Hibike! Euphonium Movie 3: Chikai no Finale

A new year signifies a new beginning, and that seems to be the case for Kitauji High School’s concert band. Following the graduation of the third-year seniors comes the entrance of the first-year juniors. The band members put in their utmost effort in practicing for their goal—to enter nationals.

The now second-year Kumiko Oumae, along with her friends, is met with the new and quirky batch of first-years, resulting in friction and conflict between the band members. However, as time passes, their inner feelings slowly unravel, but not every conflict is as easy to solve as the other. The trust and bonds between the band members will be challenged as they push forward for their regionals.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oumae, Kumiko Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Hisaishi, Kanade Main

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Kousaka, Reina Supporting

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Tanaka, Asuka Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Nakagawa, Natsuki Supporting

Fujimura, Konomi Japanese

Tsukamoto, Shuuichi Supporting

Ishiya, Haruki Japanese

Katou, Hazuki Supporting

Asai, Ayaka Japanese

Yoshikawa, Yuuko Supporting

Yamaoka, Yuri Japanese

Taki, Noboru Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Kawashima, Sapphire Supporting

Toyota, Moe Japanese

Yarimizu, Yoshifumi Producer

Ishihara, Tatsuya Director, Storyboard

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Yamada, Naoko Episode Director, Key Animation

Reviews

Aug 21, 2024

narwhaal

Recommended

Hibike! Euphonium Movie 3: Chikai no Finale is a continuation from Season 2 of the series. There is a separate film called 'Liz To Aoi Tori', which takes place some time in the middle of the movie. I highly recommend watching that film before watching this film as it makes some moments hit a lot harder. Chikai no Finale is a great film filled with dramatic moments, amazing sound direction and art. It has definitely not fallen in quality when compared to the series that came before. This review is spoiler-free.

Story:
Some might argue that a new season is better than a movie. I do agree ... to a certain extent. Due to its limited runtime of 1 hour 40 minutes, the film could not expand on all of the new characters that were introduced with the second year of Kumiko's school journey. At the same time, there were a lot of events that could not be touched on properly. This film basically has the same events as the series, just that they had to be fit into the small timeframe. Overall, I would say that they did a pretty good job of doing so. For important scenes, they handled them quite well and had the impact they needed to deliver to the audience. The film had many moments with tension that were resolved satisfactorily. Again, it would be better if this was made into a new season, but I am not unsatisfied with their execution. 7.5/10

Characters:
With a new school year, there were first-year characters that were introduced. There was only a few that could really be expanded on due to the runtime of the movie but these characters were fleshed out decently. One in particular, Hisaishi Kanade, I was very happy with. Without spoilers, all I can say is that she was a character that intrigued me from the start and I became quite fond of her interesting attitude and resolve. Other than her, some second-years everyone is familiar with also got their fair share of development. The film does focus more on the first-years though, allowing them to fit in more into the band. Generally, this department of the film was done pretty well, at least for the characters that the audience is meant to focus on. 8/10

Art and Animation:
Of course, KyoAni never fails here when it comes to Hibike! Euphonium. The art and animation are amazing, polished and smooth. Scenery is beautiful, characters are super expressive, everything is just so pleasant to look at. Nothing much else to say, they did a spectacular job as usual. You can tell KyoAni puts their soul into making this series look good. 10/10

Sound Direction/Music:
Again, another department that never fails to deliver. Music is extraordinary and the voice acting is phenomenal as well. You can really tell how much Kumiko has grown as a character through her voice acting. The pieces that were played are beautiful. Really nothing to complain about, the sound direction is immersive and sucks you into the film. As always for Hibike! Euphonium, one of their strongest points. 10/10

To conclude, Chikai no Finale is a splendid continuation of the series, using its short runtime to a damn good extent. A new season would have probably been better to build on all the new characters and struggles, but overall it left me satisfied and wanting more. Even though some of my favorite characters are no longer here due to them graduating, I am still very happy with the new and current characters. Please do not skip this movie as it is canon and do not forget to watch 'Liz to Aoi Tori', another great film.

PS. Watch the after credits, I did not expect to see that so soon.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 16, 2024

MrRant

Mixed Feelings

God, this film is frustrating.

The very best scenes and moments of the entire Sound! Euphonium series take place in this film, and yet I’m disappointed after watching this, why? Because to get to those incredible moments we had to rush towards them faster than The Promised Neverland S2 rushed towards its ending.

The very first 24 minutes of this were perfect, and I genuinely was confused as to why this was rated lower than the rest of the series, but after the beginning we are bombarded with too much content, new characters, and development for a single movie to cover. Every single conflict in between the ... start of this film and the end of it is given about ten minutes to be introduced, shown, and then concluded, and it’s so frustrating. Because you just know that Kyoani can make a much better product than this if it was a season, cause each conflict they introduce I almost immediately get invested in, yet just as fast as I get invested we are thrown straight away towards a new conflict and a new character. Hell there are even characters that get introduced with problems that get figured out OFF-SCREEN?! What the hell.

It’s so frustrating, because as the same time this terribly paced runaway train we are given the very best performance piece I have ever heard from this series that it made me cry.

In the end it’s a 6 out of 10 film with scenes that are an 11 out of 10.
And the only reason why I’m not even more pissed off, is because if this was a season, the Liz and the Blue Bird film would probably not exist.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 8, 2024

loftyy

Not Recommended

This shouldn't have been a movie.

This movie really stings for me personally because of the golden run Hibike was on before it. To preface, I haven't watched any Hibike movies as they're mostly just recaps with a few extra scenes. Season 1 was a great set up for season 2, which left off at a sad yet exciting conclusion to see what would come next. This movie isn't bad by any means, but compared to what Hibike was building, it dropped the bar.

It felt like it reused conflicts and character arcs that had already been done, but much better with more time in both ... seasons before. It felt cheap, recycled and glossed over. The movie can be split into 3 main arcs, with 1 small subplot running underneath. All of these would be much better with even only 1 season, to get through the entire year. Even though the first year was split into 2 seasons, this part of Hibike should have had more time, because the new characters and conflicts would have had more time to develop and add some depth to them, rather than being rushed and hastily resolved in an episode's worth of time each.

This movie also fails to uphold the expectations left behind by season 2, which had an amazing conclusion, leaving viewers to be waiting for more. There were many things we wanted to see, but to make the entire next year into a movie felt extremely cheap. It felt like getting rid of all the (new) 3rd years before season 3, so we could have a conclusion for Kumiko's cohort in the next season. They already pretty much got rid of Asuka and her cohort, which included many great characters, namely Asuka, but now the 2nd years too? It's pretty sad when you realise that the new first years didn't get the time to develop too well either so we're left with some good characters but not enough to carry in the 3rd years for next season, half-baked second years who you can barely remember the names of, and first years again, but this time hopefully done better.

The conclusion also felt extremely disappointing, not because of the outcome, but because it wasn't the focus of the movie to actually reach the goal. They spent too much time trying to introduce and build new characters and reuse conflicts, that the main goal of the band itself became an afterthought. As such, the outcome makes sense, but still feels very wasted because of all the hype riding from the conclusion of season 2 being crushed.

Even though the movie may be a failed sequel to the Hibike series (in my opinion), it isn't actually bad. The music is great of course, the characters from previous seasons are still great, and the new conflicts make a decent amount of sense, but they weren't very original. Kanade is a good foil to Kumiko, and Kumiko has developed greatly, with her taking herself and the club seriously and earnestly, while helping ease tensions as she always does. Kanade forces Kumiko to utilize her experience, and deal with these issues directly through herself, without relying on anyone. Though Kumiko is great in this movie, many past and new characters are unfortunately side-lined for the most part.

Reina, Mizore, Nozomi, Yuuko, maybe Natsuki, and many other second years, third years and first years barely have any dialogue. Nozomi and Mizore have their own movie, so they don't really matter, but Natsuki and Yuuko are central characters, and letting them leave the cast with not even a proper conclusion or farewell is straight disrespectful. The second years barely have any dialogue either, it would have been nice to get some more dialogue/screen time from them, especially because they all made relations with different first years, and having more from them could help develop the first years too, preparing for the new cast that would be introduced in season 3.

Shuuichi is one of the characters most butchered, with him being given no screentime, except to be used as a tool by them to "develop" Kumiko by giving her an obstacle to move forward from. First of all, this should definitely not have happened in this movie, maybe near the end of the third year, but definitely not the second year. Hibike had been keeping a good distance from romance, and it was a good decision. And to all the people who had random ships, Shuuichi is the romantic interest no matter what you say, and it was obvious since the moment he was introduced. Even if he was, this was not the right moment, which was even emphasized by how trivialized it became near the end, a development to be retried later, or offscreen. A failure, you could say.

All in all this movie is fine, but for Hibike fans like myself who were excited for what was to come, it’s a disrespectful gesture to all the characters and events that lead up to this point in the story, just to make this mediocre continuation. As I stated before, this wouldn’t have been as bad if there was a series behind it, but there isn’t and this is the only adaptation we’ll get of their second year, which was supposed to be the year that Asuka and the other graduates hyped up in their conclusion. Again, I wouldn’t have minded this outcome had it been explored and done in depth, instead of glossing over things and proving no real reason for anything. Hopefully season 3 can save the show, because it really felt like season 2 was leading into something amazing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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