Your Lie in April
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (四月は君の嘘, Your Lie in April) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoshi Arakawa. It was serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Shonen Magazine from 2011 to 2015 (with 11 volumes), and it also got: a 22-episodes anime series in 2014-2015, an OAV in 2105, a light novel, a live-action film and a stage play.
Kousei "Human Metronome" Arima used to be a prodigy piano player, but at a very high cost: his mother Saki was extremely severe on him as he practiced, to the point of abusing him mentally and physically. And when she died of illness, Kousei mentally collapsed. Two years after this, the 15-year-old Kousei hasn't played again and simply lives his life with his best friends, the prospect soccer player Ryouta Watari and his next-door neighbor Tsubaki Sawabe...
Enter Kaori Miyazono, a promising violinist with a very spirited attitude. She decides to bring Kousei back to the world of music via making him play again, but changing his once-mechanical approach to music into a more free.spirited one, which may mend the wounds in his heart. But Kaori has her own issues, especially concerning her health and something she said to Kousei...
- Abusive Parents: Saki Arima mixes this with Education Mama. Subverted in that she did not start that way: she once was a very sweet mom, but became this after being diagnosed with her ultimately lethal illness and becoming desperate as a result.
- Accidental Pervert: In the first chapter, Kousei ends up taking a photo of Kaori... when she is standing over a dome on a public park just when the wind lifts her skirt.
- Book Ends: Chapter 10 begins and ends with characters piggybacking each other after one hurt his feet, but the situation is inverted: in the flashback in the beginning Tsubaki carries Kousei, in the end Kousei carries Tsubaki.
- Broken Ace: Kousei, if only because he don't wants to play anymore at the start of the story, but still seems obsessed with songs.
- Childhood Friends: Tsubaki, Kousei and Watari.
- Elegant Classical Musician: Several cute teens who play instruments are seen here, starting with Kousei and Kaori. Kaori subverts it a bit because she's cute and plays the violin, but her musical style is more vivacious and cheery than it's normally associated to the trope.
- Ill Girl:
- Saki Arima once was this, and died two years before the story began.
- Kaori also seems to have a bad health, as she carries lotsa pills in her bags and once in a while seems to have seizures. Her illness may or may not be the same that killed Saki, and it ultimately kills her too.
- Love Dodecahedron: Between Kousei, Tsubaki, Kaori and Watari. Kousei likes Kaori but is sure that she prefers Watari, Tsubaki likes Kousei and both cares for Kaori and is jealous of her, Watari is the target of Kaori's love (only not) and yet it seems he'd rather see her with Kousei, and Kaori was always in love with Kousei, but lied about liking Watari (which is the titular "lie in April") for several reasons and didn't reveal her affection for Kousei until after her death, via her posthumous letter to him.
- Megane: Kousei is a cute boy who uses glasses.
- My Beloved Smother: As Kousei explains in the first chapter, his mother Saki trated him very badly when he was a child to make him a great piano player.
- Pervert Revenge Mode: Kaori gives Kousei a hell of a beating in chapter 1 for accidentally photographing her panties.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Kousei and Watari.
- Training From Hell: What Kousei had to go through to become a great piano player, enduring physical and psychological abuse from his own mom.
- Tomboy: Tsubaki
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tsubaki and Kaori.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Hiroko believes herself to be this, because she was the one who encouraged Saki to make Kousei into a pianist.