Reviews

When I saw that this OVA had been announced a while back, there was nothing that could dampen my mood and as the months passed by I grew more and more excited to watch it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but given that it has been 4 years since the 3rd film (the most recent Hibike release), I was at least expecting something worthwhile to watch. However, I was disappointed after watching the OVA because nothing of substance really happened, the ensemble contest does not matter at all and we didn't even get to hear the group that won!

The whole 50 minutes felt lacklustre and hollow which is a real shame because I absolutely love everything about hibike. The characters, their dialogue and their interactions felt wishy washy and shallow compared to the complex and well crafted conversations and events that happened in the first two seasons. I get that it's an OVA but why was the decision made to make a 50 minute OVA where you're stuck in the middle between a normal episode and a film? Kumiko is one of my favourite anime characters ever but in this she seems a bit bland and uninspired, I hope they bring her cynical yet kind personality back for the third season, I really do love her character.

All in all I enjoyed seeing the characters back and the animation, although clearly held back, still looked beautiful. This OVA should have been longer, or, it should have been shorter, deciding it to be 50 minutes leaves it in this weird position where you don't really achieve anything the whole time. There was about a collective 3 minutes of us seeing instruments actually being played, I hope there's a lot more in season 3, I'm sure KyoAni won't let us down. If you love HIbike then definitely give it a watch, if you don't then you're not really missing out on much.

Thanks for reading.