Sound! Euphonium

[pfarber]

Watched this rather short series a week ago and it's a pretty good slice of life anime. I hesitate to call it a drama as there is little drama outside of learning to play orchestral music.

The thing that pulled me in is that the animation (Kyoto Animation) is well above average and the voice acting is very good. Some of the things I really liked was that it really showed the lifestyle of the main characters. Some of the smaller things I noticed about 'daily life' were pretty reveling. Like when Kumiko and her older sister (who gave up band to study for entrance exams) Mamiko would talk/fight. Much Japanese, so very wow. There is a tiny, tiny bit of a romance as Hazuki confesses to Kumiko's childhood friend Shuichi and is rejected. Does Shuichi like Kumiko? Who knows, its not in the anime. Maybe, maybe not.

Of the many small 'only in Japan' things that sticks out the most, and only because I know it's a thing, is in one of the early episodes Michie Matsumoto, the homeroom teacher walks in, all drill instructor like, and tells a few of the girls about how high their school uniform skirts are. Then they actually animated the girls adjusting the skirt (Japan pro tip: The skirts are actually quite long, down to the knee. But what the girls do is the pull up the skirt to above their belly, making it appear like a mini skirt, or to about mid belly level for a 'little bit of thigh'. So when you watch videos and see school girls with these uber short skirts on... it's all a lie! Its just hiked up like old man pants. Why the fuck do I know this? SCIENCE BITCHES! hahahahahaha)

The main focus for a few episodes is the battle (aka tryouts) for who gets a seat in the band competition. Yeah, that's about it. As the band advisor, Noboru Taki, passive-agressively taunts the kids to do better, Kumiko's middle school friend Reina Kousaka (the most Japanese of the lot) battles Kaori Nakaseko for the 20 second trumpet solo. Yeah. That's about it.

Not sure what to make of Reina and Kumiko confessing to each other. Maybe just bad translation, maybe a bit of 'this one year at bad camp' lesbian romance... no, they never do anything, maybe it's just how Japanese kids act... they are pretty socially repressed.

Watch it, it's pretty good. The music is ok and well done, but the animation, artwork, and the small interactions between the supporting characters are what I remember most.

One thing that is pretty fucked up is how they represented the co-advisor and homeroom teacher Ms. Matsumoto. Many did they go to great lengths to show a downtrodden, older (all of maybe 28?) tired, mean woman. School teachers get no love in anime.