Your Lie in April - An anime review

Hey!

I recently, by which I mean about three days ago or so, finished the anime "Your Lie in April" or "Shigatsu ha Kimi no Uso". However you want to call it. I know it has been out for quite some time now, but I didn't really have time to watch it, when it first came out.

It was produced by A1-Pictures and ran from October 9th 2014 until March 19th 2015 on Fuji TV. 

It also got an OVA, which was produced by A1-Pictures and was first released on March 15th 2015.

Summary:
The story mainly revolves around Arima Kousei, who is famous among child pianists for dominating all of the competitions when he was a kid. After his mother, who was also his instructor, died, when he was only twelve, Kousei had a mental breakdown at a piano competition and as a result wasn't able to hear the sound of his piano anymore, even though nothing was wrong with his hearing. 
After not touching a piano for two years, developing a monochrome worldview and resigning himself to living his life only with his two best friends, Tsubaki and Watari, at his site the meeting with one girl changes everything for him.
Kaori Miyazono, a light-hearted, fourteen-year old violinist, whose playing style perfectly reflects her personality, helps Kousei return to music and shows him that music can be free and unconventional unlike the structured style Kousei was used to playing. 

The anime is pretty light-hearted in general, but it can also get serious and sad sometimes. But I won't go into detail about that and I won't spoiler anyone who hasn't seen it yet. 

I really liked this anime, because, first of all it's pretty hilarious and second of all, the music is so amazing. I personally really like classical music as I play the piano myself. 
I'm not that good though, because I don't have a lot of experience yet, but my musical abilities aren't really the point here.

Characters:
I think that the characters are great and very well made as they all have their own personality and background, even the side characters. I've seen some anime before, where they didn't give the side characters much thought, which made it a bit boring as they all seemed very similar to each other. 
I would say that the music is one of the most important parts of this anime, I mean it revolves around exactly that so...

Music & Animation
Music, in this anime is, as I already said before, one of the most important things. In my opinion the music always fit the scenes and the current mood that the characters were in at the time. I also really liked the pieces that were played during the competitions, which the characters took part in. 
The animation is really pretty and I feel like it fits the whole setting of the anime very well. 

This is the the anime trailer, which was released by Aniplex.

A Live Action movie is planned to come out on September 10th 2016 in Japan.

It features Suzu Hirose as Miyazono Kaori and Yamazaki Kento as Arima Kousei. 

This is the trailer for it.

I would really recommend this anime to everyone who likes classical music or music in general. It's really funny and I enjoyed it.

Tell me if you liked it when you watched it and tell me what you think about the upcoming Live Action movie too. I'll probably watch it when it comes out and then judge it. I hope it's gonna be good though.

Anna

Harmony - An anime critique / review

Hey there!!

Only a week ago I watched a movie called "Harmony", which is based on the novel by Satoshi Itoh or "Project Itoh". It was made by Studio 4°C and was first released in Japan on November 13th 2015.  As far a I know there is no specific release date for Germany yet, but it's said to come out in late fall or so. I'm not sure though.

For everyone who hasn't seen the movie yet, Harmony is set in a future world, where, after the so-called "Maelstrom", a time period, where nuclear war and disease plagued and destroyed almost the whole world, everything concerning health and society is controlled by "admedicstration" facilities. Nanotechnology, in the form of "Watch Me", a technology, which is implanted at birth, is used, to allow a better living. It makes sure that potential harm, in any form, is avoided. 
But in Japan, there a three young girls, Tuan Kirie, Miach Mihie and Cian Reikado, who, with their decision to refuse food and medication, give life to an incredible protest against this so-called "perfect" society. Yet, only Miach, succeeds in fulfilling their plans and commits suicide. 

Tuan, thirteen years later, works for the World Health Organization as a "Helix Agent", fleeing the society she still hates, through her work, traveling to conflict areas all over the world, as the "Helix Agents" belong to an international medial police force.
The faithful meeting she has with Cian after all these years gives start to an investigation in which, all the truths and threats behind the "perfect" world are to appear. 

Because, I got really interested in the setting and the story, when I first heard about Harmony, I actually took the time to read the book before the movie came out, which I know probably not a lot of people from, at least the western audience, have. I just wanted to say this before I get to my actual review / critique.
And btw. if you're German or so you can go and check out my German review here:
https://proxer.me/info/10524#top
You might have to scroll down a bit until you find it. (Username: AnnaPerenna)

These are the two covers of the book. On the right, the English one and on the left the Japanese one. I like them both, but I feel like the Japanese one is a bit more artistic then the English one, which is a bit simpler.  

Under them both I put the key visual for the movie, which, I also like, yet the only thing that's bothering me is the message it's giving.

So, now let's get down to the actual review. In general, I think that the movie wasn't bad, but I think I also had pretty high expectations for it, given that I read the book and was more than amazed by it.

Story: 
They didn't change anything about the story, which I liked because that kept it very true to the original. I also liked how they managed to explain the plot, which can be confusing at times, so well in only 2 hours. The only thing I might have to criticize, but that's just nitpicking, is that, in my opinion, the ending, which plays an important part in the book, was kept to short. It missed a bit of an explanation for what had happened, but as I said that's just nitpickingg.

Characters: 
This is something I will have to criticize heavily. Most of the characters were fine, except for some minor things, that I personally, might have perceived differently when reading the book. The only character I really want to criticize, is Miach Mihie. She was the only character, who was completely different from how she was portrayed in the book. In the book she is portrayed as a strong, loud, confident and smart girl who could be a bit opinionated from time to time. (She was also always a little bit crazy.)  She just seemed like some one, who would, no matter what, fight for what they believed in, yet in the movie she seemed so quiet, a bit fragile and to me, also a bit arrogant, which is just so different from how she was described in the book.

Music & Animation:
The music was nice, but it certainly didn't stick out, but it fit the scenes it was put in pretty well. I really liked the ending, but I'm in general a fan of EGOIST, so yeah. 
The movie was animated in a 3D kind of style, which I think fit pretty well with the setting and the story. I really liked the pictures of the landscapes at the end, because they looked very realistic. 

Key Visual:
When I was talking about the message that the key visual was giving, I was talking about how in the movie they made it that Miach and Tuan are falling in love with each other, which I don't have anything against in general. I just think that, for the story it was unnecessary, but what actually bothers me more about this is that in the book nothing like this was even mentioned. 

In general I think that the movie wasn't bad, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it though. I would much rather recommend the book, which in my opinion is better than the movie. 

Tell me what you thought of the movie, if you've seen it and also tell me if you knew that there was a book and if you've read it.

Anna

Starting

Well, hello there!

My name's Anna and I'm from Austria. No, not Australia. Austria. We're not the ones with the kangaroos and we also don't have a sea, which would actually be great though. I just get that a lot from people from outside of Europe. 

Because this is my first post on this blog it's first of all gonna be pretty short and second of, I just wanted to talk about what I will be posting on here. 

I am a huge anime nerd, music lover, book worm and I love traveling, exploring other cultures and also their cuisines.
I will probably talk about my favourite anime, bands/singers, books and I will also talk about a lot of the countries I've been to or wanna go to. 

I might also review some of the anime I've seen or rant about some of them. Music-wise I'm open to almost everything. I've come to enjoy K-Pop,
J-Pop, J-Rock and also Alternative Rock the most, in the last few years.
I'm a huge fan of fantasy books and that's also the genre I prefer reading over anything else. (Which kind of fits with my zodiac sign, as pisces are said to be dreamers and fantasy fans.)

So if anything of this is of your interest, I would be happy to have you as my reader. 

Anna