## Technical Work

### Color Design
When I think back on the 2010s anime, one of the first things I remember is the incredibly strong use of color that A1 Pictures really helped define over the period. Works like Tsuritama, IDOLM@STER, Sword Art Online, Shelter, Anohana, and KimiUso. If there is one person responsible for this strong stylistic trend that made these shows so vibrant and lively, it's color designer Kazuko Nakashima. Directly doing the color design for works like IDOLM@STER, Shelter, and KimiUso, the styles that she used directly inspired the people that worked under her, like Yoshimura Tomoe, who after working under her as a color coordinator would go on to do the color design for works like Pleiades, Magic Kaito, and Revue Starlight. While it's hard to tell just how much the work of Kazuko Nakashima impacted this, I think it's safe to say not an insignificant amount. As for KimiUso in particular, the colors are fantastic. The colors are bright and vibrant without ever being painful to look at. Even the darker colors in shadows and wood appear rich and full. No matter what the scene itself is portraying, you can always count on the colors themselves to elevate it to another level.

### Sound Direction
Jin Aketagawa is a solid Sound Director. He, like most sound directors, has an increibly large catalog of work under his belt. Most of it, is just fine. Works like Cells at Work, No Game No Life, KinMoza, Devil is a Part-Timer, Toradora, a lot of works that, while they may be solid in their own right, aren't bolstered by amazing sound direction. Then, there are a few special ones. Girls' Last Tour, Noein, Rec, Flip Flappers, Mushoku Tensei. Works that really use the medium of sound to do something special. To elevate their work to another level. KimiUso is squarely in this camp. Relying on music and sound as a core aspect of the work itself Aketagawa really does deliver. While the highlights are clearly the minute piano sounds (that aren't the music), the rest of the surrounding environmental sounds are no slouch either. The wind rustling hair. The steps onto the stage. The rain falling. All of these are sounds that are easy enough to do, but when done *right* can really elevate a scene, a moment, a work, into something special. Aketagawa does that here.

### Music
While it's not anormal to divide up the music for the general OST of works and performance insert songs among multiple people (See: Liz and the Blue Bird) as far as I can tell, both were done by Masaru Yokoyama. For regular backing tracks, I've never really been a Yokoyama fan. His OSTs for works like Mobile Suit Gundam: IBO, Rolling Girls, Plastic Memories, Horimiya, and Fruits Basket really seem to resonate with people. I am not one of them. I generally find his tracks to be serviceable, yet nothing special. KimiUso isn't an exception to this. Largely, the tracks are bland and forgettable. They serve their purpose,  then fade away. I don't think I'm out of left field for this one either, as the songs everyone loves in KimiUso are the performances. I think those are significantly better than the OST, but I can't say I'm enamored with them. Of the works I've seen that use instrumental inserts as a way of conveying story, I think KimiUso is one of the weakest. I don't think it has the profound emotional impact of Liz, the transformative energy of On-Gaku, the expressiveness of Inu-Oh, or the catharsis of Aki no Kanade. Don't get me wrong, they're still good. Professionally performed classical pieces tend to be good, and this is no exception, but I don't think that the works themselves were elevated to an as of yet unseen degree, nor did they carry the storytelling on their back like some others.

## Storytelling
KimiUso was not an anime that was made for me. It was generally pretty clear from the show's general ideas, that I was not its target audience. I tend to not like high school romance anime. I even more tend to not like love triangles. Music is alright, but only when it's executed in an interesting way, and I don't think it really was. I mentioned it a bit earlier, but KimiUso plays it safe in most aspects, most of the time. Its characters are built off of tropes, and the dialogue is derivative of them too. Its foreshadowing is painfully obvious and impossible to miss. The symbolism is blatant and in your face. I don't think there were risks taken at any point in this series production. No point where the creators just left the audience to figure out their own interpretation. To bring a bit of a comparison, Liz and the Blue Bird is another anime that makes heavy use of live performances in order to convey ideas about the characters stories, emotions, and lives. The writing sets up the dominos, and the performance knocks them down. KimiUso doesn't do this. Even during those climactic performances, they're interrupted and explained over by side characters telling you what to listen for. There's no *risk* there, and there's no payoff as a result. As for its larger themes, there's nothing new there either. The themes of "Making the most of your limited days," "Challenging yourself in the face of struggle," and, "Never giving up the fight against yourself," are tried and true. I have nothing against those themes, but when you're up against stuff as heavy hitting and character driven as Gurren Lagann, Touch, and Ashita no Joe, you really need to bring your A-game, and KimiUso really doesn't. As for its specific implementation of those ideas, that's where my big problem lies.

## My Big Issue
I have many issues with KimiUso that I won't touch on here. I think this should explain the general nature of the complaints I have to a degree that I shouldn't need to touch on the others. But before I go into it, there is something that I want to say. I read in a review that I now can't find (Possibly [here](https://magicplanetanime.design.blog/)) that mental health is a tough thing to adapt. Everyone's experience with mental health is different. Something that could be salient, impactful, and resonant to me could seem illogical, basic, or just wrong to you. Your perception of everything you see is based on the context that you've acquired over your years of life, and the same applies for me. It's because of that I do my best never to call something unrealistic. To never minimalize someone's experience or connection with a work. There's context there that I don't know, and can never know. The best thing I can do is try to understand. So when I say that to those people who have found this show meaningful, impactful, and life-changing, I'm genuinely happy for you. I'm glad that the emotions and ideas of the work have managed to carry themselves from the creator to you in a way you find profound. It is with that in mind that I wish to explain some context of my own. The experiences that have shaped my life, and the way I look at the core ideas in this work. If you don't want to hear that context, just skip to the end, I don't blame you. [KimiUso] ||There are two big things that have colored my perception of this series' ideas. Mainly, my experience with depression and anxiety, and my background growing up in the military. To start, Kousei clearly has PTSD. His symptoms, the way they're presented, and the way the story makes use of them builds it up as such. Growing up in the military, I have been exposed to many people suffering from PTSD. To see someone completely lose themselves into an idea in their head that they can't get rid is painful. To watch them pushed to their breaking point from innocuous acts, to see the fruitless habits they can't get rid of, is a real humbling experience. I will never know what was going through the heads of all the veterans that have committed suicide, but I have done my best to emphasize with them and relate them to my own experience. I never had PTSD, but my depression and anxiety manifested in ways that I found relatable to Kousei. The internal desire to do more, but the mental roadblocks holding you back is one of the things that I struggled with most of all. The difference is in how I got out of it. Kousei got out of his PTSD with both Kaori's insistence to "just do it" and an understanding of the circumstances of his mother that pushed him to that point. I didn't have someone that was the cause of my issues. I just had myself to reason with, but I did have people trying to push me out of my comfort zone. People trying to break that mental roadblock with sheer effort. The idea of "Just do it" was instilled to me by just about everyone close to me. It was that idea and my inability to "Just do it" that led me to attempt suicide myself. I'm still here, and I just about got over it with a combination of prescriptions, therapy, media, and a complete restructuring of my life, but that single idea, the one this show presents so strongly in the face of Kousei's opposition, is one that I really can't sit with. I don't think this is necessarily what they were going for. I don't think Arakawa himself would say to bring all of the PTSD suffering veterans to a fireworks display, but it's still something that I can't sit with. This was just one example, but I don't think I really need to go over the rest to get my point across.||

## Conclusion
I don't like Your lie in April. It wasn't made for me. Its execution, while pretty at points, is ultimately basic and shallow. It's ideas aren't fresh or novel and they aren't presented in a way that's new, interesting, or novel. It plays it safe at every point, making it mass market accessible, yet never pointedly impactful. And if you do decide to take a peek into the deeper ideas it builds its shallowness upon, I find it to be at best, reductive and basic, and at worst, genuinely harmful to the people who may relate to this the most. I have nothing against the people to whom this really did connect in a meaningful way, especially since its mass market structure was made to do that, but I didn't.