Well, I'm gonna break some hearts here but this is a disappointing anime. I came into this expecting something really good based on all the positive reviews and such a high rating everywhere I looked. And at first, I wanted to believe. Potential is definitely present in the narrative. I kept hoping to feel some kind of enjoyment that never materialized. I looked over initial mistakes for the first few episodes but the mistakes never stopped piling up and at some point I just got tired of working so hard to try to enjoy an anime. I quickly realized how overrated it is. At least, it picked back up in the latter half.

It's very inconsistent, it tries too hard at everything and it's inaccurate. The kids talk like young adults dreading for tomorrow and overthinking about everything. There's too much care, thought and intelligence put into every single word they say and yet they're supposed to be in middle school. The way the production tries to make every single minute special, kind of like Bleach, makes none of them special. So many detail keep you in disbelief that you can't ever focus on the story. This story would be more fitting if all the characters were at least in college and if the main character's trauma was portrayed differently. The depiction of this metaphorical hurdle of his is unambiguously lunatic.

This has been a very frustrating watch. The comedy is pretty bad. The characters were just getting violent and overreacting for a moment to give us some relief from all the heaviness of everything else but it doesn't work. Comedy isn't easy to write but the answer isn't to just half ass it anyway. The writer should've kept to their strengths for this story. It is simply filled with all the worst and most boring clichés you could think of. What it lacks in originality isn't made up for by anything else either.

This doesn't really deserve its own paragraph but god, do I despise the shonen battle style of performances. Those dramatizations we see a dozen times per performance are just too much. The spectators' thoughts are wince inducing. Everything our dear characters do on stage is always either a genius power move or a catastrophic and irrevocable crisis that cannot be averted. Each one of them seems to deal in absolutes in this grey world. All those adults seem to have all the answers. Are they supposed to be an idealization of what kids wish adults were really like? Near omniscient like gods and composed at all time unlike all our little performers. Even in their own minds they always sound so confident and certain as if nothing could escape them.

The main character's convictions are as strong as a glass house. All it takes is one feeble it to make it all crumble. He gives up so easily that you wouldn't believe that it has been years since he last touched a piano but I guess that it made for a more dramatic story so they had to mention that obvious lie. Of course, it's not a lie, it's simply one of the many inconsistencies ruining the story and that keeps you in disbelief, ruining your immersion. This same character seems also quite easy to please despite being a gloomy guy because no matter what another character does to him, he'll be happy as long as he can see her smile and hear her play music. This just seems like an abusive relationship to me. Due to all the aforementioned flaws and many more, his, what feels like fake, mid-life crisis is as engaging as bingo night at a retirement home. So this doormat who can't ever say no with much resolve is taken onto a journey of abstract and quite ridicule plot, of cliché loss and heart aches.

The most realistic and well portrayed part of this whole anime is surprisingly one that I see misrepresented in most animes, love. This kid fell in love with who she is despite her flaws because of her qualities. He just really love how talented and lively she is, making him overlook everything else that annoys him. Obviously, despite all the drama already included, there's never enough drama in a poorly written script so to spice things up even further, making it quite a disgusting meal, our main boy's only friend that isn't a girl is dating the girl he's longing for. To spice things up once again, that friend doesn't mind at all if his gloomy friend tries to win her heart. At this point, it would be normal to wonder if this anime will develop into a hentai. Some of those kids don't even seem to know themselves which again, I believe is accurate for children and yet they can be doing such illogical things that if you were to facepalm every time they do something stupid you would end up in the emergency room. All the lies and this big circle of unrequited love makes you want to look away and roll your eyes all the time.

Finally, something more realistic when it comes to children, they can't communicate when it matters. They jump to conclusions, they keep to themselves, they wander around in their minds, overthinking everything without so much as attempt looking for the answers because it scares them. They deflect and yell all the time. Still, they yearn for attention from the right person. It's annoying, frustrating and yet completely accurate. It would probably be abnormal to expect middle schoolers to be less emotional but I still wished for it.

This anime was clearly produced to make you feel something. They want you to feel the sorrow and desolation of the characters but it is so incompetently executed that if you think about anything for just a moment, you realize how hollow the script really is.

The story sort of ends on a high and sour note. Compared to the rest of the anime the last quarter was definitely of higher quality. Some things still don't make too much sense. The characters still don't seem like middle schoolers at all and the writing is pretty bad but it's better. The last episode is pretty good until a character's decisions throughout the series and even before are put into question. You wonder whether they were crazy, stupid or lying. It all makes very little sense but at face value it should stir up emotions from the viewers that won't think about it.