Hibike! Euphonium 2

Following their success in the qualifying round for the Kansai regional competition, the members of the Kitauji High School concert band set their sights on the next upcoming performance. Utilizing their summer break to the utmost, the band participates in a camp where they are instructed by their band advisor Noboru Taki and his friends who make their living as professional musicians.

Kumiko Oumae and her friends remain determined to attain gold at the Kansai competition, but trouble arises when a student who once quit the band shows interest in rejoining and sparks unpleasant memories for the second-year members. Kumiko also learns about her teacher's surprising past and the motivation behind his desire to lead the band to victory. Reaching nationals will require hard work, and the adamant conviction in each student's commitment to the band will be put to the test.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oumae, Kumiko Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Kousaka, Reina Main

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Tanaka, Asuka Main

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Kawashima, Sapphire Main

Toyota, Moe Japanese

Tsukamoto, Shuuichi Supporting

Ishiya, Haruki Japanese

Yoroizuka, Mizore Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Nakagawa, Natsuki Supporting

Fujimura, Konomi Japanese

Kasaki, Nozomi Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Katou, Hazuki Supporting

Asai, Ayaka Japanese

Yoshikawa, Yuuko Supporting

Yamaoka, Yuri Japanese

Nakamura, Shinichi Producer

Saitou, Shigeru Producer

Senami, Riri Producer

Yarimizu, Yoshifumi Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jun 10, 2024

lycoping

Recommended

There is not enough time in our lifetime to spend on things that don't move us. Whether it be great music, great works of art, or even time with a loved one or pet, not spending our time wisely is one of the greatest affronts to all that is good that exists in this world.

Hibike! Euphonium is one of those things that it is more of an affront to all that's good to *not* have watched once in your life.

In my review for the first season, I talked at length about all the things that I absolutely loved about this anime as a whole, ... and since if you're reading this review you've probably already watched season 1, I will only address season 2. There may be spoilers for season 1, but again, this is season 2, I'm assuming you've already watched season 1, so if you have not, please stop reading now.

No, really, please stop reading now.

Are you still reading?

Okay... I think it's safe now.

Hey! You over there! Yeah, you, with the... hair! You didn't watch season 1, did you? Yeah, I thought so. Go watch season 1, then come back! You won't regret it! Shoo!

Okay. That person's gone. Now we can get down to business. (to be clear, mods: there are NO SPOILERS for this particular series.)

This season built upon what's awesome from season one, and dialed it up to eleven. Where season one started a little slow and didn't really get rolling until about episode 8 with that famous Reina and Kumiko scene, season two starts out strong and just gets stronger throughout the whole thing.

In this season, the Kitauji High School Wind Ensemble, fresh off of a victory in the Kyoto competition (I WARNED YOU), moves on to the Kansai competition. In doing so, fractures in the ensemble start to become apparent, and most of the drama is centered around dealing with those fractures so that the band can be unified for their competition (or maybe multiple competitions, you'll have to find out). Kumiko and friends learn a lot about themselves and how they interact with each other and their teachers. Put simply, they start to grow up. And as we all know, growing up is always a little painful. Or a lot painful.

The emotional scenes in this series are top notch. Remember the scene in S1E11 where Kumiko was running across the bridge? There's more of that here. Much more of that. But at the end, no one is the same as when they started, and the beauty of this anime is watching that progress.

The animation is even better than in series one, if you can believe it. The animation, the characters, the voice acting, the emotions - it's like KyoAni found their stride at the end of series one and just... kept going.

None of the characters in this anime are perfect, and I think that's a part of the appeal. Coming into this series, Kumiko is a little distant and standoffish. Reina is hard-edged and a little immature, especially when it comes to love. Asuka is inscrutable and difficult to read. Taki is driven to succeed, and isn't a very well developed teacher yet. But throughout this anime, we see those flaws... not go away, but get rounded off, addressed, sometimes grown past. This is the genius of this anime and KyoAni. They use the beautiful animation, the beautiful music, the amazing voice acting, to tell that story, and it's the story that's the most important thing.

I don't know how you can watch this series and not be moved. I mean, I know some people can, but I don't know how it's possible. It's such a love letter to concert band, to youth, to adolescence, to high school, to music especially, and to growing up and eventually leaving it all behind.

The flaws in this anime are pretty much the same as in series one. The ambiguous yuri-baiting (which I do not see as an issue, but others might), the band being too good (they actually get even a little *better* here), etc. None of that detracts at all from the awesomeness of this anime.

Watch this anime. Seriously, watch it. In fact, drop everything, get yourself some popcorn or pizza or vegan chic'n teriyaki-like flavored soy bites with real cheese-ish bits, and watch this anime. It may not change your life, like it did mine... but... it might. And you owe it to yourself to see how awesome anime can actually be when you have a studio that actually cares about their product.

Recommended from me. And if this site offered an 11 rating, I'd give it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Feb 6, 2017

Ragna1999

Mixed Feelings

After the disappointing third season of Haikyuu!! I was hoping that Hibike Euphonium would atleast have a good second season that I would've enjoyed. Unfortunately I was wrong. Although not as broken as Haikyuu!! S3, Hibike Euphonium season 2 was still a very disappointing sequel to what was otherwise a great first season.

I first want to address the obvious. Yes, the animation is f***ing orgasmic in Hibike Euphonium. However, is this quality of animation necessary for something like Hibike Euphonium? I know that HE season 1 also had great animation, but in comparison to season 2 it was still pretty tame. In this season you ... have a lot of complicated and beautiful shots for the simplest scenes. It also does this with scenes that were supposed to show the friendship between the two characters, but the way it was animated was so dramatic and over the top that it felt like it was supposed to be a romantic relationship. This led to an incredible amount of people coming to the conclusion that HE2 was just queerbaiting the audience. And I don't think it's wrong to think that because the show was presented like that. The overanimation was also very distracting. It was kind of difficult to take the dramatic scenes seriously or to even pay attention to what was happening.

Now let's talk about the story and characters. The story has unfortunately become very standard compared to the first season. The reason why I loved the first season was that almost every conflict or problem were there from the start. And by the end of it almost every problem is solved. In season 2 though most of the main conflicts of the show tend to be problems that have suddenly showed up out of nowhere and there was only one conflict that was there from the very beginning and it's my favorite storyline of the entire second season (it is the conflict between kumiko and her sister). It's also notable that the conflicts appeared one by one. This did not happen in the first season and that's why the first season felt like a breath of fresh air. This kind of story structure made season 2 look like a very well produced by the books highschool anime, but that's not what HE was. I can understand if people don't care about this kind of stuff, but for me it was drag to watch through. It also doesn't help that season 2 has a crap ton of flashbacks which I really hate. The first season was able to avoid most of them but it seems that that kind of writing has been lost in season 2.
Some characters in season 2 are completely ruined. Let's take Asuka as an example. The reason why she worked in the first season was that she was a very mysterious big sister kind of character and no one really understood what was going on with her and that's why she was my favorite character. She deliberately acted mysterious for the sake of the concert band. This character is completely ruined because she was the focuspoint of one of the storylines AND she got a backstory. I can talk about more characters who were completely ruined but this review is already pretty long so I'm going to keep it at that.

But what about the soundtrack and the sound though? That has to be good right? And to be fairly honest the soundtrack itself is really good. The same is for the sound design. My only problem with the sound is that I sometimes felt that the soundtrack was used way too much in dramatic scenes for EXTRA DRAMATIC EFFECT, but that is just my personal opinion. The sound of concerts is as good as season 1 and the sound of the instruments itself are again very well done.

When I look back at my viewing experience of HE S2 I would say that I very rarely enjoyed this sequel. There were moments where I was amazed at what Kyoto Animation had done with this second season but it immediately disappeared as soon as I dived deep into the story.

So would I recommend Hibike Euphonium season 2? Well it's difficult to say since I can see why most people would enjoy it. But if you want a well written story with a good structure with fun and consistent characters, I would recommend the first season of Hibike Euphonium. The first season can stand on its own feet since it's a complete story. I would only recommend season 2 to people who really want to know how the story would've continued, but even then I would just recommend reading everything online instead of actually watching the second season.

If you're still here after all that gibberish then congrats and thanks for reading this review and not immediately ignore it because of the score!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 12, 2023

Itkovian

Not Recommended

Funny

It's one thing for this show to queerbait me, but to do it twice? To do it the second time while switching from a love interest who had a developed and meaningful connection with the protagonist, to one who is basically just an impossible-to-read weirdo that no-one in their right mind would be in love with? Awful. Combine that with excessive focus on interpersonal drama between marginal characters with very little payoff or meaning, and a general lack of focus on what should be the crux of the anime - the craft of music itself - and what you get is a waste of time.

Looks ... great, though!

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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