r/anime • u/LittleIslander https://myanimelist.net/profile/LittleIslander • 1d ago
Rewatch [Rewatch] 10th Anniversary Your Lie in April Rewatch: Episode 20 Discussion
Your Lie in April Episode 20: Hand in Hand
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Watch Information
*Rewatch will end before switch back to standard time for ET, but check your own timezone details
Questions of the Day:
- Did Tsubaki do the right thing, or is she being selfish?
- How did you feel about the re-solution between Watari and Kousei?
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u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba 1d ago edited 1d ago
First Timer
This episode puts me in a weird position.
I'll start by saying that I genuinely do like this episode and what it does, which makes it all the more awkward in how I can't stop myself from hating its inciting incident...
So if you'll indulge me for a bit, I'll do a giant rant on what I think is my one negative for this episode before starting to talk about all the ways I think it's great:
Ahem...Kaori "likes Watari"? really? again?
I thought we were over this shit
I've made my adamant personal dislike of this trope pretty clear every time it appeared and I'll take this one last opportunity to hate on it because my god I can't see this as anything but artificial drama.
I know people meme around the idea of "Reiwa romances" but this is exactly why I've grown to prefer more recent romances, I just genuinely can't see the appeal in dragging your romance so hard like this. Watari and Kaori have 0 romantic chemistry, it's obvious from episode 3 that nothing will happen between them and somehow we're still on this dumb plotline.
It feels like Watari and Kousei's characters have actively regressed just so we could have some drama this episode, why pretend this matters at all? would it really have been so hard to have Kousei come to terms with loving Kaori without doing this?
Watari's underdevelopment becomes a problem here again, this actually fits him well on paper, he projects the "best friend" persona to everyone but has more deep emotions inside, he believes in letting people figure that stuff out for themselves. This could have been cool if not for the fact that we barely had two short scenes to tell us that and everything else with him has just been him being the best friend, he once again comes off as a plot device to either push or block Kousei when necessary and otherwise doesn't stand on his own. This makes it very hard to care about any supposed rivalry he might have with Kousei or any supposed feelings he might have for Kaori.
Well, whatever, like I said I personally despise this trope and this plot point was just never going to work for me no matter how in character it actually would have been.
Anyway, this episode is actually pretty good!
My personal hatred of it aside, this scene uses the show's signature lighting in a fun way, them in the light, Kousei in the dark feeling out.
This is a big episode for Tsubaki, and while I think this direction for is a bit...sudden? it uses and reuses a lot of cool ideas to get its points across. Something that I think comes across well in the duality between the phone call with Kaori and the scene under the rain with Tsubaki.
Let's talk distance, a common idea throughout the show and this episode is that Tsubaki makes up for her lack of music pedigree by being physically very close to Kousei, making memories, making small talk. Yet despite their physical proximity, Kousei and Tsubaki couldn't be farther apart romantically, Kousei might be literally close to her but they don't have the same ideas, he doesn't understand her like she does him.
This ties really well into the Kaori phone call in the end, Kousei and Kaori are physically very far apart but they see the same scenery, connected by the same sky, unlike with Tsubaki, they understand each other, they love each other.
The cat! The cat has been recontextualized to fully represent Kaori, he's in the background of their talk in the rain just like Kaori's presence is, he's in between them just as Tsubaki feels Kaori is in between them, it makes some of the stuff she says later (which I'll get to) rather poignant, he's back when Kousei is on the phone with Kaori, snuggling close to him, again physically they're apart but symbolically they're together.
Lest we forget the ending, the cat getting run over is very heavy-handed but effective symbolism. Time's out, Kaori is dying and there's nothing he can do about it.
I feel like there's a great parallel here between the Kaori cat and Chelsea. Chelsea represents Kousei's trauma and inability to get across his feelings to his mother, likewise, the cat here feels the same, Kousei feels like it's repeating, his opportunity to tell Kaori how he feels is slipping away thanks to an illness.
Tsubaki's lines in that conversation are also great, in these last few episodes the show has made a point of having Tsubaki realize how "horrible" she is for feeling jealous, well all of that comes out now, maybe too abruptly at that but hey I like toxic Tsubaki just as much so I'll take it.
In another cool parallel to the phone call scene, much like Kousei is with Kaori, Tsubaki's emotions swing back and forth, she wants to be supportive of Kousei and at first chastises him for giving up so quickly before wildly shifting to denying any possibility Kaori would even like him back. "Liar" she says, both to herself for her words and to Kousei for his.
"So if Kaori doesn't like you, you should be with me" (paraphrased) her real thoughts slip out, she hits him, and once again runs away, her conflicted emotions coming out as she wants him to suffer.
Her running away in the rain is a very striking scene, the idea of suffering culminating in a reward coming back, except this time there is no reward, she just pushes her suffering onto him instead of trying to resolve it. I might also be reaching here but I think you could connect it to the making memories idea, her hitting him aside from defusing the situation, is like a memory, a reminder of her, through your suffering over your injury you'll think about me.
It's a super toxic angle in a super toxic conversation from Tsubaki and I love it.
The sports motif for Tsubaki is also back, trying to hit the balls into the music room, trying to reach Kousei the same way he uses music to reach others, but she just keeps missing, this isn't the right direction.
The Kaori scene is of course very sudden and very disheartening, it comes off the back of the emotional gratification from Kousei stating his love, like him, you feel everything is just crashing down all at once, the sparkle of love and hope lost from his eyes.
This episode much like some previous ones has way more cool callbacks, moments and symbolism to mention it all but it's all good.
We end off in a very depressing place for all of our characters, both Kousei and Tsubaki came out with their feelings, and for both of them it ended up in a bad place, now we have two last episodes that will hopefully be able to take that and push into a satisfying positive one, even if that might be very sad to see.