Your Lie in April is a romantic drama manga and anime about love and loss, music and soul, and also depression and happiness. It’s very much a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who has to deal with the harsh reality of losing a parent at a young age, learn how to forgive himself for the mistakes he made and move on after her death. The two leading characters are opposites who complement one another, bringing out one another’s best qualities.
The manga was written and illustrated by Naoshi Arakawa and ran from 2011-2015. The anime was produced by A-1 Pictures Inc. and originally aired from 2014-2015. There was also a live-action movie starring Kento Yamazaki and Suzu Hirose. The anime can be found on Crunchyroll.
Your Lie in April is filled with talented musicians who perform with great skill, which makes it difficult to determine who is the most skilled. Most of the performers were inspired to venture into the world of music by Kōsei Arima, while Kōsei himself becomes inspired by Kaori Miyazono.
Determining who is the most skilled performer is all a matter of personal opinion. All the characters are extremely talented and whoever the performers are in real life should be praised.
Takeshi Aiza
Takeshi is a talented pianist who has always been second best to Kōsei. His dream is to surpass his friendly rival, but also pushes Kōsei to be his best and wants him to return after Kōsei gives up performing. Theirs is the kind of rivalry that makes people better.
Takeshi is a very powerful pianist who commands the attention of anyone who listens to him. Instead of someone like Kōsei, who can be in tune with Beethoven, Takeshi is reminiscent of Billy Joel or Elton John, great pianists who are also great performers. If he was a real person, he could easily perform in a rock band.
Emi Igawa
Emi has a calm, collected, almost emotionless bearing … until she sits down at a piano. She completely transforms, playing piano with passion and intensity. Like the others on this list, she was inspired by Kōsei, but is much more expressive.
Just listening to her performance and one can tell she loves to perform. Watching her perform is even better, because the viewers can see that she performs with her whole body, feeling the music and believing every single note she plays.
Kōsei Arima
Kōsei is a music prodigy who suffers from a mental breakdown following the death of his mother, an abusive woman who died after he told her he wished she would die. His breakdown caused him to not be able to hear the sounds of the piano. Suffering from severe depression, Kōsei refuses to play the piano until he meets the free-spirited Kaori. She inspires him to come out of his bubble and perform again.
Kōsei is a pianist who is technically flawless. He is a fantastic performer who plays every single note with perfection. While competition judges love his impeccable performances, he kind of fades into the background when performing side-by-side with Kaori, who is more expressive and commands the stage.
Kaori Miyazono
Kaori is the type of musician who feels the music with her soul and is completely mesmerizing on the stage. A violinist who was inspired to play an instrument after seeing Kōsei perform when she was only five years old, Kaori’s desire was to perform with her idol one day. After meeting Kōsei, she shows him and the viewers the power of performing, not just to win competitions, but for the love of it.
Kaori is like singers who take an already great song and give it their own unique flair, making it even better. While Kōsei is technically flawless, he performs music exactly as its written, while Kaori gives new life to old music.
They are all essentially performing cover songs. To put this into perspective, if they were all singers, the others would be singing karaoke. Meanwhile, Kaori takes ownership of the song she is performing, gives it her unique twist and makes it her own. That is why Kaori is the most skilled performer in the anime.