Anime Concerts Are MORE IMPORTANT Than You Think

My Hero Academia is a series with a lot of memorable moments. The United States of Smash, Deku cleaning the beach, Deku saving Bakugou, Deku VS Todoroki and so many other moments stick in the minds of anime fans everywhere and for good reason. The combined brilliance of Hayashi Yuki’s score and the amazing animation give many of these moments the impact that they need to express the correct emotions…but none of these moments come close to my favorite in the entire series. No, it’s not a big fight, some giant set piece or even some dramatic event that touches my heart more than any of the others. The greatest moment in My Hero Academia, above any other in the series is unequivocally, without question:

A concert held by a group of kids.

More than any other moment in the series, Class 1-A’s performance of Hero Too is probably the best thing in the entire series so far. Even in the manga, this moment stood as my favorite due to a combination of so many elements; the emotions packed within, the climax of two very important character arcs and the fact that it’s possibly one of the best representations of MHA’s main theme that the series has to offer and that’s all packed into one performance made to make everyone in the audience smile. It’s so powerful that I’ve rewatched it over and over and over again, and every time I watch it again, I’m surprised at how well Bones handled it. Coupled along with this amazing song with lyrics that fit the moments leading up to this so exceptionally well, I just adore everything about it.

Come to think of it, a lot of my favorite moments in a lot of anime are just concerts. Love Live, K-On!!, the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Your lie in April and so many others are just examples of shows where the most memorable moments are just people onstage performing their hearts out. And, it’s not surprising to see why that’s the case for me. I’ve been surrounded by music my whole life. While I never really formally  learned sheet music or anything, I ended up learning guitar and bass and have experience in dance. Performing, while somewhat against my nature, is in my blood and to see these moments in anime is of course going to resonate with me. But there’s something to be said about anime concert scenes that I just can’t fully describe. When you’re reading manga, you can’t exactly hear music or see what’s happening. The choices that these series will make, such as timing, the way the characters move and just the songs chosen are so powerful that it’s a joy to watch. Kousei and Kaori’s final performance, Houkago Tea Time’s last school festival, Haruhi’s performance of God knows, any of the jazz performances in Sakamichi no Apollon where you see the movements of the characters, how they play the instruments and the rising tension as the songs build up in energy, that’s why I love these scenes so much. Hell, my favorite anime is built off of performance scenes. Anime concerts have this level of emotion that sometimes exceeds many moments in the series, but I feel like many seem to overlook that. So today, I want to take a look at three performance scenes in anime that I think highlight the core of each series pretty well.

So let’s start with something pretty on-brand.

Love Live is a show with so many performances with so much to unpack that I might have to do individual videos for all of them. I’ve already done one for Awaken the Power and I analyzed Sunny Day Song and Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari in There Will NEVER Be A Group Like μ’s, both videos you can check out in the Love Live playlist, but I feel like one performance I want to cover, especially for those still unsure as to whether they should get into Love Live, is the first performance by μ’s. I’ve analyzed Start;Dash’s meaning in the context of the series as a whole, but I want to look at the elements of it to show just how much is going on. 

To begin with, we start it off with our three members of μ’s shaking in anticipation and fear of what might happen. We never see what the auditorium looks like and have only seen everything outside and behind the curtain. It’s building anticipation as we have yet to realize whether or not Honoka’s bet paid off and if people would come to watch them. And, after resolving to try their best, the buzzer goes off, the curtains rise, and as their eyes adjust to the dark, we see no one. No one came. It’s just a bunch of empty chairs. No one came. The music hits its cue as we see how much empty space is filling that dark hall. It’s nothing but darkness, and Honoka looks on with a face full of sadness as all of the hard work and effort she’s put in flashes through her mind. And right as she’s about to give up, hope walks through the door.

And then they start.

The lyrics of Start;Dash talk about how important the beginning is, how hard it will be and even though you’ll fail, you’ll never know until you just try. It’s a song fitting not just of their situation but of what this performance means. It’s a declaration that you can’t be afraid of failure and should keep pushing on. The stage mainly uses the color blue for all of the backgrounds, filling most of the shots with a melancholy tone surrounded by darkness. The future’s dark and failure surrounds them, but they’ll keep trying. And as they perform, the nine eventual members of μ’s start to gather in the auditorium one by one, surrounded by that dark but turning their heads to the one light in the room: the stage holding three girls trying as hard as they can. Even though the entire room is filled with darkness and even though they seemingly failed, the light on the stage is so unbearably bright and everyone can’t look away. The lyrics all speak of this, and as the performance reaches its end and they strike their pose, we zoom out, and these girls whose future seemed dark are surrounded by a visual of a blinding light. 

The symbolism of light in the darkness fits their story so well and it’s even more impactful when they perform it again, not as three but as nine having accomplished their goal. This time the audience is full of lights, and the stage shines too. In the original performance, Honoka is shown crying in sadness, but shining regardless despite how much she seemingly failed. But, in the reprisal at the end of the series, those tears of sadness turn into tears of joy. Those three inspired nine, and together, because they made the effort to start and flap their wings, they were able to reach out to others. They were able to make their start.

This is but one of the many brilliant performances spread across Love Live, and not even the best one in School Idol Project by far, yet there’s so much to unpack that I keep talking about it over and over again. It serves as the perfect beginning in so many more ways than one and is memorable for a reason.

Now, if Start;Dash, a performance of a song with dancing and lyrics, was able to portray so much, it could even be said that there’s even more to be expressed in a performance where all there is is a boy and his piano.

While Start;Dash is a song of beginning, Love’s Sorrow is a song of goodbyes. Written by Fritz Kreisler, it’s the second of a three part set of piano pieces, fittingly coming after Liebesfreud, meaning Love’s Joy. The song perfectly represents a core part of Kousei’s character: his relationship with his mother.

The performance of Love’s Sorrow was originally meant to be a duet with him and Kaori, but she couldn’t make it. So Kousei, knowing what needed to be done, went onstage by himself, performing the song that his mother loved on the piano that the girl he loved pushed him to play. 

He would show his pride and just how great the music that Kaori gave him was. She and every musician playing with all of their hearts would give him hope. And yet…there seems to be a misunderstanding of what this episode is meant to represent. 

It’s often believed by critics of Your lie in April that episode 13 is attempting to say that the moral of the series is that abuse gives you music superpowers, and that it’s just another form of love. It’s easy to see that given the context of the scene, but it’s given so much more than that. Kousei’s relationship with his mother is that of misguided love. His mother was on death’s door and wanted to make sure his future was safe. She couldn’t be by his side and couldn’t train him to be as good as he could be and all she could think to do in her limited time was drill the score into him. And in his own mind, he formed this idea that if he did it well, she would be happy and stay alive. But she kept beating it into him, nothing was ever good enough, and in her desperation, she snapped and Kousei told her those words he would forever regret:

“I wish you were dead.”

And so she died.

But Your lie in April is not a show that glorifies this as a good thing. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s a story of artists surrounded by dark, finding hope in music that becomes their light. Kousei is able to play again, not as a machine but how he wants to because of Kaori who became his light, and she teaches him to not look at the darkness but instead at the good. What his mother did was unforgivable, but he was blaming himself for her death. He kept telling himself that her death was his fault and that he deserved his suffering, and that losing his music was his penance. But a musician’s music is his light in the dark, so he would instead take from the darkness what good remained. The image of his mother wasn’t the abusive actions she took, it was the regret and the voice that told him it was his fault, so he let it go, taking only the good memories with him and forgiving himself for something he couldn’t control. 

Love’s Sorrow was his mom’s favorite song and she played it for him when she was still well and not the twisted person she became. The song perfectly represents Kousei and the sorrow that comes with the light of love. He chose to, instead of dwelling in the painful memories, to take away from it only the good. The gift of music, his skills as a piano player, the people he met, the connection it gave him to the girl he loved.

Love’s Sorrow is the light that he took from the darkness of pain and regret. Kaori is the one who pushed him to play again, so if his regret over his mother overwhelmed him, then Kaori would pull him out. Note also that Love’s Sorrow is a song that’s not just for the piano, it’s a duet of piano and violin, played only by Kousei when Kaori was too sick to come. He would play for her. He would finally leave the abyss and do what he loved. Even if he couldn’t hear the notes, he would make the most of it. He would take what he could, evolving even further than before. The song starts out anguished and chaotic, representing his rage at people who would doubt Kaori and the resent he felt towards his mother. He vented his anger, and in the abyss where he couldn’t hear notes, he heard instead how angrily he was hitting the keys and how he should be playing. Not playing like a robot bound to the score but instead by how it should feel. And as the good memories of his mom filled his head, he changed its sound once again.

As his sound changed, everyone’s faces changed to smiles of joy and lights fill the room. Intercut with his playing is the memory of his twisted mother regretting her failure and what she wouldn’t be able to do, followed by Kousei’s suffering when he lost his music and his mother. His mom’s shadow that plagued him that represented his regret disappeared, filled only with a warm light. 

And as the shadow that held him back finally leaves, the stage is no longer cold and dark but rather surrounded by a warm light. He no longer was being held by his dark memory and instead only clung to his joy and his love.

Start;Dash a song of beginning. Love’s Sorrow a song of goodbyes. And now it’s time to talk about what y’all came here for:

Why is the performance of Hero Too so powerful?

It’s established up until this point that this festival was a way of giving some semblance of levity and joy into the students of UA after all of the attacks and sadness they had experienced one after the other. There was so much riding on it and at the center was Class 1-A, receiving the most scrutiny because of them being the targets of many of the attacks. The other students blamed them, so what they did at the cultural festival needed to be handled well. So they chose something that at first served to give joy to everyone: a musical performance and dance put together by Class 1-A. But everyone still put them under a lens. They would appear to just be trying to hog attention.

This festival was to give everyone joy and they needed to show that they were serious. They were putting their all into giving joy to everyone in the audience, so they made everything as intricate and as enjoyable as they could, and at the center of all of this is Jirou and Eri.

Jirou up until this point had been just doing her hero assignments like everyone else, but it’s clear that she was still unsure, even moreso when it’s revealed that she plays music. This doesn’t seem to be that important until you realize why she’s so insecure. Her music seems like a hobby completely unrelated to hero work. It was self-serving. But for this festival and the performance they needed to do, it was more than just needed.

So, the performance starts with the curtains separating, revealing Class 1-A backed by light. Two other students of the support course are there to criticize them, still proclaiming that what they’re doing is self-serving. And then in a blaze of fire, the performance begins, the room filled with light and music and everyone immediately lighting up at what they saw. The lyrics of Hero Too talk about this even more so, talking not just of the theme of what is a hero, but also attacking the core of Jirou’s struggle. She was looking for her calling, but she went to follow her dream, finding something she wanted to never let go of.

This performance is also the climax of the conjoined arcs of Overhaul and School Festival. Eri still has not been saved even though Deku and Mirio took her from the clutches of Overhaul because she couldn’t smile. She was still haunted by the horrors she was put through and the hold he had on her. So Deku wanted to give her something that could give her hope. That’s why he fought so hard to defeat Gentle. Gentle, despite having his own, arguably just reasons for being a villain, threatened this festival that would serve as UA’s and Eri’s hope, so Deku took on the Gentle Villain with all of his might. And just prior to arriving after doing what he could, he was told to get his injuries healed before he went onstage so that no one would worry when he went onstage.

As the song reaches its second verse, the performance becomes more complex, with more lighting, explosions, ice bridges, confetti, and so much joy. Everyone in the audience starts to dance along and smile, even the two students from the support course can’t help but dance along. Their efforts were reaching them. And as the bridge is reached, Jirou flashes back to when she told her parents she wouldn’t pursue music because she wanted to be a hero. But her dad told her that being a hero, doing things to make others smile, is just like being a musician. Both parts of her are just as heroic as the other and she sings with a smile on her face as everyone in the audience is showered with light and smiling and cheering as much as they can. And finally, as the lyrics that sing of the heroes that give the hope, strength and courage to survive and to smile…Eri finally is freed from her darkness and is overwhelmed with joy and lifts her hands in the air…with a smile on her face. The power of a hero gave Class 1-A the power to smile and they gave it back, giving everyone the hope that they needed.

It’s not even just how good the song is, how the moves that incorporate a superhero landing match the lyrics of being hero too, how each movement of every character highlights their personalities and their unique abilities, the little detail of the sweat to show how much effort they’re all putting in even though their faces have smiles of joy, how they interact with the audience, the beautiful visuals, the payoff of the support students finally finding joy and even this hilarious moment where Mineta becomes a mega chad; it’s how well it ties together all of this in a thematic package that embodies all of the emotions I felt while reading it and done so beautifully. Music has this power to do that, to give people joy and help them out of the darkness, and it’s in scenes like this where I’m able to feel it the most.

And it’s scenes like this where I’m able to smile the hardest.