In episode 14 of ‘Your Lie in April’ lies a standout scene featuring Tsubaki and Kousei walking on the beach late into the evening. It opens with Tsubaki walking slowly; her footsteps deciding whether she likes or dislikes something – similar to the petal-plucking ‘He loves me? He loves me not?’. To what she ponders over is then revealed to the audience as she lands on a ‘like’ footstep to which appears a point-of-view shot of Kousei running toward her. In the back plays the instrumental of ENA’s For You (Tsuki no Hikari ga Furisosogu Terasu) which tastefully samples Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune.

Interestingly, as well as carefully chosen, the meaning of ‘clair de lune’ is ‘moonlight’ which provides the constant and seemingly infinite backdrop to this entire scene; the moonlight is reflected off the still ocean water behind to two childhood friends. There remains more symbolism through the use of the tilt shot showing the moon over Tsubaki and Kousei as they walk shoulder-to-shoulder down the beach. Drawing on Chinese legend, the moon god of matchmaking Yuè Xià Lǎorén (月下老人 – literal translation ‘the elderly man beneath the moonlight’) carries a book in which contains the name of every person and their destined marriage partner. This information is irrespective of class, status, race, and other potential boundaries, and the message emphasised in this anime of how music transcends words and boundaries is re-emphasised here but through love. In this case, it would be how the pair who appear as polar opposites; Kousei a quiet introverted piano-maestro and Tsubaki an aggressive extroverted sports-lover, and yet are childhood friends with a deep love and appreciation for one another. If this legend is to be into account, it could possibly foreshadow the future of Tsubaki and Kousei – something left unanswered in this series therefore open to speculation.

Having garnered inspiration from Debussy’s song, Paul Verlaine in 1869 constructed a poem under the same name. Verlaine mentioned how “their song mingles with the moonlight” and of how they sing “in a minor key of love and good life, [yet] they don’t seem to believe in their own happiness… with the sad and beautiful moonlight”. What can be said of this poem and its likeliness to Your Lie in April is masses. Both Tsubaki and Kousei are young and in love (Kousei with Kaori and Tsubaki with Kousei), thus sprinkling love and colour into their worlds, yet both their loves are met unrequited and the loss of Kousei’s mother and prospect of Kousei moving far away to attend a prestigious music school thunders doom and sadness over each of their lives. In accordance with Verlaine’s poem they trod under the beautiful moonlight yet do not acknowledge, let alone believe, in their happinesses as they dwell too much on their sadnesses.

Tsubaki, in focusing all her efforts on concealing her love for Kousei thus trapping her into a cycle of joy and anguish, is so much so a part of Kousei and vice versa. This is made evident in the way she walks behind Kousei, treading in his much larger footprints left in the sand. As he reveals his plans to move away. their footprints part into two distinct trails. She runs away crying, yet it is the moonlight and twinkling stars that surround her once again as she reminisces the sweet and happy memories of a decade-long friendship during this troubling moment of heartache, returning us to the bittersweetness of Verlaine’s poetry and, most importantly, the entire narrative of this series.