Kousei Arima

Kōsei Arima
Statistics
Gender	Male
Birthday	March 28 (Aries)
Age	15 (main series) 16 (coda)
Status	Alive
Relatives	Takahiko Arima (father) Saki Arima (mother; deceased) Hiroko Seto (guardian)
Occupation	Student Pianist
Portrayal
Japanese Voice	Natsuki Hanae
English Voice	Max Mittelman
Appearances
Manga Debut	Chapter 01: Monotone
Anime Debut	Episode 01: Monotone/Colorful
Appearances	see list

Kousei Arima (有馬 公生 Arima Kōsei) is the main protagonist of the Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso series. He is the son of Saki and Takahiko Arima, who attends Sumiya Junior High School, and was the youngest winner of the Maihou Piano Competition.

Appearance

Kousei is a teenage boy with short, messy black hair which sprawls across his forehead. He has majestic dark blue eyes.

Clothing & Accessories

Kousei dons a pair of glasses with thick black rims. He mainly wears his Sumiya Junior High School uniform, which consists of a red-and-white-striped necktie, blue dress shirt, grey trousers, grey blazer, and brown loafers. When competing in piano competitions, Kousei wears a cobalt blue suit and a royal blue necktie. His casual attire consists of t-shirts that feature English quotes (e.g. “No life is enough”), and plain trousers and dress shoes. He usually wears tucked in dress shirts for informal occasions. In bed, he wears black gloves (seen in episode one) and its unsaid why.

Personality

As a child, Kousei was calm and obedient. When he is not hanging out with Ryota Watari, Tsubaki Sawabe, and Kaori Miyazono he spends most of his day alone in his thoughts. This dense characteristic makes him oblivious to what is going on around him. For instance, he does not notice the rivalry and resentment his fellow piano competitors had for him nor Tsubaki's crush on him. He also stares at Kaori for long, thinking how great of a person she is, which she misinterprets as him having perverted thoughts of her.

Kousei admires Kaori because she is his opposite; he wishes to become more free-spirited like her. The closer Kousei and Kaori get, the more his feelings for her deepen and the more he opens up to other people. She helps him build his confidence and successfully convinces him to perform again.

Ability

Ever since he was a young boy, Kousei had perfect pitch. He was able to accurately replicate a piece that he had only heard once. Kousei's ability was honed through the training by his mother which led to his achievement of technical perfection at a very young age. He became the youngest person to ever win the Maihou Piano Competition, and almost got a chance to perform internationally, but as a result of Saki’s passing, Kousei ceased to play any longer.

Biography

Background

Kousei became a pianist from the encouragement of his mother's close friend, Hiroko Seto, after he displayed perfect pitch. Following a collapse in his mother's health, Kousei's style of learning to play the piano was drastically changed. As a result, Kousei started becoming distant from his friends and focused solely on perfecting his piano skills in an attempt to satisfy his mother and make her happy. However, he stopped playing after her passing. His mother's death resulted in his inability to hear the pieces he played. At this point, he was 11 years old, and was a step away from entering the national piano competition. Following the death of his mother, he lived for two years without playing the piano and saw the world in monochrome.

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

One fateful spring day in April, Tsubaki Sawabe had Kousei meet her and Ryota Watari in the park, to be introduced to a girl who was claimed to love classical music. Kousei arrives at the park early, and hears a tune from being played on the melodica from a distance, follows it, and finds a beautiful girl playing with young children. He takes out his flip phone to photograph them, but due to a misunderstanding, the girl lashes out at him, hitting him with her melodica repeatedly, and pinning him down with a recorder. When Tsubaki and Watari arrive, the former introduces the girl as Kaori Miyazono, who, after finding out that she had in fact, attacked the famed pianist Kousei Arima, apologizes immediately for her violent first impression.

Upon discovering that Kaori is a violinist, she invites them to watch her performance in the violin competition. The other three agree, and sit in the audience. After hearing the exact same piece (the “Kreutzer” by Beethoven) being played over and over again by the competitors, Kousei, Tsubaki and Watari wait eagerly for Kaori. When the time comes for Kaori’s turn, the “Kreutzer” doesn’t sound anything like what the others before her played. Kousei, astonished, remarks “This is the Kreutzer, but it is no longer Beethoven’s.” After her performance, Kaori receives flowers from two little girls. Kousei compares it to a scene from a movie.

Relationships

Saki Arima

Saki Arima is Kousei’s deceased mother. She began giving him piano lessons after being given the idea to do so by her close friend Hiroko Seto, who had recognised Kousei’s musical gift.

Kaori Miyazono

Though Kousei had never met Kaori before, Kaori and her parents had always admired him since they first saw him perform. Kaori took up playing the violin hoping to perform with Kousei one day. Throughout their time together, they had many instances in which Kousei slowly gained feelings for Kaori. Each encounter had Kousei realize the importance of himself as a musician, as well as learn more about Kaori and become closer to her, something which eventually flourished into romantic feelings. However, Kousei refused to confess as he was misled to believe that Kaori was in love with Watari.

When Kaori collapsed on the day of the Gala Performance due to the sudden paralysis of her legs and received a concussion, Kousei started to doubt himself, seeing his mother in Kaori, as both of them had made a huge impact on Kousei's life, and the both of them were the reason that he played the piano. Kousei started to give up on music once again as he felt that music was the one who took away everything that was precious to him. However, after talking to Kaori about not giving up hope at the hospital, Kousei was touched by her words and decided to persevere once more in his last piano competition while Kaori was undergoing surgery. Unfortunately, Kaori was unable to pull through the surgery which led to her death, with her presumably dying on the operating table. Kousei received a letter from Kaori's parents which was written by Kaori before she underwent surgery. In the letter, Kaori expressed her love and gratitude towards Kousei and thanked him for bringing joy and meaning to her life. At the, end Kaori wrote that she was in love with not Watari, but Kousei.

Tsubaki Sawabe

Kousei and Tsubaki have been best friends since the day they were born, playing together and growing up incredibly close, being best friends as well as next door neighbors (with Tsubaki calling him her 'hopeless kid brother'). They go to the same middle school and are usually seen walking home together. Tsubaki at first denies that she likes Kousei, but after various stages of denial, she starts to secretly develop feelings and a crush towards him. She later on confesses to him indirectly about her feelings for him, something which Kousei (being the dense person he is) does not realize the meaning of. After Kaori’s death, she was shown to be around Kousei, stating that she will not leave him alone and will follow him around like his guardian angel.

Ryota Watari

Young Kousei and Watari

Kousei and Watari have been friends since their early childhood, and played together a lot when they were kids. They go to the same junior high school and Watari is one of the few friends that Kousei can trust. Watari constantly gives advice to Kousei, backing him up when Kousei was feeling down. Watari was supposedly Kaori's love and constantly acts lovey-dovey with her which causes Kousei to be annoyed. When Kousei tells Watari that he is in love with Kaori, he gives an advice on how to get her to like him and gives Kousei the confidence he needs to visit the ill Kaori.

Nagi Aiza

Nagi is Takeshi Aiza's little sister. Despite being cheeky and devilish towards Kousei on occasion, she respected him as their friendship grow as they are hanging out more with each other and is encouraged by Kousei to learn a piece. Kousei acted as her tutor and Nagi agreed to take lessons from him every week and worked hard. It is later indirectly seen that Nagi develops a crush on Kousei.

Hiroko Seto

Hiroko was the first one to find out that Kousei had perfect pitch and was a genius with the piano at a young age. Saki Arima interpreted this and decided to immediately give Kousei lessons and make him a world class pianist in her place. Later though, it is shown in her own flashback that she blamed herself for Kousei's suffering, saying that if she hadn't told Saki to turn Kousei into a pianist, he wouldn't suffer. Because of this, she decided that she couldn't meddle with Kousei's life anymore.

Emi Igawa

After almost falling asleep from previous performances, Emi Igawa was instantly inspired by Kousei, whose performance lasted less than four minutes, as she recalled. When his performance reached its end, Emi started to burst into tears. Emi put away all of her interests and hobbies, and focused on the one and only thing she needed to top Kousei: the piano. She grew up to be close with Kousei and Takeshi as they were always competing in piano competitions and locked the spots for top three. They have a mutual relationship but she and Takeshi are angered as Kousei kept winning first place in competitions. Takeshi claims that she is somewhat “in love” with Kousei, though she doesn’t exactly express it. It is said that she wanted Kousei to remember his true self.

Takeshi Aiza

Kousei has a similar relationship with Takeshi to Emi with similar reasons. Takeshi respected Kousei and named him his hero but insisted that he was always a step behind Kousei, which angered Takeshi. This made him frustrated and resulted in him practicing intensely every day, quitting soccer in order to practice and focus on playing piano, and later on, became a great pianist.

Quotes

• (To Tsubaki Sawabe) "There’s no one who’d ever fall in love with me."
• (To himself) "If you can't hear the sound, then imagine it."
• (To himself) "She moves me with such power like the pounding of my heart."
• (To Saki Arima as a child) "All I wanted was to make you happy. Even when I wanted to play with Tsubaki and Watari, or when you hit me, I always put up with it and kept practicing. All I wanted was for you to get better! All I wanted was for you to be happy! And yet...I wish you would just die."
• (Monologuing about Kaori Miyazono) “Will it reach her? I hope it reaches her.”
• (To Nagi Aiza) "Music might just transcend words."
• (To himself) "The spring where I met you. A spring...without you."
• (To Kaori) "I had you."
• (To Kaori) "I want to see you."
• (To Ryota Watari) "I...really like Miyazono."
• (To Hiroko Seto) "I want to see that sight again with my own eyes one more time. That's what made me think...That I'd like to become a really weird pianist!"
• (To himself) "I knew all along. The ghost of my mother was a shadow of my own creation. An excuse for me to run away. My own weakness. Mom isn't there anymore. Mom...is inside me."
• (To Emi Igawa and Takeshi Aiza) "I have to play. Gotta play. 'Cause I...I made a promise."
• (Monologuing; referring to Kaori and himself) "This silence belongs to us...and every single person out there is waiting for us to fill it with something"

Trivia

• Kousei is voiced by Konrad Bösherz in the German dub, and Jordi Naro in the Spanish dub.

• Kousei might have a condition called Amusia, or some form of it, as it is a brain condition that causes the afflicted person to be unable to hear a music's pitch.
• Kousei attended Hikari Public Elementary in sixth grade.
• The English manga calls Kousei, "Kōsei", while the English subbed anime calls Kousei, "Kousei".
• Etymology
  • Kousei (公生) - public and life
  • Arima (有馬) - Possesses a horse.

Gallery