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| Cover Design of the First Volume Image taken from Wikipedia |
In the first half of the manga, the story is rather your average joe with us being introduced to the classic I-used-to-be-a-prodigy-but-due-to-certain-reasons-I-gave-up-in-music male protagonist and another classic, bubbly and optimistic female character who has a deep passion for music. This time, our protagonists are named as Kousei, the piano prodigy and Kaori, the OK violinist who actually keeps a huge secret about herself.
As I have mentioned, the first half was what most readers would expect from a slice of life manga with a tinge of romance. Classic scenes like the two getting on a bike and have some fun time playing music together can be seen taking place.
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| The ever-changing size of panels Image taken from Google Images |
So everything was sailing smoothly until….the second half arrived.
There, the pacing shot up fast, dragging readers into a whirlpool of conflicts and tragedies. The conflicts dealt are rather realistically drawn in which almost everyone can relate them to their daily lives. The mangaka had cleverly used monologs in many of the chapters which effectively displayed the conflicts lurking in the heart of the characters, especially Kousei.
Art-wise, it was pretty standard.
Nothing really fancy or eye-catching in exception of the clouds in the background which I found them to be quite pretty. The mangaka’s clever use of changing the size of panels enables to reader to easily highlight the importance of a scene.
Shigatsu Kimi No Uso basically highlights on two of its major character, Kousei, and Kaori. These two are the backbone of the entire story. In this case, the story’s slow pacing give the characters more time to develop hence avoiding the fate from becoming one-dimensional characters.
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| Kaori and Kousei playing together Image taken from Google Images |
Kousei, our main protagonist was really well-developed. At the beginning, we are introduced to him as a mousy looking bespectacled boy whose looks can be easily forgotten. He has no such aura fitting of the main character and yet, as the story progressed, his presence became much more distinctive.
In the first half, it is revealed that the reason Kousei became the depressing,dull kid was because of him losing his mother.. As a result, it cut his passion for music and he chose to abandon the piano which he had been playing since he was a child. In actual fact, Kousei never loved the piano nor even music. He played them in order to please his mother.
Then the story changed when Kaori appeared with her unique style of playing music which made Kousei curious. Slowly, Kousei regained his passion for music after getting to know Kaori. His journey with Kaori had fished him out from the darkness and soon he was once again the piano prodigy.
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| One of the emotional scenes Image taken from Google Images |
Kaori was not bad either. She was just the cute, bubbly girl in the beginning but as I read further, I realized that she wasn’t as simple as I thought of her to be.
Nevertheless, the side characters are pretty much invisible. They rarely leave an impact to the story and were pointless to the development of the manga. The mangaka has tried to tell us a story about their background but really, they are so dull that we wouldn’t want to read about that.
In short, Shigatsu Kimi No Uso has a unique style of romance with excellent main characters’ development. The mangaka was able to play with the emotions of the characters that will leave readers to be in a whirlpool of emotions at the end. As they are portrayed realistically, readers can easily feel attached to them.
However, the bad point is that the pacing was all over the place, being too slow and frustrating at times. It is rather fortunate that the manga has only 30+ chapters. Any more than that would have certainly put off many readers. Maybe I am basically dead inside, but I do not feel that the comedic scenes were actually really funny. They somehow felt lame and misplaced.
So will I recommend this manga? Hmm, maybe for those who would just wanna past their time reading a manga that basically is just there to be read (no offense to Shigatsu Kimi No Uso's fans). It is not as memorable as Nodame Cantabile but not as low-rated as La Corda D' Oro. It is basically in the middle, not too bad and not that great.
But I must say it has a satisfying ending, very well-done.
Cloud of Muses Rating:
Story 7/10
Art 3.9/5
Characters 7/10 (minus marks due to its weak side characters)
Total score 17.9/25
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