Your Lie in April

is a Japanese manga series. It was created by Naoshi Arakawa. It was released from 2011 until 2015. Your Lie in April is about a pianist and a violinist that perform together, changing each other's life.

An anime television series was released in 2014 and 2015 and a live-action movie was released in 2016.

Plot
Kōsei Arima is a piano prodigy. He won many music competitions when he was young and became famous because of this. His mother was a cruel piano teacher. She died and Kōsei had a mental breakdown while playing the piano. Because of this, he can't hear the sound of his piano even though his hearing is fine.

After two years, Kōsei has not played the piano and he sees the world in monochrome. He keeps living his life with his friends Tsubaki and Watari. He meets Kaori Miyazono, a fourteen-year-old violinist that plays very freely. Kaori helps Kōsei play music again. Kōsei knows that he loves her, but she already likes Watari. Kaori forces Kōsei to do a performance with her. Kaori suddenly collapses after the performance and was sent to the hospital. Kaori tells Kōsei that she is anemic but this is a lie. She had collapsed many times before when she was younger.

When Kaori comes back from the hospital, she invites Kōsei to play at a Gala with her. Kaori doesn't show up on the day of the Gala. As her health gets worse, she begins to give up on life and wants to kill herself. Kousei helps her keep going by playing a duet with Nagi Aiza, the sister of a fellow rival of his. After this, Kaori chooses to have a dangerous surgery that will kill her if it fails, just so that she can play with him one more time.

Kaori dies because of the surgery. Kōsei gets a letter from Kaori that is given to him by her parents at her funeral. The letter says that she was in love with Kōsei the whole time, and she lied that she liked Watari. She did this to get closer to him while not hurting Tsubaki's (who also has a crush on Kōsei) feelings.

Characters

 & Piano performance by: Tomoki Sakata
Kōsei is a child prodigy in playing the piano. He was called the "Human Metronome" because of this. a product of his mother's overly strict methods of teaching. The way he played the piano helped him win many competitions in Japan. When his mother died, he could not hear the music he played on the piano. He stopped playing the piano after that. Two years later, he began playing the piano again because Kaori forced him to become her accompanist.

 & Violin performance by: Yūna Shinohara
Kaori is Tsubaki's classmate. She plays the violin. The judges for music competitions don't like her playing (because she does not play what is written on the sheet music) but the audience likes her playing. Kaori met Kōsei when she first met up with Watari. She helps Kōsei play the piano again. At the end of the anime, it is shown that she liked Kōsei, not Watari.

Tsubaki is Kōsei's friend and neighbour. She plays many sports. She keeps trying to make Kōsei play the piano again. She falls in love with Kōsei at the end of the anime.

Ryōta is Kōsei's and Tsubaki's friend. He is very popular with girls. Kaori was his girlfriend, which made Kōsei jealous. Kōsei later tells him about his feelings for Kaori, and he gives him advice.

Takeshi is a pianist that is the same age as Kōsei. He always wanted to be better than Kōsei at playing the piano. Kōsei was Takeshi's hero.

Emi is a pianist that is the same age as Kōsei. She began playing the piano after hearing Kōsei play the piano. She also enters the same competitions as Kōsei.

Nagi is Takeshi's little sister. She asked to be taught by Hiroko but became Kōsei's student. She falls in love with Kōsei.

Saki was Kōsei's mother. She was very strict. After she found out that she was sick, she began teaching him as much as she could so that he could play in Europe.

Hiroko is a famous pianist. She found out that Kōsei could play the piano so well. When Kōsei began playing the piano again, she became his teacher.

Production
The series was originally a Japanese manga. The first volume was released on 16 September 2011 in Japan. The last volume was released on 15 May 2015 in Japan. The manga was released in North America on 21 April 2015. Another manga came out called Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. It was included with the anime Blu-ray.

A-1 Pictures released the anime television series for Your Lie in April starting on 10 October 2014. It ended on 20 March 2015. The music for the anime was made by Masaru Yokoyama.

A movie for Your Lie in April was released on 10 September 2016.

References

Other websites
 Your Lie in April at Kodansha
 Official website for the anime
 Official website for the movie 
 

Japanese movies
2016 movies
Japanese-language movies