Hibike! Euphonium 3 Episode 12 Discussion

Absolute cinema. The buildups paid off wonderfully.

Sound Euphonium is more of a Kumiko anime than a music anime. Thematically, Kitauji winning gold in Nationals but Mayu in the soli is the strongest statement of Kumiko's character development. Can safely say that me rooting for this outcome was an unpopular opinion. I thought KyoAni would not proceed thinking (rightfully) it's too risky, but these madlads actually did it.

Kudos to kumiko.. Who stayed strong as a leader and a senior..

I know some ppl hate mayu but she doesn't deserve this.. What can she do about it? She doesn't want to become soli and always try to find a way to make kumiko agree but kumiko ask her to do it for the club everytime.. Then, ppl in the comment start to get noisy saying "Mayu is the cause, F her... Blah blah blah"

It pain seeing a character get undeserved hate like this.. Kudos to mayu and kudos to reina for staying true to herself even when she knows her best friend playing..

10 years.

10 freaking years waiting for this moment for them to to just crush us like that.

It just feels like it all was for nothing.

I mean the whole point of the show since season 1 was to get gold.
Gold, gold, gold. That was the main objective all these years. And all of the drama in the show surrounded that.

But what's the point now?
It feels like that objective has become completely meaningless.

Now only the conclusion remains and Kitauji will probably win but who cares? It's just so underwhelming.

I found Taki's comment, "I still have a lot to learn," to be interesting. I don't think that occurred to him and he realized at that moment how he screwed up in Kumiko's first year. if he had been more experienced, he probably would have done that and spared them a lot of unnecessary drama.

In fact, the auditions should have been blind from the beginning, then he wouldn't have been accused of favoritism to Reina and have been forced to redo the auditions.

In spite of what reina thinks, Taki is learning along with them.

I don't really know how I feel about this season extracting the maximum amount of drama possible for any given event. On the one hand, it makes for great anime, on the other... they have been at each others' throats all season, Reina and Kumiko included. Reina was forced here to make a decision, and she chose being special, and Taki, over Kumiko. I think Kumiko understood that, in fact, she would not have expected any less from Reina. It's funny, though, how all this time, Reina was putting the responsibility for playing with her on Kumiko, and she ended up being the one who had to decide.

Ultimately, though, I think this was a good bookend for their relationship. the first time they ended up on daikichi, they became close friends. the second time, they mended their relationship. this time, they began to say goodbye to each other. mount daikichi... the place where they found, and lost, love. I mean, maybe they'll stay close their entire life, but... what they had here, they'll never have in the same way again.

I have never thought their relationship was intended to be yuri-baiting, at the most, a hamhanded attempt at having their cake and eating it too with the yuri crowd. I did think that it's intended to show a very close female friendship, and it was always intended to end someday, at least in this form. that's realistic. I wonder how Shuuichi will turn out. kumiko and shuuichi never seemed a great fit, so they'll probably end up together. but then kyoanimjust shredded the light novels, so who knows anymore.

Very good episode. I still don't think this season measures up to season 2, but maybe it's not supposed to. it has its own reason to be.

I actually started rewatching some parts of season 1 in the time between each new episode and I always believed that the community was memeing up the yuri bait because that's what Kyoani do. But I stared to realise that they were probably right. Season 2 has her almost disappear. So yeah Kyoani have definitely moved on from giving Reina that much presence in the show even if she is an important character.

I like this idea better than what the novel did. Kumiko winning everything may have been a little boring and the resolution in the last scene was great. There's more important things than the short lived gratification of playing a solo in high school. (like becoming a better version of themselves, growth that can last throughout life)
Time to get the gold performance next episode.

I understand people's frustration, I mean my heart broke for Kumiko but please don't call this bad writing. This season was about growing up, figuring out what kind of person you want to be and fighting for what you believe in, no matter the cost. This outcome makes sense, this is the kind of president Kumiko wanted to be, this is the kind of club she wanted to build and hopefully her decisions will earn them the gold. And the whole thing has been a learning experience for Kumiko and helped her decide her future.

ngl I very much expected to end up choosing Mayu's solo the way it was going, but it turned out the one I preferred was indeed Kumiko's
Had a feeling Reina would be able to tell them apart by sound (If anything I'm surprised she's the only one that did?) which makes her choice that much sadder

Beautiful episode

Edit:
people apparently mad their rewrote (supposedly) the original LN, but I'm not gonna lie I kinda prefer it this way. This kind of series (with competitions - music, sport, etc.) often tend to be a little bit too much in favor of the main cast.
I'd prolly love it if they didn't win the next competition, but given how much pain they delivered by having Kumiko not getting the soli I honestly doubt they would have the balls to go in that direction

Looks like they switched things up from the light novel since apparently Kumiko was meant to win and I guess thats fine as long as they dont change the ending. I want to see the authors vision for the series not an anime original ending.

@Maahir97 Posting of X by the original author
I watched episode 12!
Kumiko! 😭😭😭
I cried when I first saw this episode. Everyone did a really good job 😭

Those who have already read the original work will be very surprised.
I hope you enjoy the different flavors of each work, anime as anime and novel as novel...!

Let's look forward to the final episode next week.


The post feels positive in terms of Japanese nuance.
I think the change was discussed with Kyoani and agreed upon.

@kubo_2501 yeah there was tweet where Jukki Hanada thanked the LN author and the season director for agreeing to this change.

Honestly, I preferred the second solo to the first one, I even felt more chemistry between them,and yes, I am sad that Kumiko didn't get a solo because it would have been a more beautiful ending to the story, but despite everything, the emotions tugged at my heart.

This is why KyoAni is one of the best studios around. Amazing direction and writing, the way they changed the original outcome makes so much sense.
Some people here should keep in mind that this show is not a shonen and that good character development doesn't only come from succeeding and winning.

Is the ep next week the final one, so is the anime fully finished then? And was this ending like in manga (is there even a manga)? And if yes can someone spoiler what kumikos future is so what will she do?

Now we all know that the reason why Kumiko's euphonium performance isnt as good as Mayu is because she is "hesitant". What makes me curious is, why is Kumiko still hesitant about playing the euphonium? From the start of the 3rd season, I was already confused (?) with the way she didn't decide to become a musician like Reina. I always thought she liked to play eupho so much she would choose to play it again after graduating.
Is it because Mizore said "can't imagine Kumiko could get into a music university like me" ? Or...?

What a fucking uber based episode, nobody can do it like this, the goats