl like a little bitch. This anime is naturally emotional. Characters have true and honest reasons to be sad or angry. It's very human. But the anime seems to try to push for that emotions at times when it's not really there and just comes off like they want to hit an emotional quota. It's ok boys and girls. You can let the foot off the peddle and let the anime breathe. It's unnecessary to reach for these moments. The show itself has plenty that tugs on the heartstrings in a sincere and honest way.
It's like the old "look that asshole eating those crackers" kind of thing. I'm sure that asshole has done more than enough to make you angry, but now it's just nonsense that you're actually complaining about. You're overselling when you don't have to because the reasons that person is an asshole is good enough. It's kind of like that in this anime when it comes to emotional outbursts.
But it appears as the anime continues on it gets better about just letting things play out, letting the emotions genuinely come as they need to instead of reaching for them. And man, MAN this anime has some fantastic lines for us dreamers. These little nuggets of wisdom. Oh and I love that the blonde girl has a very John Frusciante approach to music. I picked up on that immediately and was like "yes. YES! I know exactly what you mean. Your musical ethos is spot on."
And now a spoiler:
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Is she gonna die from ALS? :'( :'( :'( Shit's very hard to watch as you see her losing her footing. Can't grip things. It's very emotional as I knew a person who had and of course died from ALS and it's, phuuuw, horrifying. Maybe it's some other "animu illness". Either way I'm ready for the worst, but I'm still gonna cry and curl up into a ball if it happens. These characters are very well crafted. It feels like you really know them. So if tragedy happens I know it's going to trigger me.
So yeah. Loving this so far.