First Impression – Hibike Euphonium 2

A good ending becomes a good beginning

It isn’t often that shows I rate as a 10 get a second series. It’s rare if they even get any sort of continuation (Girls und Panzer got a movie, Amagami SS got a cour, and that’s it for continuations). And perhaps part of that is that for a series to get a 10 out of me, it really helps if it completely wraps up the story or at least takes it to a spot that moving forward would fundamentally change the narrative (like Hyouka, Shirobako, or Toradora, or Glasslip). So to have a second series that is a direct continuation in the same vein is a real treat. And on top of that, it’s a show that’s really in my top 2 favorites. So let’s see if it can recapture that magic.

Later That Day…

This picture doesn’t do the feeling justice, but even the teachers are excited

Season 2 literally starts right after the end of season 1, with the Kitauji Concert Band enjoying their success at the prefectural competition. There are pictures to be taken, congratulations to be given, and smiles to be shared, but it’s not long before the planning for the future takes over again. Again, that same day. This must have been the longest day ever, because a quarter of this double-length first episode was them still finishing out that day, hot in their winter uniforms and definitely beat after the competition.

No longer losers

But there was also a lot of great stuff happening. Taki-sensei already had a sheet ready to pass out for their schedule for the three weeks until the Kansai Competition (although all the blanks are “practice more”). Team Monaka gives a wonderful celebratory performance, and we see that these girls, who ‘failed’ the auditions before, have gotten past their issues, like Natsuki’s apathy and Hazuki’s inexperience, to play a really great song for the rest of the band. So great that there are a lot of wet eyes, including Haruka, who can’t even get the words out to congratulate them. It may be that this group, more than anything else, shows the real turnaround of Kitauji’s concert band club, first and second years who have found their way to contribute and be motivated and happy about being in the club even as they are excluded from the club’s main activity. One thing I’ve wondered is whether they are continuing to learn and practice the parts of the competition songs, in case someone had to step out. This would be highly conditional, since they’re not practicing with the main group, so it would have to be something like an accident or illness with a long-term recovery, but it’s still something I wondered. Concert bands tend to be a bit more resilient than that, tho, since you can change the arrangement to cover for other parts, like we saw them do in the first series with the section that Kumiko didn’t master in time.

Kumiko has really found someone to be comfortable with

Later Later That Day…

Joining a group, I have to think Reina was there on purpose

Day’s not over yet, tho, with a return to the great relationship between Kumiko, Hazuki, and Sapphire (“Midori desu!”) on their trip home from the school. This got right into the characterization beats from the first series, like Hazuki’s “Could you hear me?” (you were the only tuba, girl, if they couldn’t hear you, something was really wrong). But they’ve picked up someone else, in that Reina is going to be riding the train home from now on (although she’d been riding the train home for a while) and is actually going to spend time with Hazuki and Midori. This is the real change, as Reina’s been setting up meetings with Kumiko for a while after Hazuki gets off the train. Kumiko even mentions this, and Reina admits that she “doesn’t hate” the other two, which is probably pretty big praise from her. And I really love the way that Kumiko starts getting a little cheekier with Reina throughout the show. She might be noticing that Reina has changed a bit, but she has herself; not too much, tho, as she still has the same great “geh!” grunt of surprise / disgust at seeing her sister (or Shuuichi).

Oh, so THAT’s why you came to get the key you knew wasn’t here…

Success Brings Them Out

“Psst, hey kid, wanna buy a watch?”

Things aren’t going to be super smooth going forward to the competition, tho. Like scavengers to a fresh kill, the success of the concert band brings out at least one person who decides they want to get back in the band. I had been wondering how the show was going to work some new characters into the mix, and this actually turned out to be a good way to do it. Resurrecting the story from the first season of the (now) second years who quit the club after failing to change the lax attitude of their 3^rd year senpais, Nozomi Kasaki is now asking to rejoin the club (with Natsuki’s sponsorship). And the way she’s going about it is to try to get Asuka’s personal acceptance, which is obviously not going to happen. Day after day, she shows up to try to get back in Asuka’s good graces, but is constantly rebuffed. And this has the effect of creating a distraction from practice, as the 2^nd years feel like they need to exclude the 1^st years from the discussion, probably out of some feeling that they don’t need to bother the first years with it.

Asuka turns serious in about an instant

Even Haruka is interested in what’s going on

I have to say that I’m completely with Asuka on this, or even more forcefully in the ‘go away’ camp. There are 3 weeks until the next competition, and probably no more than a month to the Nationals after that. What’s Nozomi doing besides being a selfish bother? If she really loved being in band that much, why not come back at the beginning of the year, when the previous year’s 3^rd years were gone but there were new people and a new chance to get integrated? Why now? It just smells bad to me, like she was waiting for them to be good enough for her. It reminded me of my WoW raid guild, and the people who quit raiding (almost always people who think they’re the best of the group) until we have learned all the fights, and then want to come back for loot. Honestly, I really dislike those people, especially back in the times when the raid had to be a set number of people. In general I’m not a fan of people being required to ‘pay dues’ or ‘wait their turn’, but to expect a group to bring you in at the expense of someone who showed up all the time is so tremendously self-centered. And that’s exactly what Nozomi is being here. She’s not going to get into the performance group. What’s she going to do? She says she’ll support the band, but all she’s doing is being a bother, distracting them from their practice, dividing their opinions.

“Do you guys all not get along?” “What, no, let’s just say we’re ‘normal’…””

But the drama can get to Mizore when it actually affects her

And in the case of Mizore, the other new character for this storyline, making her so upset she gets physically ill. The quiet oboe player, one of the group of Minami Middle School people who didn’t quit, seems to just want to do her best and not care about the petty dramas of high school life. She didn’t even pick up on the friction between her friend Yuuko and Reina, no more than three weeks before, regarding the audition. But the return of Nozomi, a person who had promised to work hard with her to go to Nationals after their devastating failure in middle school (well, it would be devastating for middle schoolers), and then quit the club on her, puts Mizore right in the middle of the drama. And that’s something she just doesn’t need or want. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this girl is able to handle and hopefully grow through this kind of episode.

What is Nozomi really thinking?

Yuri Glasses Full Force!

Reina lays down the gauntlet

The other thing really growing through the end of this episode is the love between Reina and Kumiko. And while we might be tempted to categorize it as either romantic love or nothing, I think that this 15-16-year-old time period is when people learn to work out those feelings of love, and it doesn’t have to be romantic or nothing. It’s important to feel that connection with someone, and it doesn’t matter if it’s with a boy or a girl, it still helps you learn and grow. And (unlike a lot of the yuri manga that I’ve been reading) I think it’s pretty clear that both Reina and Kumiko have the same kind of feelings here. Reina’s still got that crush on Taki-sensei, so she’s not really ‘going after’ Kumiko. And I think Kumiko is really just exploring those kinds of feelings with Reina, enjoying their time together.

And Shuuichi wimps out

And having a date for the fireworks festival is certainly one of those exploratory things. I really like how Reina deals with Shuuichi (who for some reason is hanging out with Knuckles? Maybe it’s just that guys have to stick together?), challenging him to stand up to her for Kumiko. I suppose one way of looking at it could be Reina staking a claim on Kumiko against a rival, but I really don’t think it was like that. I choose to think that it was more of a “Reina’s looking out for Kumiko” thing, and wants her to be with someone she can accept, not a spineless guy who backs down. This fits right in with Reina’s “Not going along just to go along” mentality. I wonder what would have happened if Shuuichi had taken up the challenge, and maybe we’ll get to that later in the series. It’s also funny that Reina is so surprised that Kumiko truly doesn’t really see how much Shuuichi is into her.

A little space…

… all to …

… themselves

But for now, it’s Reina and Kumiko watching the fireworks from their special perch. This was a great bit of framing from KyoAni: in the middle of a crowd but still separate, on their own level, just the two of them. It makes the personal conversation they have intimate while putting them in a beautiful setting, a huge fireworks festival in Kyoto. And they tie it in with the rest of the episode with their conversation, with the difference in their viewpoints laid bare, not in conflict but in learning. Reina’s focus on the good of the group because it advances her goals, as well as her lack of capacity to suffer fools, providing another viewpoint for Kumiko to consider regarding , while Kumiko is much more focused on the now, with perhaps her pessimistic outlook allowing a lot more freedom for someone to do what they want. But for now, it’s the two of them squeezing each other’s hands in a calm moment in time.

Definitely some new feelings she’s not used to

I don’t know if this restart to the series could have been any better, with a double-length episode leading to a more-than-double-length post from me. There’s so much that you want to talk about in a show like this, and I didn’t even get to the touches that KyoAni throws in that widen the view, that make it a full world that even we, as viewers, can live in. Things like the side stories of Gotou and Riko’s relationship, not a major plot point, but still something that we can see in Gotou’s surreptitious look to the side as they’re walking at the fireworks festival.

“I’m here with her, I am really happy about that but nervous and she looks so cute”

And that shot itself, Gotou towering above the crowd while we see Riko just in glimpses through the people. I was a little worried early in the show, probably because I was heightened to it by an interview with Tatsuya Ishihara and Naoko Yamada, the Director and Series Director, respectively, of the first series, that they were going a little too “J.J. Abrams Lens Flare” on the bokeh, but that really calmed down quite a bit as the show moved on. But in total, the show is still beautiful, the whole package almost irresistible. I sat down to watch half of the episode at midnight, because I should go to bed not too late, and ended up finishing the whole thing. And I’ve watched the whole thing another two times. I think, at this point, it would take an amazing happening to make this not the best anime ever, if it keeps this level of quality, and given the quality so far, it’s not hard to see that happening.