A review of the Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso anime series
I felt like a monster after the final episode of Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April). The ending was always going to go one of two ways and I was braced for either one: agonising tears or delirious happiness. I certainly didn’t expect to feel nothing. All these other people gushing tears, drowning in hyperbole, and there I was, indifferent. I had cheered Kousei Arima on through the bright lights of stage performances and honey-lit afternoon walks home but in the denouement I realised that all the individual things that irked me about the series had gathered like so much detritus on a beach and was now spoiled.
he is lionised, an indestructible prodigy and a mountain that must be conquered
I knew what I was getting in to of course. Awash with pastel shades and misty eyed teenagers this was a romance series first and foremost with the “musician’s heart” narrative the tempo to the love story melody. Kousei starts out unable to play the piano, supposedly a prodigy from a young age, he is invited on a date by his best friend and serial flirt Ryouta where he meets the series’ poster child, Kaori Miyazono.
Won’t someone please think of the children? Because that’s really all Black Bullet thinks about. Right at the heart of its world, ravaged by the giant insects known as Gastrea, is an employment structure that partners young men, “Enforcers”, with pre-adolescent girls, “Initiators”. Those children are of course genetically altered so to complement their red eyes they have phenomenal speed and strength, enough to fight the rampaging insects.
the high fructose pairing of Rentarou, serial loli magnet and perpetual do-gooder, and the sparky orange-haired Enju
You might just sigh and slowly shake your head at such a set up - it’s peculiarly original yet feels overused, tapping into the same buddy-cop dynamic that innumerable other shows, anime or otherwise, have used. What’s worrying is that in between all of the bad CG, B-movie style monster bashing is a worrisome, suggestive undercurrent that slowly, insidiously, creeps in. There’s maybe just one too many bath scenes, a few too many expressions of unflinching adoration, and too many children saying things that can be misconstrued as sexual.
Either I was subject to a maliciously obtuse translation or my mind must have been elsewhere during all of the important explanations in Witch Craft Works because not much really makes sense. Like repeatedly walking in during the middle of a spy thriller, vast swathes of WCW’s world and rules are left unexplained until long after when it was needed. It wouldn’t have improved the story or made the main characters any less wooden, but it would have at least let the plot flow a little more naturally.
a CG army of steampunk rabbits bum rushing Honoka and Ayaka in the school quadrangle
From what I can gather, Honoka Takamiya is a thoroughly boring young man; lacking friends and any noteworthy hobbies and for all intents and purposes didn’t exist until the tall, stoic and busty Ayaka Kagari crashes into his life on a broomstick and wearing a witch’s hat. Due to ill explained purposes, Tower witches are attacking Honoka and it’s up to her and more or less every other Workshop witch in a five mile radius to protect him. Oh and civilians can’t be hurt by witches because of Reasons™ and any property damage caused by witch-on-witch scuffles magically repairs itself.
