- So the day has come. And we can kind of cry now that this show has reached its conclusion.
- And not a moment of calmness for any of the band…except Reina, who we all knew would be as cool as a cucumber and pull off the stellar performance she always means to do. After last week’s highly emotional episode, we seem not to really see any of the self-frustration on Kumiko’s end; only pre-concert nerves. Now she finally understood how Reina felt when their middle school didn’t make the cut in their competition, she’s now more determined than ever, and realized that fretting and punching herself in the stomach over the tiniest of mistakes will only make things worse. Perhaps Kumiko had decided to learn Zen in-between last week and the day of the concert…
- But the performance that they had been rehearsing little by little, piece by piece was both worth listening to, and to watch too. As few of us viewers actually knew how the whole thing would sound like, hearing what they had practiced in its entirety gave us all a little warm feeling inside…like we could finally relate to how and what these guys were going through to get their performance just right. And the bright metallic golds and silvers and bright stages, along with their contrasting winter uniforms made us see how serious band competition is. And you thought high definition color and lens blurs were frequent throughout the show, well those 5 or so minutes just showed us how amazing the animation team at KyoAni really is now. While moe is still firmly in their blood, they have become so much more.
- And yes we got the KyoAni result we were expecting, and gave both the first-years and second-years in the band more energy and vigor to participate in the band, now that they have an actual goal, as opposed to simply playing for fun. I also feel this episode served as a swansong for the third-year girls, as this would be their last time, but it all turned out like we were expecting…Kaori stepping back and watching Reina do the trumpet solo she never could, Haruka finally take charge of a highly-nervous band on a very important day for them, and Asuka…well…being as neutral as she always is. Or was she? I think reality has finally caught up with her in the fact that she, along with Haruka and Kaori, will be graduating, and while she can still play the euphonium as much as she wants, something will be missing inside. Call it a je ne sais quoi.
- Like I said last week, KyoAni’s curse is that there will always be a very happy ending in their shows. Well we certainly got one; the potential of a second season or movie is clear, the closeness of Kumiko and Reina gets even closer, Natsuki treats Ribbons with a good-luck charm, and once we saw the results after their performance, everyone lived happily ever after…for the meantime.
Series review
Has this show had its ups and downs? Hell no! A Kyoto Animation show to be constantly good is far and few. It left us on our seats right from the beginning…
1. Would Kumiko ever reconcile with Reina?
2. Could Haruka accept her role as club president and take responsibilities and actions, instead of just being nice and diplomatic to everyone?
3. Will we ever get that moment with Reina as the snow maiden out of our heads?
4. Should KyoAni have charged extra (pay-per-view) for viewers to watch Reina and Kaori fight it out for the trumpet solo?
5. Will Yuuko/Ribbons confess? Whether it be to her beloved Kaori-senpai, or her beloved Natsuki?
I think it is safe to say that KyoAni cannot leave us hanging here; this show was very well-received in Japan and as Pony Canyon USA have already snapped it up for a Western release, here’s me with my fingers crossed that it’ll get a European one too…although I doubt it…but not like that never stops me from importing. But then again, what if we didn’t get another season, and KyoAni decided that they’d leave Hibike! Euphonium to end here, would it be as bad as we think? I mean within the space of 13 episodes, pretty much everyone achieved what they wanted. Rebuilding of the concert band from prefecture failures to national qualifiers, reconciliation, building of self-confidence and achieving what they didn’t think was possible (Hazuki playing the tuba is a clear example), practicing and practicing until you become an emotional wreck, only to pick yourself up and learn from your mistakes.
Hibike! Euphonium took high-school life and made it a little less saccharine than the usual moeblob school shows where the MC sat by the window and had their bento lunches with their rather vain new friends on the roof while discussing this, that and the other. The third-year girls were still schoolgirls but maturity still oozed within all of them, despite those times when they felt like failures. And while Kumiko x Reina became our new Mio x Ritsu, we could still giggle at what could happen in a world where Natsuki x Ribbons was the sole pairing.
Ok, so perhaps I am praising this a little too much, but I am happy to say that this, out of the 6 shows I’ve reviewed for OASG so far, this has been my favorite. And I was so pessimistic for what anime in 2015 would offer…ok sure, so I have chosen another ‘hype train’ show for the summer season, but even if that show turns out to be awful, I wouldn’t mind. Does that make sense? I don’t know.
(NB: My last summer show was a P.A Works show, and as the next summer show I’m doing is a P.A Works show too, should I feel nervous?)
