Well, it’s been one heck of a wild, emotional, sometimes frustrating ride, but we’ve come to the end of Your Lie in April. Somethings have ended, but others stretch out for as long as we remember them. It took this episode a few minutes to get going, but when it kicked into high gear, it really kicked into high gear. As expected, the aesthetics truly took charge in this episode and, even if there was a little more digital work than I would’ve liked, the end results was something pretty special. So, now it’s time for one last look at Your Lie in April.
Your Lie in April
Your Lie in April, Episode 21
There were too many small visual details going on here for me to go with my normal essay format, so it’s time-stamps this week! As far as KimiUso episodes go, this one was pretty darn good, although I preferred the first half to the second half. Still, it’s nice to see everyone that’s shown up along Kousei’s journey—Nagi, Takeshi, Emi, Watari, Tsubaki—get small moments as we plunge towards the finale of this adventure.
Your Lie in April, Episode 20
Man, we are just racing through things at this point—and with only two episodes, for good reason. We have to deal with the fallout of Tsubaki’s confession, confront Kaori’s impending death, and get in one more concert for Kousei before we’re done. And, frankly, that’s like the minimum of what KimiUso needs to accomplish. Let me just say that I do not envy the task of whoever’s writing this thing.
Your Lie in April, Episode 19
Well, at this point you can pretty much safely assume that my issues with any given episode of KimiUso are the same ones I’ve had with past episodes. It’s certainly true this week, as I still don’t feel like the disparate stories we’re getting with Kaori, Tsubaki, and Takeshi really have anything to do with each other. Sure, they’re all connected to Kousei, but most of the time I feel like these scenes exist in entirely different worlds from each other. But whatever. I’ve spent enough time ranting about KimiUso‘s issues in past weeks. I’ll try not to do it again here.
Your Lie in April, Episode 18
And so concludes Nagi’s arc—complete with some truly touching revelations for her and her brother. To be entirely honest, I feel somewhat vindicated by the excellence of the emotional poignancy of the performance. I’ve been claiming all along that KimiUso is best when focused in on a single story, not splitting its attention in cursory reviews of each of its major characters. The stories still feel oddly disconnected from each other to me (Tsubaki at this particular performance is a great example), but everything we got from Nagi this episode was wonderful.
Your Lie in April, Episode 17
Yup, so that’s it. It’s finally confirmed (shocking…truth…) that Kaori doesn’t have much time before she dies. Yet, in true KimiUso fashion, we get a few really great scenes dealing with this new reality and then we breeze on back to the tried-and-true nope still bad tonal whiplash techniques that we’ve been dealing with for 17 whole episodes. Frankly, I have to admire how consistently frustrating this show is to watch as it insists on horrid juxtapositions of great scenes and bad ones. Such is the KimiUso way.
Your Lie in April, Episode 16
If you’ve come this far with Your Lie in April, now might be your last chance to turn back. That’s the feeling I get. We’re standing on the edge of the precipice of the deepest valley this show has yet looked into and, well, it looks to be pretty dark there at the bottom. And I’m really not just talking about Kaori’s frightening final line of the episode, but about the whole direction of the show.
Your Lie in April, Episode 15
How many different narrative threads does KimiUso think it can handle at once?
I’d be lying if I said I’m a little ambivalent about the introduction of Hiroko’s new student, Nagi. We’ve already got plenty of different stories going on in this show right now with most of our mainstay characters in some sort of flux, so to have an entirely new character introduced…well, it both excites me and irritates me. I like Kousei, Tsubaki, Watari, Kaori, Takeshi, and (former Best Girl) Emi quite a lot, so taking more time away from them to spend it on another character makes me wonder if we’re ever going to actually deal with everyone else’s storylines.
Your Lie in April, Episode 14
Ahahahaha Tsubaki made her way back to the top of the Best Girl rankings last week just in time for this episode—awesome. Just my luck. I’m sorry, Tsubaki-chan. It seems I doomed you.
Your Lie in April, Episode 13
Well, it certainly wasn’t KimiUso‘s best, but it landed much closer the show’s good side than last week’s episode did. As I’ve said before, KimiUso is an impressive show in its ability to oscillate between episodes that leave me unimpressed and episodes have a profound emotional impact—going from last week’s episode to this week’s was a classic case of this weird dynamic between Good KimiUso and Kind of Meh KimiUso.
And, the thing is, KimUso can have moving episodes while still faltering in some technical aspects. There were places in this episode that my brain was chirping at me, but my heart was still being worked on. To me, that’s an accomplishment, and I think KimiUso can do this when it leans on its strengths to compensate for its weakness. It’s perhaps not the best model to follow, but it’s the one that’s working for the show.
Mage in a Barrel 