Your Lie in April (Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso) is often a splashy series. The scenes featuring characters playing solos are big and grand, and even the humor is sometimes over-the-top (in a bleeding-from-your-cranium kind of way). As episode 15 started, my mind was readying for another big scene, even though the story wasn’t really calling for it at this point.
And I guess that’s why I was surprised when this entire episode spoke something completely different to me – that Your Lie in April is actually a very personal series, filled with small stories. Here are some of those referred to in episode 15:
- Kousei’s decision about school
- Kousei’s continued development as a pianist
- Emi’s hope for Kousei’s development
- Tsubaki’s love for Kousei
- Kaori’s worsening medical condition
Each of these would be major events in real life, but in the context of anime, where shounen series can be so epic, these are small, small stories. They’re about big events in little lives. They are, at surface value, of little real meaning.
Most of us are in the same kind of situations. We’ll never be like the protagonists of most shows. We’re normal people with lives that aren’t suited for the big screen.
But in these little lives, God works the remarkable. He tells us that we matter to a deity, the deity, and that in the cosmic scheme of things, we are important. There’s substance to our lives, as mundane as they might seem. And like the characters we care for in Your Lie in April, the small seems so much bigger in a different light.
And in that light, God is telling us this: you are meaningful.
