School band club is serious business.
Seasons 1 and 2 were a rewatch, but it was my first time seeing the movies.
Season 1
Watching this show again after seven years, what struck me is how strong its foundation is. The anime could’ve been pure slice-of-life with no plot or drama, and it would’ve probably still been watchable. First of all, you have Kyoani’s absurd level of polish and attention to detail. They really know how to bring the characters to life. But that wouldn’t have mattered if those characters were bad, so it’s a good thing they aren’t. They’re remarkably grounded for an anime based on a light novel about (mainly) high school girls. They have distinct personalities without being reduced to gimmicks.
It does take Euphonium a couple of episodes to find its footing. Take Asuka for example. At first it seems like she’s going to be the annoyingly wacky club clown. Her first appearance involves a fake hand revealing a banner spelling “welcome”. It’s not very funny and doesn’t mesh with the general tone of the series. And that’s far from the only time she got on my nerves. But the show gradually tones down her excesses, and by the end of the season I had to grudgingly admit that she’s an actually good character. Maybe even one of the best ones?
Out of all the Euphonium I’ve watched, I think season 1 struck the best balance when it comes to the drama. There’s enough to make it interesting, but not so much that it becomes overbearing. More importantly, it didn’t feel forced. It’s mostly a natural consequence of the band’s decision to be competitive.
Take the whole audition drama. Nobody is completely in the wrong. Reina knows that she’s the better player and deserves the solo role, but it’s also understandable that Kaori would feel bad about it. For the last two years, roles were handed out based on seniority, and she was passed over in favor of upperclassmen who didn’t even care. Now that she’s finally a senior herself, the rules get changed and she ends up missing out again. Yuuko was definitely sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, but given their backstory it’s not surprising that she’d want to stand up for Kaori. Arguably the only person who did anything wrong was Taki himself, who should have asserted his authority instead of doing a second audition and turning it into a popularity contest.
I also liked the episode where Kumiko experiences for the first time the frustration of not being ‘good enough’. She’s experienced enough that, up to that point, she didn’t really have to worry about much besides just playing her part. But Taki asks the eupho section to play an additional part in the competition piece, and even though Kumiko puts serious effort into practicing, she’s unceremoniously rejected. Crucially, it doesn’t overdramatize the moment. Taki simply asks Asuka to play the part by herself. It leads to Kumiko deciding that she really wants to improve. It also calls back to her time in middle school, when she was unable to understand Reina’s frustration after losing. There’s not a lot more to it, but the way it was delivered was very well done. And I just liked Kumiko in general. The story tends to play up what a ‘bad’ person she is, way beyond what she’s actually like, but I do enjoy that she has a little edge to her character.
The finale is good too. The whole season builds up to the Kyoto competition, and while not a lot actually happens there (no contrived last minute surprises, thankfully), it does a really good job at showing everyone’s anxiety before, during, and after their performance. It’s hard not to feel happy for them when their hard work paid off and they take first place.
Rating: 8/10
Season 2
Remember what I said about the show’s strong foundation? Season two has a couple of story arcs that could’ve easily been unwatchable, had this been made by a lesser studio. At multiple points I found myself thinking that this shouldn’t work, and yet I was mostly still enjoying it. At the end of the day, I think it’s only a little weaker than the first season.
Case in point, the first real arc of season two, revolving around Mizore and Nozomi. It starts off slow, throwing in a random pool episode to distract you from the weak pacing. But then, after all the build-up, it just ends abruptly. People were trying to stop Nozomi from rejoining the club to keep her away from Mizore, but I guess they forgot that nothing was stopping her from just walking up and talking to her. The whole resolution was a little lame, but once again, I didn’t dislike it. Maybe it helped that I was expecting a different (worse) explanation, so I was pleasantly surprised by the real reason. Nozomi was Mizore’s only friend, but Nozomi herself had plenty of other friends, so it makes sense for Mizore to worry that their friendship is one-sided. Even if there was no good reason for the total lack of communication that brought things to that point.
The band has another big performance at the regional competition. I was expecting this one to be less effective, because we’ve already been through this in season one, but I actually really liked it, for all the same reasons.
Then we move on to more drama, this time about Asuka. I can’t believe this character grew up on me after her terrible first impression. I might even say I liked this arc the best out of this season. The rest of the season though… it’s fine. They reach the nationals, where they only manage to get bronze. I’m not sure why their entire performance was cut this time. Probably because twoi full performances in one season would’ve been too much. Still, that took away from the experience. The tension wasn’t as high as previous times, so the loss didn’t have as much impact as it should have.
Another thing that comes up at multiple points throughout the season is Reina’s crush on Taki. Once again, I’m surprised I didn’t like it less. The problem is that there’s really nowhere for this storyline to go, other than crushing Reina’s heart and forcing her to learn that she’s not as mature as she imagines herself to be. Which would be fine, if it actually happened instead of being dragged out indefinitely. It’s not helped by random contrivances like introducing a minor female side character just so people can gossip about her being Taki’s girlfriend and making Reina sad.
The other aspect is Taki’s dead wife. I don’t have any issues with that plot device as far as it pertains to him and his motivations. But Kumiko learning about this and then having to keep it secret from Reina is… kind of pointless. It’s also just weird. Taki and Reina aren’t strangers. Their fathers were acquainted, and her flashback scenes suggest that she knew Taki fairly well. Surely she’d know about something as dramatic as a family friend’s wife dying. But apparently she didn’t even know he was married in the first place? It makes little sense.
The season ends with the third year members graduating and leaving the club for good. It’s a little sad of course, but it’s stretched out so much, clearly trying to make it as much of a tearjerker as possible, that it actually has less impact. Still, I ended up enjoying season 2 more than I was expecting.
Rating: 7.5/10
Liz and the Blue Bird
I never watched Liz and the Blue Bird before, because I heard it was about the two characters I cared the least about. It turns out all my fears were justified, because this movie kinda sucks. It wasn’t actively bad or anything, but it had no business being 90 minutes long. I was bored out of my mind. This could’ve been one, maybe two episodes.
I thought the movie might make me change my mind about Nozomi and Mizore, but if anything I like them even less for making me sit through this thing. They’re just so bland. They absolutely can’t carry an entire movie.
The parallels between the bird story and Mizore/Nozomi felt kind of forced too. They identify themselves with the two characters in the story, and the emotional climax of the movie is supposed to be the realization that they’d been thinking about it the wrong way, and that Mizore was the blue bird all along. But it doesn’t even fit that well? In the story, they’re separated because Liz makes the bird leave, but in reality, they’re ‘separated’ because Nozomi herself leaves, by deciding to go her own way instead of following Mizore.
But then again, I didn’t really ‘get’ the story anyway. It seemed like a metaphor for keeping a bird in a cage, but that doesn’t work when the bird turn into a human who’s free to go where she pleases and was willingly staying with Liz until she was thrown out.
Also, it’s a minor thing, but it did bother me that the movie has completely different character designs. When Mizore first appears, I thought it was Reina.
Rating: 5/10
Our Promise: A Brand New Day (Movie 3)
Even though I consider Liz a much worse movie, at least it felt like a movie. This one, on the other hand, is more like five regular episodes in a trench coat. There’s not much tying the different arcs together. By the 2/3rds point I still wasn’t sure what the movie was actually building towards. That’s not necessarily a problem, but the lack of cohesion makes it a bit of a chore to watch all at once, for the same reason I wouldn’t watch five episodes of the series in a row. That’s just too much Euphonium all at once.
Once again, the drama is a step down from the previous season. My main problem is that most of the new first-years are kind of aggravating. Not every arc in season 1/2 was equally good, but I generally didn’t dislike anyone, the sole exception being Yuuko during the whole audition kerfuffle. But the most important new character in this movie is Kanade, who just comes across like a piece of shit who’s constantly antagonizing people.
Her backstory does attempt to explain why she’s like this. In middle school she was given a place on the competition team over a senior, but after they lost she ended up taking the blame for it. That may explain why she’d intentionally throw the audition to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes, but it’s really not presented like it was that big a deal. And it certainly doesn’t justify the way she’d been acting towards everyone else.
Besides that, we have Mirei, who’s standoffish but really just wants to make friends. There’s really not much to say about her. You could find a storyline like this in basically any other teen drama, and it mainly serves as another way for Kanade to show her bad side.
In the meantime, we’re racing towards the regional competition, which serves as the ‘climax’ of the movie. In the first two seasons, the band had to come a long way to make it to that point, so there was a reason to feel invested in the outcome. This time around, everything moves so fast it feels like no more than a few weeks have passed. And because the story is so focused on a couple of characters, you don’t get much of a feel for the band’s overall progress. As as a result, the disappointment of only winning silver didn’t really come through.
The other thing this movie does is setting up Kumiko/Shuuichi, and I really can’t bring myself to care about them as a couple. I liked their original relationship as childhood friends. They’re comfortable around each other because they’ve known each other for so long, but they’re not actually that close. Actually, with how annoyed they tend to act towards each other, they come across more like quarreling siblings. It worked pretty well that way.
But Shuuichi is just not an interesting character. He doesn’t get much to do, besides giving Kumiko someone to talk to about band events. He’s like your typical male light novel high school protagonist, except because he’s not the protagonist he ends up being kinda boring instead.
It’s hard to deny that large parts of season 1 and 2 were heavily playing up Kumiko’s attraction towards Reina (even if it wasn’t mutual). This is the girl who’d act conspicuously uninterested while all the other girls were gossiping about how hot they thought Taki was, but used terms like “a declaration of love” when it came to Reina. More importantly, the two of them had actual interesting interactions. There was clearly some kind of chemistry there, whether you consider it romantic or not. Putting all of that to the side to set her up with the Token Male Character is a total waste, especially when it won’t even commit to it (they agree to consider it after graduating). Plus we had to suffer through all the annoying teasing from her classmates
Once again, my feelings on Euphonium are more positive than my writings would suggest. Movie 3 may not be on the same level as the first two seasons, but it was still fine. I blame Kyoani. They’re too good at their jobs.