Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Image from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/23273/Shigatsu_wa_Kimi_no_Uso

Name: You Lie in April 四月は君の嘘 Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Side Story: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso OVA

Status: Completed

Episode: 22

Release Date (for eng subs): Every Thursday

Summary:

Piano prodigy Arima Kosei dominated the competition and all child musicians knew his name. But after his mother, who was also his instructor, passed away, he had a mental breakdown while performing at a recital that resulted in him no longer being able to hear the sound of his piano even though his hearing was perfectly fine. Even two years later, Kosei hasn't touched the piano and views the world in monotone, and without any flair or color. He was content at living out his life with his good friends Tsubaki and Watari until, one day, a girl changed everything. Miyazono Kaori is a pretty, free spirited violinist whose playing style reflects her personality. Kaori helps Kosei return to the music world and show that it should be free and mold breaking unlike the structured and rigid style Kosei was used to.

Summary Source: MangaHelpers

Summary from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/23273/Shigatsu_wa_Kimi_no_Uso

Personal Ratings: 4.5

This is probably one of the most beautiful anime throughout the whole of 2014 and 2015. A total recommendation to people who haven't watch this yet. It's a sad anime that isn't exactly a tragedy.

Idea: 4 / 5
This anime takes place in a middle school setting. Honestly I think that usually most anime happen in high school, so there is that difference (not a very big deal). Looking pass the music side of the anime, it's actually a very subtle shoujo / romance anime, it's very different from those normal shoujo anime that concentrates mainly on the main character's love story. This anime doesn't have all that complex love story line, but a very straight forward one.
Classical Musical anime is quite common out there. The ones I've seen is probably Piano Forest and Nodame Cantabile. But for them to actually combine the two genre together and focus on both side of the story so thoroughly, I thought it was pretty rare.

Execution
Development: 5 / 5
The story line concentrates on Arima Kousei, and his piano path. It mainly shows how he overcame his weakness after the incident where he mother died 2 years ago, along with a little relationship complications on the way.
The development for this story is amazing, everything so thoroughly done. There is also that balance between the two genre. Usually I feel that the anime would be one lob sided on one genre, and forget about either the musical side or the romance side. But for this anime, it isn't the case. Though I did think that there would be at least one more performance where Arima plays with Kaori (just because I wanna see their duet). The story develops in stages, and the stages are differentiated through performance, every time Arima performs, it's one stage.

First stage would be starting to play the piano again. He meets Kaori and Kaori forced him back into the piano world.
The second stage would be that he overcomes his fear for the piano. When performing with Kaori, Kaori pushes him forward, and made him went pass the stage of fear.
The 3rd stage would be finding how to play with feelings poured into his piano, his playing style changed throughout the whole time he was playing as he tried to find the most comfortable way to play style; where he actually played the piano the whole time thinking about Kaori.
The 4th stage would be accepting his 'talents', his talents for not being able to hear the piano notes when he plays. In this stage, Kaori was out of action and couldn't play the violin anymore, but going forward to play the piano despite all that. He accepted his 'talents' and no longer saw that as a liability, a punishment from his mother. In this stage he also accepted his mother's gifts and her death.
The 5th stage would be the concert with Aiza. Here you can tell that Arima is already on the way to his route of success, he played the piano with feelings, talents, and everything he learnt from his mother. In the 6th stage, he find himself facing the same situation that happened 2 years ago, when his mother passed away. However, Kaori's words pulled him through and helped him overcome everything.

Emotion: 4.5 / 5
Honestly this anime is overflowing with emotions, be it love, sadness, or fear. But it can't really be felt from the characters themselves, but from something deep within you. It leaves that lingering sadness from within you, and you can't get rid of it even after the whole anime ends.
After watching every episode of this anime, I honestly couldn't stop thinking about it. But I did think that they could have done some scenes in a flashier manner.

Like the scene whenever he flashback to the time with his mother. I thought that they could have done something to make us feel more for little Kousei. Like the thing about Kousei getting beaten up by his mother when he plays the wrong note or something. Showing the exact scene as a faded background under the scene where they actually mention it (I think it was the scene showing little Kousei walking and people all around him where talking about him), I think it would have gave the scene more impact.

Planning: 5 / 5
There isn't really any thing that really show that they the whole story from the beginning. But you can tell, when you look at this anime, as a whole, that this story is by itself, and was planned from the very beginning. Everything came together really nicely.
I just thought that in the 2nd half of the anime, there could have been more Kaori scenes, since she does play a very huge part of the story.

Main Character Development: 5 / 5
As mentioned above, this anime really has a very good development process. The main characters, mostly Arima, Kaori and Tsubaki has the most attention. For this I'm going to include only Arima and Kaori, since they are the two most important characters.
Kaori doesn't have as much development in the 2nd half, but you can tell through little actions, how she felt about Arima.

As for Arima, well this whole story is basically about him, so the story's development is basically his character development.

Side Character Development: 3 / 5
Tsubaki's character is really developed, mostly because of her feelings towards Arima. They really focused on her in the 2nd half of the anime, and her character development was really good. There's only one thing I'm a bit confused. Tsubaki and Watari are both childhood friends of Arima, but it seems like they just kept showing about Tsubaki and Arima's childhood days, and Watari is usually not seen in them.
I think that Watari wasn't really well used here. I think Watari is the only one who knew what was going on from the middle of the anime till the end. Be it Arima's feelings, Kaori's feelings or Tsubaki's feelings. And I think that he actually really played a crucial role in the anime, just that we don't really see that. He was the one backing up everyone.

Like in the first scene, he goes to Kousei and Tsubaki and suggested that the two of them are dating. It actually kinda shows how he knows how Tsubaki feels about Kousei, and in probably indirectly getting her to realise her feelings for him.
In the middle of the show, there were some scenes which really suggested that Watari already knows that Kaori likes Arima, not him. He also knows that Arima likes Kaori (I think everyone does). It's proven when Arima tells Watari he likes Kaori, Watari wasn't shocked at all. He really backs them up as much as he can, dragging Arima to see Kaori and things like that.

For the other supporting characters like Arima's competitors - Aiza Takeshi and Igawa Emi, even though they did play a part in helping Arima find himself, and there are many things about their childhood has a pianist, but I think that there was a lack of interaction between them and Arima outside of competitions. Of course Takeshi's character is much more developed through his younger sister - Nagi.
As for Nagi, I think that she played her part in developing the main story line, but it seems more like she had her own mini story line going on there.
For Seto, I just think that they could have showed her in the beginning (with Arima's mother, whenever possible), instead of suddenly having her jump into the story.
Overall, for the side characters, I think Tsubaki (she's kinda the main) is the only one which they paid a lot of attention to, the balance between the characters of the same level is different.

Seiyuu: 4 / 4
I have no complains about their selection of seiyuus at all. I think they were all very natural, with the exception of Hanae Natsuki (Arima's voice actor), being outstanding. I really loved his clear, low and slightly husky tone. He also does all the 'comedy' parts really well. 
Bonus: OST 
There are 2 sets of OST, the OST which was made for this anime itself, and the classical pieces they chose for this anime. Their both really really done and really very well picked up.
For the classical pieces, I thought that they really picked the piece based on the emotions which Arima was going through.

The first song, which was what Kaori played, started out slow and subtle, and then there is that sudden outburst where everything was just flashy (louder, and faster). Because we were suppose to feel that Kaori is a very flashy and reckless girl, choosing that piece really show cased that.
The 2nd song, where Arima first played together with Kaori, they chose a piece which can showcase both the piano and violin, one which the violin and piano (somewhat) have a solo part, to show the Arima hitting the keys real hard, and how Kaori tried to over shine him. There is some soft and intense part of the song which were really used to the fullest - the soft part for the beginning and the part were Arima gets lost in the deep sea (where he can't hear the notes), and the loud flashy parts for when they show their struggles.
The 3rd song, where Arima played a piece for his first competition in 2 years, they really choose a piece which wasn't as pleasing to the ear to really emphasize how reckless and unrefined his playing is, especially since he hasn't played for 2 years. The song, of course had a really gentle and nice sounding part, which was the part they played for when Arima found his new play style.
For the scene where he played together with Nagi, they chose a piece which reminded everyone of their childhood, something that most people would have come across, a track from sleeping beauty (classical ver.).

The OST for this anime was really really beautiful. After the anime, I just kept listening to the OSTs. I have actually done up a playlist of my favorite tracks. Do check it out here: http://strawberryshortcake-reviews.blogspot.com/2015/03/best-of-shigatsu-wa-kimi-no-uso-ost.html

Other:
I really liked the script for this anime. There were many things that they used a more abstract way to convey to us about the character's feelings. The tend to use shorter sentences that link together to tell us the story.

Art Ratings: 4

Honestly the animation is really pretty, but the art is just about average. 

From what I heard, they actually use motion camera to capture the motion of the pianist when she / he plays the piano, and actually animate it, which is why the finger animation on the piano was so smooth. You can tell when they actually used the 3D motion thing, because there is a difference in animation as compared to the normal 2D animation. The good thing is that it isn't as obvious as Nodame Cantabile.
I just thought that they could show us more of the fingers. Like when they show other things, while the pianist are playing the piano, they could use it as a faded background. The animation for the Sakura petals dropping and everything was really very pretty and smooth. beautiful use of animation throughout the whole anime. 

As for the art, I actually didn't really like how the art looked at first, so it took me awhile to get convinced to watch this anime. But after awhile, honestly, it didn't bother me at all. And everything just came together so beautifully. 

Similar Animes:
So first off the most similar anime: Nodame Cantabile. Their both mostly about classical music with a romance story line. But honestly, the story line itself is really very different. Shigatsu is mostly about Piano with a bit of violin. For Nodame Cantabile, it focuses on a wider change of classical like Oboe, orchestra, conducting, etc. Nodame Cantabile is a more classical intensive anime compared to shigatsu, and the story line isn't as developed or as anywhere near as beautiful as Shigatsu. Nodame Cantabile's setting is also in university, as compared to Shigatsu which is set in middle school, so there is that huge difference.

In terms of classical genre, I think that Shigatsu is a lot more similar to Piano Forest. Piano Forest, as the name suggest, focuses a lot more on piano, but they don't have that romance side to the story, it's just simply about Piano. The setting for Piano Forest sets in elementary school, which isn't really much of a difference with Middle school. The Piano scenes are also very similar to Shigatsu.

In terms of the romance, drama, sad side of Shigatsu, I would say it's similar to Clannad and Clannad after story. The build up is basically the same, very thorough development, and a sad ending. Although I must say that Clannad lacks a lot in comparison to Shigatsu. Clannad is also mainly comedy until the ending, and honestly the whole of the first 2/3 of Clannad is basically rubbish, but in order to feel the full force of the ending, you would have to watch through the whole load of rubbish.

Recommended for:

Gender: Female & Male

Age: 15 and above

My Ratings: PG

Uchouten Kazoku

Image from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/17909/Uchouten_Kazoku

Name: The Eccentric Family 有頂天家族 Uchouten Kazoku

Status: Completed

Episode: 13

Released Date (for eng subs): -

Summary:

In Kyoto, there are three kinds of residents: humans, tanuki, and tengu. Shimogamo Yasaburou is the third son of the Shimogamo tanuki family. His father, Souichirou, had been the head of Kyoto tanuki community until he was eaten by the human members of "Friday Club." While taking care of an old tengu, fighting with other tanuki, and playing with a psychic human girl, Yasaburou approaches the truth of his father's death.

Personal Ratings: 3.5

Idea: 4 / 5

The story revolves around tengu, tanuki, and humans. They stay true to the story behind tengu and tanuki. This kind of idea were people of different species co-exist isn't something rarely seen, but for anime it's usually in the form of animals together with humans or yokai together with humans. I've never seen any anime that picked up such specific beings. 

Execution

Development: 4 / 5

Honestly I don't really know what score to give this anime, because I don't really know the whole motive of this anime. So this anime is basically telling us a story revolving around the 3 species, and ultimately solving the case behind their father's death. The development at first was actually really slow, especially when they were developing Benten's character, and when it reached the peak, the truth came out and everything made sense. You can say that this whole story happens after a big incident, which was slowly brought to light in the course of Yasaburo's (the main character) daily life. There were a lot of things which I didn't understand at the beginning of the anime, but was explained and slowly unravel in the anime.

The thing about Yajiro (the 2nd brother in the family), at first I really didn't understand about him being a frog and about why he didn't know how to turn back into a tanuki. But as the story develops, it was slowly explained about how his situation was closely tied to the incident where their dad got turned into a nabe.
Then of course there is that whole mystery behind their dad's death. It stirs up curiosity in people, because they keep telling us that he is a great and strong Tanuki, and throughout the whole anime, I was just wondering why would such a great and strong Tanuki get captured and turned into Nabe.
Then there is that thing about a guy in the Friday club who loves Tanuki, but still eats them. Until the end, i just can't really understand the meaning behind that.

Emotions: 2 / 5
This show isn't really an emotional kind of anime. It's more of those type of relaxing-type anime (kind of like Natsume Yuujinchou and Mushishi). I don't think that having a lack of emotions in the anime, brings the anime down, because these type of anime has it's own beauty. I didn't really like how the character don't seem to show any emotions whenever they bring up the topic about their dead dad (they seem to casually bring it up like it's nothing). But they did showcase some form of emotions near the end of the anime, because of the nature of the story line.

The last few episodes when they were trying to kill off every other member of the Shimogamo family, it did stir up a lot of anger within me. But in general, there wasn't really any strong emotions, not even panic because it's kind of obvious that ultimately the good guys would win, and everything about be all happy.

Planning: 4 / 5
I think that overall it was pretty well planned, when the story line unfolded itself, one thing led to another (kind of like a mystery deduction going on if you asked me), and everything made sense. But I did think that they could show more planning by showing some thing more in the beginning of the show, because it seemed like everything interesting was at the back of the anime.

You can see that it was well planned about Yajirou (the 2nd brother) and his frog issue. But I actually hoped that they had shown Souun Ebisugawa's feelings towards Mother Shimogamo somewhere in the middle, other than suddenly jumping at the viewers that he actually liked her all this time.

Main character development: 2 / 5

Ok so here, I'm only going to be talking about the character development for Yasuburou. I don't think there was any development for him. He was just kind of like the same at the start to the end, at the end of the first episode, you kind of get what type of a person he is, and there wasn't really any new information after that. But than, of course through little actions, they kind of establish who he really is (although his looks just kinda gave everything away).

When he visited his frog-tanuki brother in the well, even though everyone thought he was a disgrace, you can tell that he is doesn't really care about how others view him. And he uses little excuses to spend time with his brother in the well.
He is also a very trusting guy. That time when Ebisugawa told him that Yajirou (indirectly) killed their father, he didn't believe them at first. Even though he never believed Ebisugawa (he hates them), he trusts Kaisei (is fiance). He treats people as individual beings, without judging them from their family background.

Side character development: 5 / 5
This whole anime, they really bring all the characters together and develop each character as the story goes along. Most characters are seen from the beginning to the end, or from the time they were introduced to the end, and all of the characters have some sort of relationship with each other, so they have to develop them all at the same time. But seeing all the character development is really interesting, because they have that mystery side to all of them, so it's kind of like uncovering parts of the characters.

Seiyuu: 3 / 4

Honestly, Sakurai (he plays the main character) didn't really sound very natural in this role, but somehow that oddness kinda gave the anime that kind of refreshing feel. (kind of like KENN in Kyoukai no Kanata or the kids in Barakamon.) Other than that, I really liked the rest of the seiyuu. Really loved Suwabe Junichi and Yoshino Hiroyuki here, they totally sounded so natural and compelling. 

Others:
I thought that they should have given a more thorough explanation about the relationship between the 3 species. Some people who don't really understand the abilities that Tengu and Tanuki are thought to have may have a little hard time accepting.

The thing about Kaisei, I honestly thought that they would keep her face hidden forever, which would have annoyed me (and leave a bad after taste), but they chose the right timing to show us her face.

Art Ratings: 4

The simple art really matches along with the refreshing atmosphere of the anime. Smooth animation.

Similar Animes:
Honestly I don't have any similar animes here. The overall atmosphere of the anime maybe similar, but when you look at the specifics, I don't think their similar at all, so I'm not going to mention any. 

Recommended for:

Gender: Both

Age: 13 and above

My Ratings: PG-13

Anime Rating Scheme

Changes in Review

I've actually created a template to follow and score the anime against while I'm doing my review, in order to rate the animes in the least unbiased way possible. You can view the template here. So from now on, I'll be following the template to explain more about the anime and to improve my reviews. 

I've actually made a box to show and hide specifics. This specifics may contain spoiler, so if you don't want to get spoiled please do not click on the box. 

I've also added another component which is the similar animes section. Here I would talk about the similar anime I've come across, and would tell you about how the anime is similar or how the anime is different.

I'll be using this method to write my reviews from now on. I'll try to update my old reviews to include all of this, but I'll be finishing the new reviews first. This type of review really takes up more time, so it may take longer to actually get my reviews up.

If you guys have any other things you want me to add or improve in my reviews, please do suggest them in the ask.fm box, or tweet me (either Direct message or normal tweet). 

Thanks for reading and visiting my blog :)

Recommended Anime: Spring 2015

Spring 2015

Shoujo:
Hibike! Euphonium
Nisekoi 2
*Ore Monogatari
*Owari no Seraph
Plastic Memories
Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru Zoku
Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love Revolutions


Shounen:
Arslan Senki
Baby Steps 2
Daiya no Ace 2
Denpa Kyoushi
*Shokugei Shouma


Winter 2015 (Now still on-going)

Shoujo:
-

Shounen:
*Ansatsu Kyoushitsu
Kuroko no Basuke 3


View List of Recommended animes here: http://strawberryshortcake-reviews.blogspot.com/p/recommened-animes.html

* Highly Recommended for this season (Sequels not included)

D-Frag!

Image from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/20031/D-Frag!

Name: D-Fragments! ディーふらぐ！ D-Frag!

Side Story: D-Frag! OVA

Status: Completed

Episode: 12

Release Date (for eng subs): -

Summary:

Kazama Kenji likes to believe he is something of a delinquent. Moreover, others seem to like to agree that he is. Of course, Kenji's gang finds their way to a group of four not-so-normal girls—Chitose, Sakura, Minami and Roka—and all at once, whatever reputation he may have is nothing compared to the outrageous behavior of the girls. Shanghaied into joining their club, what will happen to his everyday life from that point on?

Summary Source: MU

Summary from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/20031/D-Frag!

Personal Ratings: 2.5
I found this anime my incident when I was trying to find an anime like Chuunibyou and Inou battle wa nichijou kei no naka de (the kind of anime that talks about anime in an anime). And honestly, I got my hopes too high.

Otaku Club, Slice of Life, type of anime. Honestly, I didn't think that this anime was a comedy, and if you have been reading my reviews, you know that comedy just doesn't sit well with me.

This anime reminds me more of Sket Dance than any other anime. This is the type of anime which goes per incident, that usually lasts around 1 to 2 episodes. For me, these type of comedy anime doesn't really make me laugh due to the over emphasis and low level of realism (so usually I just sit there and watch the character being stupid).
However, I actually thought that some episodes were nice, and the ideas were pretty good (proven by me laughing at some parts).

The good thing about this anime would be keeping the main character the only normal one around (most comedy anime uses this). It makes the whole show more attractive, but I'm not too sure about the extremes. Even though having a unique personality makes the jokes easier to execute, I prefer if everyone has a normal side to them on top of their uniqueness (kind of like working!!)

There is a lack of overall planning. If you watch closely, you will find that there are some contradictions, and you can tell that they just throw in random ideas along the way and make it fit into the story. It's only possible because it's a comedy anime, and you can just throw in some lousy excuse to make it fit. 

Thought that they could have actually made use of the club activities to enhance the anime, and set a certain main theme; for example, making most episode revolve around games (since the club is about games) and since games have a huge range of ideas to choose from (e.g. computer games, board games, card games, etc) I'm pretty sure they can come up with many ideas to fit into different situations. 

Despite actually being similar to Inou battle wa nichijou kei no naka de, I thought that this anime lacked impact in comparison. Inou battle's last arc really made a lasting impression and impact on me, and even until now, whenever I think of that anime, a certain feeling pops up into my head. But for this anime, there isn't really an impactful scene of any sort.

Thought that random characters appear at random timings (e.g. the main character's sister) and other characters, other than the main characters seem to be the disposable type - whereby after using them for a certain scene or episode, they don't seemed to be used anywhere else.

This anime really doesn't go in-depth into the character's emotions. So sometimes the lack of depth really doesn't make this anime worth while. Because it becomes the kind of anime which you watch only when you really have nothing else to watch.

Art Ratings: 2.5
Acceptable art. Sometimes the eyes can look a little out of shape, but overall it was pretty ok.

Recommended for:

Gender: Both

Age: 13 and above

My Ratings: PG-13