Your Lie In April is a Japanese cartoon that inspires to keep moving forward through your tough moments.

In YLIA, piano prodigy Kousei Arima is abused by his mother to become the “human metronome,a�� playing in every competition and easily taking first place.

Tragically after his mother’s death, Arima breaks down onstage during a performance and has quit even touching the piano since.

Two years later, a violinist Kaori Miyazono forces Arima back onstage to become the musician he was meant to be.

There are both ups and downs in YLI that give you a roller coaster feeling through the music and the drama. Within its twenty-two episodes, Arema learns more about tragedy, friendship, and perseverance.

Seeing Arima’s transformation from unconfident and unsure to passionate and loving is moving and makes the viewer ask themselves what they stand for.

Other than the story, the soundtrack is probably what makes the show so great. Most of the time when you think of classical music you imagine boring, dead artists, but YLIA brings classical music into a new light. Rather than showing us black-and-white, structured music, it has music with color and expression. Every song correlates with how the characters are feeling. It’s a great illustration of how music brings people together and lets people express themselves.

Arima finds himself by growing as a musician and playing his music for others he cares about. Not only does Arima express his feeling through his music, he inspires other people too, rather than letting it remind himself of his mother.

YLIA has very different types of humor and clich s than American movies do, so if you are not familiar with Japanese cartoons or dramas, the story can be a bit campy at times.

Even if you’re not into music or anime, I’d highly recommend this show to anyone who might want to watch this, either to experience the waterworks or be inspired. (It’s on Netflix.)

As a writer or anything else in life, this show motivates me to try with my all, and that is why I’ll give Your Lie In April a rate of 9.5 music notes out of 10 music notes.