The concert band’s swansong.
- Kyoto Animation has certainly left us with more than a few surprises over the last year; as to whether this show will rank as up there with their best is yet to be seen though, but would I go so far as to say KyoAni are trying to be ‘mature’? Well for this review I shall refer back to the last KyoAni show I did: Amagi Brilliant Park. The show was filled predominantly with comedy, characters that were outlandish yet people we could relate with, and a plotline that kept us on the edge of our seats. Could the park reach its visitor count by August? Would Sento be able to bed her man before Latifa? Would the 3 stooges finally attend AA meetings? Anyway I degress…what I’m getting at is that KyoAni certainly don’t like the hole they’ve been lumped into over the last 6 or 7 years. With only the slightest amount of humor, Hibike! Euphonium has only gotten through its third episode before showing the band’s current situation (as opposed to leaving it trailing into some filler episode halfway through the show).
- It may just be me though, but it’s come to the point where I can no longer feel for most of the characters anymore. Not even adorable little Sapphire. Despite the emphasis on drama (something that KyoAni seem to have only touched on now in their shows) here, I just can’t understand their pain and the situation they are in. The over-achieving girl who cares for nothing except her trumpet, the over-sensitive club president who just wants balance in the group when, clearly, there isn’t. The new hipster sensei who tries to be hip by letting the club do their own thing and then avoid giving them constructive criticism by simply telling them that they are wasting his time (all with that picture-perfect smile on his face).
- So have I begun to lose patience already? I wish I could say that I can wait until next week to see, but now I don’t even know that.
Don’t be silly. Of course you are!
- So with the second-years nearly all gone and everyone blaming each other, it’s no real wonder why they all suck. Or maybe it’s just the sensei’s way of saying “Band-stuff-is-your-problem-so-I-just-conduct”. Okay I will admit that a part of me agrees with him now I’ve watched this episode a couple of more times. Haruka and Asuka don’t want what they’ve worked so hard for to crumble a second time. So all they need is a push; insulting the band as they currently are doesn’t help though. And this is why I feel next to nothing about the kids in the band; while a choice few are amiable and nice, the rest just linger in the background like they don’t even exist. I could just moan too much about this; concert bands are large after all.
- What could rescue this show from the current slump it’s already gotten itself into? More humor? Some genuine KyoAni filler episodes? Even more leg shots? A part of me wants to know, and yet the other part of me is unsure whether I want to even care now. But being optimistic (for a change on my reviews on OASG), since the section leaders’ meeting seems to have finished by the end of this week’s show, some kind of solution has been found that can not only bring the band back together, but can finally show up the sensei for the idiot he has seemed to have already become. So yeah, the band can do it……it’s just a matter of wanting to do it.
I laughed at this, at least.
- But one thing I can finally understand is how people actually like Asuka; she’s grown on me, finally…
