If theres one thing anime has taught me over the years its that things are much simpler when theyre either good or bad. It gets complicated when you blur the lines. This isnt about grey morality rather its about really good stories tainted by the kind of terrible slop that this medium is infamous for. In a way this review is my reckoning with all the anime and manga Ive consumed over the years that made me think Hey I liked it a lot except for those weird bits. Im getting ahead of myself though. Sayonara Piano Sonata is a bit of a mess. It has moments of genuinely gripping drama and it plays with many interesting ideas and by the time I finished the first volume I had great expectations for it yet the bulk of it is often so dull and questionable in a very unnecessary way. Its flaws hurt particularly deeply because many of them are inessential they could be edited out without any change to the plot yet the fact they exist means they cant be ignored. Of course there cant be mixed feelings without positive feelings so its important to denote whats so good about this first. At its core this series is a soapopera in the sense that its full of drama and emotional intensity yet its never so deep that youd risk drowning in it. Its a roller coaster ride and thats not necessarily a bad thing. Its an engaging one too I was dancing to the storys tune at all times. If the novel said Oh no she might quit the band I answered Oh no is she gonna quit the band?. Its reminiscent of Clannad in a way though it never reaches the same powerful heights and it doesnt have the same gripping atmosphere. Its a fun level of drama to play with for a few hours and sometimes thats enough. Another source of my complicated feelings is the fact that even when the plot stalls or starts to get repetitive or just plain sucks it always nails the ending. When you pick up a volume of Sayonara Piano Sonata youre guaranteed a stellar finish every time. It always gets the last word so to speak and thus even if you complain about it endlessly as you read through youll at least leave with the impression that it was pretty good. Its not all fun and games however and its unfortunately time to discuss these flaws Ive been hinting at all this time. Theres a pervading horniness throughout the story thats very uncomfortable. This isnt unheard of in anime but the particular way it expresses itself here is whats problematic. Its not just the girls wearing revealing clothing or flirting with the protagonist but the way the horny characters are often fullgrown adults. Its the protagonists father its the guitarist they met its a DJ. Its adults sexualizing teenagers always played for comic relief and it sucks. But its not just fullgrown adults who are horny in this novel. No if we want to talk about this aspect more deeply we unfortunately have to talk about Kagurazaka Kyouko. This is more of a petty complaint of mine really. Kyouko is an upperclassman character and at least throughout the first volume one of my favorite characters ever. Youre telling me this shabbylooking novel has a character whos a cool chuuni pansexual communist guitar player? That is somehow so novel and so cool it made me wonder why no one had thought of it before. Unfortunately this infatuation didnt last. Not because she stopped being cool I wouldve dropped the score by a point or two if it turned out she was super sensitive and wanted the MC to see her as a girl or whatever but because starting from volume 2 a good half of her character is being a comic relief pervert. You could have endless discourse about whether thats homophobic or not but I think we can at least agree its not very funny. The comic relief is thus a huge part of my distaste for this novel. Not because comic relief is an inherently bad thing but because here its mostly unfunny. Worse than being bad it can detract from the parts of the story that are good. An example is this character called Yuri introduced in the third volume whos supposed to be a bit of a femboy. There are many genuinely good and sweet moments involving him that are unfortunately peppered with instances of the protagonist going Yo this is a dude but hes pretty isnt that gay as hell?. Not that Im expecting a 2000s Light Novel to be a bastion of progressiveness or anything but I at least expect some restraint. Great scenes are dampened by these poor attempts at humor. But really does any of this matter? Cant most of this novels flaws can be observed in a plethora of different novels and manga and anime? That may be true but its still disappointing. I dont want to have to sit through hours of terrible generic trash just to get to the nuggets of quality hidden in between. Im not asking for a masterpiece every time but its sad to see so much potential squandered by completely preventable and unnecessary problems. In the summary to this review I compared Sayonara Piano Sonata to an unsteady flight. Thats because the storys particularly fond of the song Blackbird by The Beatles so I thought itd be fitting. But really its more like a perfectly good bird soaring through the sky constantly being shot at from a distance. Sometimes the bullets land. Its pretty good if you can get through the bad bits though.