bakagenius1

STORY:

The most forced love triangle ever occurs when a depressed pianist with mommy issues named Kousei suddenly meets a girl who flips his life upside down. Which occurs when he sees her standing on a playground playing a Melodica concerto with a bunch of 3 year olds as doves/pigeons fly around them (no joke). Of course, musician-man's childhood friend, Sawabe (or Tsundere-chan for short), says this doesn't bother her since musician-san is just her "little brother". Obviously, this is a stance that will not last for long. Love-interest-girl turns out to be a violin prodigy called Kaori. She's bubbly, full of energy, and less dumb than she looks. She also starts throwing out death flags left right and centre like she's working in a flag-making-sweatshop by episode 3. Then there's Meaningless Protagonist Foil 1, Ryouta, who has a personality comparable to a four-kilo brick of sawdust and just wants girls to like him or something.  Oh, and all the characters are below high school age, in case you're wondering, so don't expect any sort of rational thoughts or actions.

Anyways, Kousei and Kaori start hanging out and playing music. Really good music. They go to music competitions and play for fun, ignoring the ire of the judges who want to keep things traditional. Oh yeah, at these competitions there's some girl who also plays piano in order to show her long-lasting love for Kousei after she heard him at a concert blah blah blah zzzz

So yeah, Kousei can't hear when he plays the piano anymore because he has the hugest mommy issues and sees her disapproving ghost ever since he told her off for beating him with a cane and she went and died of cancer. Her ghost magically takes away his ability to hear music, but only at the most important parts of the piece. When this happens he travels to the underwater spirit realm and battles his inner demons blah blah. Flashbacks like this occur every episode and invariably end with him being beaten by his wheelchair-bound mom or seeing her demonic smile or something. These scenes reuse certain clips a LOT.

Kousei falls for Kaori, but she decides not to tell him of her obviously imminent death and instead hands him off to childhood friend 1, Tsundere-chan, who likes him. Too bad he doesn't like her. Or DOES HE. Along the way Kousei learns the secret to playing music, which is to suck it up and play music. Solid deduction, 10/10.

Oh, and every single time something sad or touching or remotely deep happens, the director cuts to slapstick chibi comedy like a deranged two year old with ADHD. This is probably the worst part of the show, because any semblance of good writing is washed away by tides of revulsion at this forced attempt to lighten the mood.

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2/10

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ANIMATION: 

Characters look all right. Backgrounds are often pretty nice. The motion can be pretty rough and there are obvious attempts to save on budget by cutting to crudely-drawn chibi "humor" every time anything remotely interesting happens so that they don't have to animate another five seconds of tears running down someone's face. These inserts are barely animated. A lot of the show is still shots actually. Wait, is this even an animation?

Still, there are a couple nice still shots which carry some emotional weight. Good job I guess.

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6/10

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SOUND:

This one is tough. The score during musical performances is actually really good at times, reinterpreting classical piano and violin pieces in interesting ways to let the characters express themselves through music (since God knows it won't be happening through the plot).

However, they often cut these performances short to show some awful inner monologue about whether Kousei's mom loves him and/or is coming for him Grudge-style. They also sometimes add on extra instruments for no discernible reason. This is extremely irritating, as the piano score is one of the only redeeming qualities this show has. It's no Kids on the Slope, Cowboy Bebop, or Samurai Champloo, but it does have its brilliant moments before it's silenced so that we can contemplate moms hitting children or something.

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8/10

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CHARACTERS:

I think I adequately described them in the plot section, but here goes.

Kousei is a whiny kid who eventually grows up through the power of love and music so that he can have his heart shattered again by the exact same situation that did it before.

Kaori is a wild, bubbly girl who doesn't care about anything except lying to her friends about the fact that she's going to die on them pretty much immediately, ruining Kousei's heart.

There's girl-next-door Sawabe, who TOTALLY DOESN'T LIKE KOUSEI HE'S DEFINITELY JUST A LITTLE BROTHER (WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE).

There's Ryouta, who basically just acts as a foil for Kousei, who in turn thinks he's dating Kaori for literally no reason. He likes girls I think.

There's random piano girl and random piano guy who both want to impress Kousei because apparently he was good at piano as a kid, as we find out through about one hundred flashbacks to the same piano competition.

Despite their tropiness, the characters actually start to grow on you during the series. They go from awful to decent. That's about all I can say about them.

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7/10 

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OVERALL:

Honestly, this show had promise for the first couple episodes. The music was good and it seemed like it was going to be a slice of life romance with some tragedy thrown in. Then suddenly the plot became swamped in a veritable deluge of death flags as the show tried to turn on the serious feels.

However, the incredibly sudden changes in tone from tear-jerking drama to mindless still-frame slapstick completely ruined the series. And as if that wasn't enough, the plot decided to drive itself into the ground with the most contrived events to ensure that it could set the audience up for MAXIMUM FEELS. Instead, it comes across as forced. If you haven't ever seen an anime that focuses heavily on drama, maybe you'll fall for its tricks, but if you've seen your fair share already I'd be surprised if any of the events in this series shock you.

If you want some sad slice-of-life, watch Clannad, or Angel Beats or something. If you want good music, check out Sakamichi no Apollon or Cowboy Bebop, or Samurai Champloo, or any other anime with a good OST. Don't bother with this one. Seriously, it isn't worth your time.

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FINAL SCORE: 5/10