Good for you Shuuichi SPOILERS

I believe that Kumiko X Reina is yuri.

Shuuichi is in the background and his relationships with Kumiko is too boring.

Yes, Reina have crush on teacher, but this is not an object of love as such, it is rather a sublime ideal, a kind of romantic image in her imagination.

But Kumiko was there all these 3 years and there was a strong passion between them that was impossible not to notice.

Even if they separated after graduation, they were together almost all the time during those three years.

So this is 100% pure yuri

In the end he was still shafted hard by Kyoani. You could say they spent almost a decade downplaying his character and relationship with Kumiko for excessive yuri pandering that obviously went nowhere.

@gnodab what if I told you

1. The studio didn't know in S1 if they are going to be able to adapt the work fully

2. The author isn't too adept at handling male characters and relationships - studio notices this

3. While Reina can be pretty boring on her own, she's pretty good when with Kumiko - studio notices this

4. KyoAni being KyoAni will try their best to visually make KumiReina look glorious

So, they sticked to the strengths of the source at first, emphasized visually on the biggest relationship in the story, and then did some minor damage control for Shuichi as the end approached. Yuri pandering and such - I don't think that's their style, more often than not this studio just likes to do what it itself likes to see, rather than targeting a specific audience.

Edit: I mean the bold Ep 12 decision speaks volumes about their "devil may care" attitude

@Laplace_kun Stop making excuses for Kyoani. If they found Kumiko and Shuuichi's dynamic in the novels to be lacking then what they did here is ultimately worse. As it stands his relationship with Kumiko is severely undeveloped and lacking. That's why during the confession in the Chikai movie nobody was convinced that Kumiko actually said 'yes'. It felt so forced and glaring, and they went with this decision to shaft him from start to finish.

I understand they want to focus more on Kumiko and Reina's relationship and that's fine, but this guy is vice president and her ex-boyfriend (whom she promised to get back with when club activities are done) You'd assume he would have a more prominent role in the story but nope, he sticks out like a sore thumb, mostly used as background character. Remember when Natsuki was VP? Yeah she had a lot more going on for her compared to Shuuchi. I just chuckled when Kumiko was reminiscing about her past experiences during the final performance and he didn't even appear once in the flashback, they just cannot spare a second for this guy.

And imagine saying Kyoani doesn't pander to yuri when this studio is synonymous to the term "yuri bait", and Hibike! Euphonium is their poster child.

@gnodab I don't care about mobs and nobodies giving studio a name. I rely on my own deductive skills. People here are pretty ignorant to relationships, speaks a lot about their real lives. Everything is yuribait if you have enough dementia and brainrot.

See point 2, you basically ignored the reason why the studio could'nt afford to invest on something that's not the strongest point. In fact the main goal is getting the first place, not romance.

See point 1 now, and how they realized making Shuichi too important suddenly in the later seasons would be artistic overcompensation.

Never did I not say the studio failed to give Shuichi justice, but these yuri bait allegations are just projections from a community with a barely functional intellect. Kyoani is a pretty relaxed studio which does what it likes to do, going out to tease a particular audience is the least of it's concerns.

Many would think the poster child is Dragomaid instead, going by your logic. Though dragons are not really...