In-Depth Anime Review with Every Bite! © - Your Lie in April

Here we go again.

We're going to have a pretty strong/lengthy start here, so brace yourself for an extended ride.
I'd like to talk a little more in depth about an anime I checked out a few yesternights ago called
Your Lie in April.

Your Lie in April, written by Naoshi Arakawa, started as a manga serialized and published on Kodansha. Just googled Naoshi Arakawa hoping it'd be a hot chick but it's a dude with a bowl cut. Aw man.

"Arakawa master of heart string tugging and bowl cuts, also fervent dabbler in not being a chick."

Anywho, the anime was release early 2015, and I, as of now writing this I today on 2/21/2016 at 8:10 PM, am now just watching it. My only regret in life is not catching it sooner, but better late than never right? So I don't actually regret it all too much. Sorry. Tangents. 

Anywho, the show starts off with our less-than-excited hero Kousei Arima working on transcribing some music. The writers do a pretty good job of introducing the characters with a little exposition; his best friend Watari being a total pimp and the energetic childhood best friend. We don't meet our pushy, free-spirited heroine until later in the episode where she is seen blowing a on a piano pipe contraption. I can't be bothered to look it up, sorry. 

The story rest of the story is a light-hearted(well, some of it) romp through several arcs pertaining usually to a competition. The show's development contains multiple themes of death, grievances, as well as new beginnings and finding oneself through your passion and through relationships. A pretty damn good majority of the show's story managed to resonate with me. In the not-long-enough span of 22 episodes, I enjoyed laughing, as well as crying, with the characters as they go through a few turbulence on their journey; holding close with them some very human characteristics that were, in my opinion, realistic portrayals of the situation and how it can affect the individual physically as well as mentally. Feelings of joy, loneliness, loss, and fear of the unknown, were explored almost exhaustively through the 24 minute episodes; a somber tribute to life itself, the show is a reminder that good experiences, as well as the bad, can be beautiful struggles that mature the soul. How even the worst situation can shine a million times over if you just have people you care about. This shocked me and my shriveled, old heart. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I felt like I learned how it feels to love again. Not something I like to express everyday, but this showed compelled me to. Damn you show.

:)

The art was something that nagged at me. Coming from a manga, I'm glad they maintained the style of the original source. However, for an anime, this transition is not so solid and does not appeal to some people; by some people I mean me. I wish for an art style like this, big eyes and visible thin, lips, to stay in mangas. It just works for it. But I would hate it if they changed it so I'm having a lot of mixed feelings in the bag. The good of it, however, are the backgrounds. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. The colors were used vibrantly in the first couple of episodes. Rightly so, as it maintains the more lighter half of the events. Later on, colors will be used rather cliche-ly to represent the mood and even state of being of characters. Cliche is not always bad; however, later down the road it sort of choreographs events untold. I don't mind foreshadowing, but the show does a huge no-no and drops too much foreshadowing. Every other episode I was reminded which took away some of the impact of the ending for me.

"Picture to narrate my point"

Back to the positive. Something very opaque about an anime about music are the sounds. Let me tell you, this show definitely delivers status quo. From the exuberant, hopeful tune of the main song titled "Your Lie in April", to the more somber, but weirdly uplifting song "Again", to the wonderful opening songs done by wonderful people; objective one after I finished this show was the find the soundtrack. Of course, not all songs strike home, but the ones that do have such an impact aurally as well as visually; by visually I mean as you watch the anime, no you can't see music unless you have perfect pitch or are an x-men. I can recall several times in the show when I was just watching when suddenly I am a huge babby crying babby tears. The timing is just perfect. Fucking audio crew, showing emotion is for newborns please don't make me cry ever again. 

The show has some downs. A few cliches here and there at parts where I wasn't supposed to laugh made me laugh, as well as the sad attempts from Japanese voice actors singing in engrish made me chuckle a good bit. However, cuddled with a memorable narrative, realistic characters, and an amazing, impacting soundtrack easily lets me recommend this to anyone wanting a story with heart.

"Crying like a baby" out of 10.

As for my other portion of the week, I watched more Dagashi Kashi finally. It seems to release in two week intervals? Wtf. Sorta lame, but I already caught up on most of the manga so whatever. Sad part is that I can't read past chapter 35 cuz this shit is licensed. Lame.

I also watched How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. It's entertaining. Really clever starting out the season with some fourth-wall breaking fan service; these kind of jokes pop up through out the season. The tropes are a strong point. It's about a guy having a visual novel event unfold before him in real life, and now he wants to make a game about it. Some really good waifus here, you should give it a three episode run and see for yourself.

Other than that, my week has been filled with homework and work. Nothing too exciting right now, other than filling my free time with Street Fighter V and ErgoProxy. I'll probs review ErgoProxy next. I preordered Disgaea on PC, and bought some DLC for Pillars of Eternity. Spent wayy too much money on that, but whatever. Should be good. I wanted to do an LP on Danganronpa, but the visual novel style might be too much for me to stay enthusiastic about. Anywho, let's rap this up. 

Goals: 

*Finished Your Lie in April

(x)Did not renew my drivers license on account of it going to expire in 2 years. wtf DPS.

*Finished next lesson's quiz

(x)Did not get to do a Let's Play this week; botched a recording session by recording in the wrong format :( Oh well, at least I learned. 

*Made a post, got in contact with a few people. 

(x)Did not go out for a run, I am simply lazy. Also really busy :(
*But hey! Apparently I'm eating healthier since I lost 16 pounds. Like what the fuck, that's not even healthy. I'll check again. OH I also bought a scale so booyah. 

(x)Did not apply for University of Virginia on account of needing some academic reccomendations- Actually, just did some snooping and I am not even close to finishing. Shit.

Next week(?): 

*Apply for University of Texas

*Release another Let's Play
*Do some marketing

*Look into some colleges
*Lose two pounds
*Go for a two runs

*Finish next quiz
*Watch some ErgoProxy

*Work through some of Yakuza 5
*Work on making english lyrics for Kirameki

And that's it. I won't be posting next week, SO DON'T LOOK FOR ME

I'm really disappointed with all the X's of last week, but I'll make up for it with a sterling next week performance. Alright homies, stay real. B-rye out.

As always, with much love.

Half Read

As of now, I am sitting on my computer with at least 200 pages of textbook to read due by next Monday. As of now, I have at least finished my Calculus homework and I have succumbed to deeply rooted feelings of not wanting to do shit. The forbidden word: Procrastination. College game strong. Remember kids, stay in school.

This week I did a lot of hullabaloo. As in work is going to start kicking up and now I'll have less free time.

:(

On the brightside, I did finish Beyond the Boundary. The ending(?) is a little odd, and I even read up fan speculation. SPOILERERERER Apparently Akihito willed Mirai back into existence. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK OF NEXT AHAHAHA What obviously happened was that, during his free time, Akihito actually consulted that of a higher being's advice. They they formed a contract and Akihito became a magical girl. Not actually sure why he did that, he begins questioning his existence while walking down the world's biggest spiral staircase when a girl fell from the sky. Many captions and solid backgrounds later, he is now sought after from a loli harem. And THEN Akihito willed Mirai back into existence. YOU NAIVE FOOLS AHAHHAHA SPOILER EN.... D

Other than that, show is full of 5 Centimeters Per Second level backgrounds. I'm tempted to make a wallpaper set after writing this. I know I talked a lot of shit about Mirai, but I now love her. She has a bonsai tree blog. Bloggers in arms. <3 What a great character tic. Hiroome is S tier, too. I am proud to say that a lot of the characters have grown on me. Not to mention the story is actually really bad ass. I love the misdirection through the whole plot, the ending got to me pretty well. I'm normally on point with predicting stories, but this one sorta came out of no where.

On the other side of the spectrum, I also managed to see Deadpool with my coworkers. I honestly did not expect to love it as much as I did, but holy shit was it great. Good job Ryan Reynolds. Good job writers. Good job guy at bar who I don't know. Might go see it a second time, possibly with the bestie. It's a fun movie for the whole family.

I made a visit to one of my friend's house, and I caught my other friend playing a game. It wasn't running on a fantastic framerate, as his laptop had the processing power of a hamster on a wheel, but the game was so PRETTY. Pretty enough to convince me to buy it as soon as I reached my humble abode. Everything, I believe, is hand drawn. The majority of it all is 2D sprites, but oh god its just done so well. Oh, yeah, and the game is Ori and the Blind Forest. Haven't gotten all that far (23%), but the platforming is done so well. It's a metroidvania kind of game; it controls a little wonky at first, but once you get some upgrades you will probably never stop moving. I say probably because who knows, you might have to stop to itch your nose or something. POINT BEING is that it really flows. I will most likely do a Let's Play of it.

Speaking of Let's Plays, I started a new one. Let me go fetch it. Just a sec. A moment more.

.. here it is.

Please check it out lmao

also subscribe
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This week is really game heavy. I have a social life, no really.

I bought IMSCARED as well. It was $3.99, bite me. The game is really good. Well, I wouldn't know since I've only ever played the first 5 minutes of it before it crashes! What the hell! But now there's a folder on my desktop that says 'imscared'. This game is fucking malware! Beware! And check it out on gamejolt for free. The experience is really awesome; copy pasta in game format. It WORKS man.

I'm trying to make the most out of my free time, but it's been taken up lately by a lot of life events and flags. I'll be watching Your lie in April next and post about it next week.

I've been taking vocal lessons for the past uhhhhh two years? I feel like I've been really improving. On top of that, this semester I thought I'd try taking guitar lessons. My teacher is pretty rad. He seems like a stoner (please god do not let him stumble on to this), but he's taught me a lot in the four weeks I've been taking his class. I'm excited. He tells me I'm a really good student and I have a lot of potential to be 'damned good'. OoooOoOoooo He's much better than my last music teacher. Anyways, that's pretty much it.

I went to Seoul Garden as well. Just a quickie. Stopped by and found out a majority of their waitresses are asian pop stars. During the day at least. I'm crushing on one of them pretty hard.

HERE WE GO (weekly goal time)
*Finished Beyond the Boundary
*Read the guide. I'm a bit more knowledgeable now.
*Looked into applying to an out of state university, University of Virginia. Reminds me of the times when my ex made fun of me for wanting to go to Virginia. You know, place of Virgins ahahahahahaha haha haha. Ha. Anyways I cheated I did this today lmao
*Finished the QUIZ BALLLIN now I have to do another one :(
*Recorded and released a video. I'm getting kind of hooked on doing Let's Plays. Would be nice for people to watch them.
(x)didnt run at all :( muh free time excuses etc etc


Next week:
*Finish Your Lie in April
*Renew my driver's license
*Finish next lesson's quiz ;_;
*Record and release another Let's Play
*Get started on forming a collab (post a thread)
*Go out for a run
*Eat healthier, possibly buy a scale
*Apply for University of Virginia

I'll add some more if I can think of some.

OH
The week after next I might not be posting. On account of something secret. I'll show it to you all later. Huehuehuehuehue

As always, thanks for checking in. I hate to see you go, but I suppose it's that time, right?
Love you, reader. Happy Valentine's Day.

A Purple Haze

This week was brought you by these sponsors!

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Maybe one day I can replace those dashes with actual names. For now, lonely place holders. No more time wasted, it's time to get back to our weekly overtly, long winded reading event!

I went to a Philosophy Club meeting this week. I really enjoyed it, albeit a lot of the stuff going over my head. I felt that everyone was really well read on the subject, and I just happened to green horn my way into a meeting just to listen. It was really fun, though. Of course, thought provoking questions were asked.. and asked.. and asked. Which is the fun part of philosophy I suppose. Never really a definite answer, but a dimly lit light to seek out your own truth. You can quote me on that.

The meeting itself was about 'cultural relativity'. When the topic came up, nothing really came to mind. However, when the other club members started participating, my mind was slowly spinning faster from all the insights. I could get into the topic here, but that would be a whole post in of itself. I implore you to try going to a meet one day; the whole thing opens up a horizon of thought not normally ventured.

Something else I've been really into lately is Dagashi Kashi. I'm not sure what I like about it even; it's a show about various candies and how they play with them. On the surface anyways. Anything deeper, it'd be a pseudo romcom? The show so far hasn't show any kind of advancement with plot, though.  I like it so much that I'm reading the manga now, what the hell is going on here. Get out your economical whips, for I am a slave to marketing.

Another show I've decided to try out is Beyond the Boundary. Kyoto Animation lend its distinct style, the show is actually coming to be one of my favorites I've seen this year. They could definitely chill on making Mirai super 'cute-sey', but the story is very well paced, although the separate arcs could be a tad longer. The characters fill a trope in almost satirical way, which really lends itself with the humor. I am half-way with this series, as of now writing this I am on episode eight. I may or may not finish this tonight, as I do have other things to do; but I feel that when I eventually finish it, I'll seek out this series in different forms of media. In other words, I really like it so far.

I love this so much.

Other than that, I've decided to pick up a new game. Picked it up a couple of weeks ago and finally got to trying it. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you this three year old game! That's right, it's Final Fantasy XIV! Good guess reader. Only a few years late to the party, my love for this game has blossomed like a flower two or three years late for the season. Having played for about a week now, I'm sitting on a level 21 or 23 Marauder. I've never played a tank before, and I wish the game told me it was a tank class, but tanking is surprisingly fun. In dungeons, it's like you've chosen yourself to be leader, and I know I'm stating the obvious role here, but it's really exciting setting the pace for a dungeon. I've been invited to a Free Company called Sapphire Guard, and so far the community has been tops in this game. The only thing that annoys me is content locking through questing. Other than that, it's a blast. The two or three of you reading this, please join me.

And that was my week in a nutshell. Thank god, it was much shorter this time around, usually I'm burnt out by the time I reach.. eehhh.

I'll touch on something a bit more personal, too. Lately, stress has been a common topic in my head. Stress from school. Stress from work. Stress from living at home with the parentals. Stress stress stress. The way I cope with that stress is usually through hobbies like gaming and anime, or through my own creative freedom. Inserting myself into what I do is almost a form of escapism, I'm embarrassed to admit. I kind of hate putting that stuff on here, but I promised myself this thing, and anything else I choose to create, would be a sincere reflection of myself and the going-ons within my creative thought. With that said, I just wanted to type down what I think/feel for just a few lines, if you don't mind. I won't hold it against you(a lot) if you close the page and look at porn or something instead. Actually, I'd prefer it if you don't look haha.

I hate the way things are right now. My hate stems from anger, and anger usually stems from fear. What am I afraid of? A lot of things. But mostly losing control. I spelling will deter from here on out, so please try not to mind it. (wasn't that great in the first place) What scares me the most is the future. Lately, I've been shaken. My plans, I fear, might or might not come to fruition after all, and I'll end up at a dead end job. My boss and a lot of other people show me that going to school is sort of pointless. And I'm scared. Scared that I'm not getting the respect I deserve. I work too hard at my workplace, and at times when I feel like I'm being stepped on, I feel the victim mentality coming in and anger whelms me. I hate it. I'm scared. Scared of time passing by. There are scarier things than monsters, I've found out, and you can find it really close by.  I'm doing the best I can, but things just never seem to go all that well. My trust lately has been trampled on. Friends, coworkers, family even, it's amazing. I'm finding it a little harder to trust people, and to face this is something that is truly depressing.

I'm sure many people feel this way. I'm not alone at all. On the bright side, I could be way worse off. I could be dead, but I'm alive. I'm alive to feel all these things, and this can only amplify this feeling. Being sad is how your body tells you you're alive. I've felt the dread of almost dying on a few occasions. It feels like absolute abandonment. Even so, we just have to buckle up for the ride and carry on. Smell a few bed of roses. You don't have a lot of time to do so.

And that's it. I'm sorry to be really depressing. I hope you look up cute, funny pet videos after this. 

Actually, I owe it to you.

Goals:
*Applied for a scholarship. yay

*Looked into a few exchange programs. It costs to apply. Yippee.

*Practiced guitar at home. Reminds me, I should do that today as well.

(x)Did not get to do any vocal practices. I was a little busy, but shoot :(
*Looked up on starting a band. I have an idea on what I want to do.
(x) Did not go for any runs. I was super lazy, but damn.

Next week:

*Finish Beyond the Boundary

*Read the Growth Guide (for what? secret ;) )

*Look into applying for Virginia University, possibly apply

*Finish first quiz for my USHist2 class

*Record and release another video
*Go out for 2 runs

And there we have it. Might update my goals for this week if I remember something.
As always, with much love, thanks for reading.
Love ya.