Although once a child prodigy in the music world, pianist Kousei Arima is left in a downward spiral after his mother’s death, unable to even hear the sound of his own piano. Even after two years, Arima has all but left the music world behind, disappointing fans and rivals alike, and living in a colorless world. Then one day that that all changes when he is introduced to the beautiful violinist Kaori Miyazono who brings color into his world once more.
Throughout its run, Your Lie in April presented an emotional roller coaster that had fans begging for more. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Your Lie in April, then head on down below.
Anime Like Your Lie in April
For Fans of Tortured Musicians
Nodame Cantabile
Shinichi Chiaki is a first-rate musician that has dreams of playing among Europe’s elite. However, due to his fear of flying, he has remained firmly grounded in Japan. In his fourth year at Japan’s top music university, he meets Megumi Noda, or Nodame, as she prefers to be called. At first she seems unkempt and without direction, but when he hears her play, everything he thought he knew about her was wrong.
Naturally, the most obvious similarity between these two series is that they both focus on music and prodigal performers with problems. However, in Nodame Cantabile, no one stops performing but rather the show focuses on comedy, the love of music, and the love between two people. Your Lie in April uses music and tragic stories to tug at your heart strings whereas Nodame Cantabile sees two solid performers building each other up.
Kids on the Slope
After moving around his entire life, classical pianist Kaoru Nishimi has abandoned all hope of fitting in as he arrives in Kyushu for his final year of high school. However, that all changes when he meets the thuggish drummer, Sentaro Kawabuchi, a man with an immeasurable love for jazz. Over the music, they bond together and Kaoru learns that music should be something to bring joy to others, not something dictated by hundreds of years of technique.
Both anime series revolve around the main character finding and expressing themselves through music. Your Lie in April is about dealing with trauma while Kids on the Slope is more about the main character breaking out of his shell. Love polygons exist in both, but Your Lie in April is much more drama packed.
White Album 2
Haruki Kitahara’s light music club is on the verge of disbanding due to lack of interest, an event that will crush his dream of playing at the school festival. However, as he solemnly plays “White Album,” the first song he ever learned to play, an angelic voice suddenly harmonizes with his lonely guitar.
In both series, the major way to develop the characters and push the romance forward is through music. They are also both a huge roller coaster of feels. However, White Album 2 is much more oriented towards romance while Your Lie in April explores a number of different themes.
Ef – A Tale of Melodies
Ef tells two stories. One in the past, telling the tale of the studious Himura Yuu who cares only about his grades, only to have memories of his past dug up by a girl who recognizes him. The second tale takes place in the present day where Kuze Shuuichi uses his womanizing to keep people away. However, after hearing the sounds of his violin, Hayama Mizuki won’t keep away no matter how hard he pushes back.
Both series feature musicians that either quit music or want to quit as well as someone to support them continuing to create music. Both tackle difficult emotional situations like death, abuse, and illness. While both are visually interesting, Ef is flawed when it comes to getting caught up in the drama.
Honey and Clover
Honey and Clover follows a group of college students who meet Hagumi, an artist with a tremendous amount of talent that transfers to their school. From there on, Honey and Clover tells stories about the joys of falling in love, the pain of letting go, and the journey to discovering who you really are.
Both are essentially the same type of story. One is about music, the other is about art, but both are about new friends, new memories, blossoming love, heartbreak, and overcoming the past. While both anime series have excellent insert songs, monologues, and complex character relationships, Your Lie in April tends to be more dramatic while Honey and Clover has more comedic moments.
Stop This Sound
After the senior members graduated, Takezou is now the sole member of his Japanese string instrument club. Facing termination, he now begins his search for new members when suddenly a wily one bursts right into his club room. Chika has a strong reputation as a violent thug, but due to his grandfather being a renowned koto artisan before his death, he has a passion for the koto that will help Takezou revive his dying club.
While Stop This Sound features a different sort of musical style, it does showcase the charms of Japanese string instruments the same way Your Lie in April highlights classical music. While it also deals with some heavy themes, it isn’t really a strong romance show.
Given
On one particular day, Ritsuka Uenoyama decided that two things he loved – playing guitar and playing baseball – had become boring to him. However, when he encountered Mafuyu Sato holding a broken guitar, he fixes it. Upon fixing it and hearing him sing, it leaves a huge impression.
Both series follow musicians and their problems. However, Given isn’t necessarily a tragedy, but everyone still has their issues. While both are romance, Given is a boy’s love romance, but to be honest, it is more grounded than many non-BL romance anime.
Anonymous Noise
After her childhood best friend, crush, and singing buddy moves away as a child, Nino Arisugawa is devastated. Yet, years later she reunited with both this boy and the boy who comforted her during that fateful time. Now joining a rock band at her high school, each finds their paths intersecting.
While ultimately both series are about rehabilitating damaged musicians and romance, the big difference here is the level of drama. Your Lie in April is subtle and sympathy-inducing whereas Anonymous Noise does drama so ham-handed that it can be obnoxious.
For Fans of Depression!
March Comes in Like a Lion
Rei Kiriyama recently started to live alone in his last year of high school. He is able to financial support himself as a professional Shogi player, but while he officially became a pro in middle school, he is collapsing under the pressure to succeed. Burdened with his own problems, Rei has found solace among a kind family of three sisters, the Kawamotos. The oldest, Akari, likes to take in strays and Rei is the latest. While he feels conflicted about spending time with them, they provide accepting affection that he has gotten nowhere else.
Want more of that void that engulfed all light around Kousei in the beginning of Your Lie in April? Because that’s Rei’s life too in March Comes in Like a Lion. Both main characters, alongside looking alike and being very talented, are also severely depressed due to an event with their family. Whereas one girl pulls Kousei out in Your Lie in April, it is a small family of girls in March Comes in Like a Lion.
Anohana
After the accidental death of their childhood friend Menma, Jinta and his group of friends drifted apart. However, one day, Jinta, now living as a recluse, begins to see what he believes to be Menma’s ghost. She keeps asking him to help her fulfill a long-forgotten wish. This draws Jinta and his friends together once more where they must overcome their past guilt and regrets.
While Anohana leans supernatural, like Your Lie in April, it focuses on a main character dealing with severe depression. Over the course of both series, you watch them be rehabilitated by the people in their life as they deal with their trauma.
Blue Spring Ride
In junior high, Futaba Yoshioka was attractive to all the boys, and thus ostracized by her female peers. However, she was able to endure it because the only opinion that truly mattered was that of her shy classmate, Kou Tanaka. However, one day Kou moved away. Now in high school Futaba shuns all male attention to be liked by her female friends, that is, until Kou finally returns.
Whereas Your Lie in April tells the tale from the depressed main character’s perspective, Blue Spring Ride does the opposite. In Blue Spring Ride, the male lead is suffering from depression after watching his mother slowly waste away and taking care of her by himself. The female main character doesn’t realize she is doing it necessarily, but begins to heal those wounds.
Orange
On the first day of a new semester, Naho Takimiya oversleeps. On her way out after being late for school, she finds a letter waiting for her that says it is from herself ten years in the future. The letter ardently states her regrets that she has surrounding a new transfer student Kakeru Naruse. Thinking it is a prank at first, Naho ignores it, but when the events described within begin to come true, Naho decides that she will try to help her future self.
You could say that both series are romance shows with really heavy themes. They both show off depression, but Orange ends up at the more extreme end of that spectrum. Still, ultimately, both shows are about being pulled out of it by people around you.
Tsurune
Kyuudo is a modern martial art with a focus on archery. Minato used to be into the sport in middle school, enchanted by the “tsurune” sound made by a releasing bowstring, but gave it up after a certain incident left him with target panic. This phenomenon resulted in Minato missing every shot he took and crushing his confidence. Now forces conspire in high school to bring him into the newly founded Kyuudo club, but can Minato overcome his anxieties?
While Tsurune is a sports anime about Japanese archery, it is less about the sport and more about the drama. The main character in both Tsurune and Your Lie in April are scarred by the death of their mother who had a big influence in their passions.
For Fans of Complicated Romance
Golden Time
Banri Tada has finally been accepted into a private law academy in Tokyo, but due to an accident, he is without all his memories. During his freshmen orientation, he meets Mitsuo Yanagisawa who is consummately stalked by Kouko Kaga, a girl from his old school. Banri begins to hit it off with both of them. As they spend more time together, their fates seem intertwined, but for better or worse?
In both series, the main character falls for a girl that, by all appearances, seems to have a thing for his best friend. Both main characters also suffer from some emotional turmoil because of a past that haunts them. However, the major difference between both series is that Golden Time maintains a more upbeat attitude.
Plastic Memories
Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but he manages to land a job at the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation. This corporation is responsible for the creation of Giftias, or highly advanced androids which are almost indiscernible from normal humans. However, unlike humans, Giftias have a maximum lifespan of around nine years and four months. Terminal Service One, the station Tsukasa was assigned to, is responsible for collecting Giftias that have met their expiration date, before they lose their memories and become hostile.
Do you enjoy being hurt? Do you want a romance that you are pretty sure is going to end sadly? While Plastic Memories has very little else in common with Your Lie in April, it is for those that enjoy the tragic romance of it all.
Chihayafuru
Growing up in the shadow of her older sister, Chihaya Ayase is strong-willed and a tomboy with no dreams of her own. However, after learning an outcast in her class, Arata Wataya, has incredible skill at karuta and his huge passion inspires her, she is pulled into the world of the poem-based card game along with her other childhood friend, Taichi Mashima. While Chihaya grew a passion for karuta with her two childhood friends, they grew distant when they were separated in middle school. Now a high schooler, Chihaya still aims to be the queen of karuta and wants to compete with Arata again to grow her skill.
As a sports anime, Chihayafuru focuses more on the competition of it all. As a shoujo sports anime, of course there is a big ol’ helping of boy drama in there too. What is most similar between these series are the personalities of the main characters.
3D Girlfriend
Tsusui Hikari is an otaku that mostly avoids social life. He only really has one friend at school and is otherwise mocked by his classmates. One day, he ends up having to clean the pool with Igarashi Iroha. She is blunt, truant, and a troublemaker, but she stands up for Hikari when people make fun of him. While he is harsh with her, she never dismisses him. Could real 3D love be in the air?
If you watch both series to the end, you realize that 3D Girlfriend is just a worse Your Lie in April without the music. It follows that same sort of plot, but the major issue with 3D Girlfriend is that it is less subtle with the drama and the male main character is often very unlikable and garners very little sympathy.
A Lull in the Sea
Long ago, all of humanity lived underwater. However, a portion of them soon left to live on the surface, losing the ability to breath underwater. With this gap between them, the two societies grew apart. A Lull in the Sea tells the story of a group of kids forced to attend school above the water where they come to terms with themselves and the discrimination against them.
If you enjoyed the drama, relationships, and most of all, love triangles in Your Lie in April, then A Lull in the Sea is a must. It is a little more surreal in plot, but similarly visually beautiful and absolutely enthralling with its drama.
Clannad
Tomoya Okazaki is a delinquent who finds everything dull and believes he will never amount to anything. That is, until a girl named Nagisa catches his eye one day on his way to school. Suddenly, Tomoya begins to notice Nagisa more and more. She is sickly and weak, but she always tries her best in order to follow her dream of reviving the school’s drama club. Claiming he has nothing better to do, he decides to help Nagisa, and along the way ends up helping several other girls and potential drama club members. However, as he learns more about the girls and helps them overcome their problems, he might just be able to overcome his own as well.
Don’t be fooled by much of the light-hearted tone that takes place in Clannad, it gets as heavy as the best of them. It really just lacked the great classical soundtrack and lovely animation of Your Lie in April. It checks off every other box.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Your Lie in April? Let fans know in the comments section below.
