Reviews

I had a lot of hope for this anime and it not only disappointed me but also upset me. The premise of the series was promising and it offered characters and a plot I could relate to being about high school band and such. It was also produced by Kyoto Animation who did a phenomenal job as always with the animation and character designs. You’ll still see me reblogging pictures and gifs of this series because-despite what I’m saying now-I appreciate how much effort went into the presentation of this anime. My issue lies with the writing and character development because there is little to no substance there. I understand that you can only do so much in the span of a 12 episode series, but even so I felt that it introduced too many characters that were never fully developed.

What started off as a series focusing on three friends (one of which learning about music and her instrument) became a pandering storm of yuri fanservice at the expense of developing Kumiko’s (the MC’s) character really at all. My main gripe however was that her two new friends were left in the background halfway through the series. As an audience member, I was happy to see Kumiko helping her “friend” Reina, but I’m biased towards hating unnecessary romantic subplots, ESPECIALLY when it takes over the series. After the semi-romantic tension is introduced between Kumiko and Reina, we barely ever see anything beyond the occasional glimpse of what Midori and Hazuki are doing besides just assisting the rest of the band. We’ll see them sometimes slip in and help Kumiko or offer passive assistance but they back off and their presence isn’t important to the story anymore. Why introduce these characters who both have confidence issues only to make them friends with a character too dense to give a care about them? It’s honestly beyond me but it began to frustrate me as a viewer to see Kumiko (who was already a fairly shallow MC) begin to just pay no attention Midori and Hazuki. Meanwhile, Reina gets the most time on screen as Kumiko’s supposed “love” interest.

My problem with this series does not lie in the fact that it has a semi-”yuri” love interest, (Yuru Yuri is one of my favorite shows) it’s that it completely overhauls the show, takes it over, and rams whatever remaining plot and character development right into a brick wall. People honestly thought this show was Kyoto Animation’s saving grace while bashing series like Hyouka, Beyond the Boundary, K-On!, and Chuunibyou for having shallow characters. If that’s your opinion you’re completely entitled to it, but I much prefer those series. What I dislike about Hibike! Euphonium was that it had so much potential and deep characters only to have them become a tiny little helping hand for Kumiko’s shallow character who was too busy being a fanservice gateway to notice them anymore.