Hibike! Euphonium 3

With the ensemble contest behind them, the members of the Kitauji High School concert band now aim to win a gold medal at the national competition. For third-year club president Kumiko Oumae and her friends, it is their last chance before graduation. Filled with anticipation and anxiety, Kumiko worries if she can successfully lead the band.

Amid her struggles, Kumiko encounters transfer student Mayu Kuroe. From her gentle demeanor to her talented euphonium skills, Mayu was a member of the Seira Girls' School concert band—a regular at nationals. While Mayu is friendly, Kumiko cannot help but have an indescribable feeling from their meeting.

As new members arrive and plans are set in motion, the club, with an insatiable hunger for a gold medal, learns what it truly takes to propel themselves to reach the national level.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oumae, Kumiko Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Kousaka, Reina Main

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Tanaka, Asuka Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Yoroizuka, Mizore Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Nakagawa, Natsuki Supporting

Fujimura, Konomi Japanese

Tsukamoto, Shuuichi Supporting

Ishiya, Haruki Japanese

Kasaki, Nozomi Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Katou, Hazuki Supporting

Asai, Ayaka Japanese

Hisaishi, Kanade Supporting

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Yoshikawa, Yuuko Supporting

Yamaoka, Yuri Japanese

Usukura, Ryuutarou Producer

Yarimizu, Yoshifumi Producer

Ishihara, Tatsuya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Jun 30, 2024

Mcsuper

Recommended

Kyoto Animation, almost without fail, has time and time again showed us the gold standard of anime production. It is clear to see just like many of their shows, it was done with passion, love, and most importantly, they had ample time to work on it. This is the result.

Sound! Euphonium Season 3 is divisive, and it is easy to understand why. KyoAni and the staff made risky decisions in how they adapted the source material, making a critical change towards the end of the season, which really divided the community. Of course, there was also the issue of there not being enough performances in ... the season, because previous seasons showed the performances, whereas this season did not do the same. The thing I appreciated the most though, was that with all the themes that the season provided throughout, the end result stayed consistent with the themes presented.

Kumiko’s encounter and relationship with the new transfer student, Mayu Kuroe, was no doubt, a turbulent one. Mayu plays the same instrument as Kumiko, and needless to say, there are only so many spots available in a performance, or in the soli. Now, with Kumiko in her third and final year at Kitauji, and with Mayu being the new kid on the block, there is some pressure on who should play and who should not, and while Kitauji has adopted a variety of ways to decide such things, Kumiko, along with vice presidents Reina and Shuuichi, decide that for each performance during the school year, there would be an audition. Managing a band is not an easy job, and Kumiko saw that firsthand. The thing I love about the series is how well it understands school life and music. In a band, there are always clashes of personalities, people who push others harder than they are used to, people who want to just have fun playing with their friends, and people who take winning competitions very seriously. Being the president, you always have to have your ear to the ground on how the band’s morale is, and for the majority of this season, it is not good at all, with the tension at a fever pitch due to the auditions and their results.

The relatability of the characters is another massive reason why I love this series. Kumiko in particular, is someone that I am sure many of us can relate to on some level. She is a graduating high schooler with a very common problem that many of us might have faced before, not knowing what to do after graduation. By being the president of the school band this season though, she learned a lot about how to deal with people, how to motivate people, but most of all, she learned that a lot of the time, you reap what you sow, and that there will always be someone better than you at something, and I’m glad that this theme was hammered home in the end.

As for Mayu, she was also quite relatable, but to many, very frustrating to watch I would imagine. As a transfer student, especially if they are a very capable one, they will very likely shake the morale of the existing group, because all of a sudden, there is someone that plays better than most of the band populace. Therefore, she adopts an attitude of just going with whatever the majority wants, whether it is to play a certain way, to go somewhere together, just whatever would allow her to fit in, to not influence the pre-existing relationships in the band. Man, she just needs a hug…

Mayu and Kumiko's interactions throughout this season were tense, and understandably so, because not only do the two play the same instrument, they also had clashing viewpoints toward how Kitauji should operate. Kumiko wanted meritocracy, in that the best players should play, regardless of their status. Mayu, however, did not want to rock the boat that is the band, so it seemed like she wanted to forfeit her role in the band to Kumiko, as that was probably what their bandmates wanted, for their president to play. That is another sign of Mayu’s tragic character, where she just cannot bring herself to affect the band in any substantial way. Kumiko, for a good chunk of this season, avoided her, because it reminded her of herself in the past, the one that Reina “hated” for not caring about the result of a competition.

As controversial as Mayu’s addition to the cast might be, I personally loved her role in the story. She can be seen as an antagonist, but she really isn’t, as she is the catalyst that made Kumiko a better person. Kumiko can lament the missed opportunities to tell Mayu what she really felt about things, but in the end, Kumiko and Mayu helped each other, with Mayu pushing Kumiko to confront conflicts within herself, and Kumiko told Mayu something she needed to hear all her life, which was to play for what she believes in, and not “lie to the performance”.

I also loved Kanade’s role in the story, with her bluntness. In a way, she might have voiced how the viewer was feeling towards a certain moment, and that again, is relatability, in a different light.

Kumiko and Reina’s relationship was also incredibly interesting, and it tackles a similar theme to Kumiko and Mayu’s relationship, which is that people have conflicting opinions. Reina was always one of the best talents that the band had to offer. It created tension in earlier seasons of this series, and it also created tension in this season, with how her and Kumiko’s relationship was. One of Reina’s biggest flaws was trusting Taki as wholeheartedly as she did, leading to a sense of coldness toward members who were unhappy with Taki’s decisions on the auditions. Was she an antagonist? Also no, because these conflicts in a band are natural, because there will always be conflicting philosophies, and when someone as successful as Reina is questioned, it feels like an insult. Again, after being put down by Reina, Kumiko grows for the better, and shows why she was the president, and that Reina was not chosen for such a role, as seen in the eventual success in the band’s subsequent performance.

Even if there are reconciliations to be had, another theme of school life is that friendships can also disappear in the blink of an eye. Reina parting ways with Kumiko is another theme in more ways than one, from the meaning on the surface, to what it means in a musical sense. It reminded me of how Mizore and Nozomi’s relationship in Liz in the Blue Bird, my favourite anime, felt like, with one holding back the other. It is difficult, but sometimes, if you truly love your friend, you also have to let them go, and it is another theme that stayed consistent to the end of the series, which is excellent.

Common arguments about why this series was not living up to people’s expectations included the fact that the performances were for the most part, skipped. That may be the case, but I found the tension in the band just as entertaining, if not more. There were no antagonists in the end, leaving the tension as natural, yet as strong as it can be, which is what the performance was to me, the characters interacting, arguing, and in the end, thriving, under Kumiko’s leadership. The other thing was the pacing, and that one I agree with, as it slightly drags the build up to the pay-off, but made the pay-off happen a bit too quickly at the same time, which is an odd place to be in. There is an argument to be made about that, but to me, I found what we got to be extremely rewarding and inspiring to watch nonetheless. I do wish the second year of Kumiko’s high school career was a full tv season though, that would be the thing to lament about for me.

Overall, this season left me breaking down at some of the tension that was so palpable, and left me in awe of how gorgeous KyoAni’s animation and directing was, possibly even superior to the last two seasons. It’ll be a series that will stay with me for a long time to come, and one that I’ll remember fondly.

Each piece along the way was beautiful. For Kitauji, there will always be a next piece, and for Kumiko, Reina, and everyone else, there will also always be a next piece.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 9, 2024

DarkVoyagerx

Mixed Feelings

Sound! Euphonium is my favorite anime of all time. I mean, it doesn't have the genius writing of other shows I've seen or the crazy action sequences of some of my favorite animanga. 
But at the same time, I could never imagine talking about my favorite anime without mentioning this show. Sound! Euphonium is human, I relate to the characters, I'm moved by the soundtrack, and I admire the life in the art style; it's astounding.

Which is why it crushes me to not be able to rate this a 10 like previous seasons. 'Cause don't get me wrong, this season is great; but it just doesn't ... stand a chance when compared to the beauty and marvel of the previous seasons. 

There were two HUGE problems with this season, one: there was no music in a music-themed anime. This show is definitely about a bunch of other important things as well: friendships, love, recovering from trauma, overcoming difficulties, and finding yourself. But the main theme is still music, which is why it was foolish of this season to skip almost every major performance and only show parts of minor performances. Aside from this though I must say that the overall soundtrack was great since it was mostly new songs that had not been used in the previous seasons. 

Problem number two: the pacing and drama were off. What could've been some interesting drama within the club was ruined by poor pacing, which in turn led to this season suffering and becoming consumed by the drama that took way too long to resolve. In any normal 12-episode show the drama would be resolved within a few episodes since there wouldn't be any episodes to waste, in this season however it just kept dragging on and on until the end. But in all honesty, it's also a little understandable since the writers most likely wanted to emphasize the "beat around the bush" personalities of the characters involved in the drama. But even so, slower pacing only worked in the previous seasons since they were both dedicated to Kumiko's first year, there were enough episodes to waste on slow pacing, unlike in this season. And in the end, it just made A LOT of this season feel like a sequence of awkward moments without any resolution/explanation. 

With that being said, I do still think that this season is worth watching, because like I said it’s still a good season all things considered. It may not be the same as the previous seasons, but it is still charming in it's own way and definitely a good watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 30, 2024

Phlebas

Not Recommended

Funny

Spoiler

Awesome visuals, a lot of dramatic tension, only to end on a wet fart thanks to Kyoani rewriting major plot points at the end to cause drama. Sufficient to say the ending invalidates the entire journey of the series, not only season 3 itself.

Ending spoilers inevitably ahead.

In general I'd apply the usual "ignore last X episodes" for anime original endings, but the whole season 3 is pretty much one continuous arc so that'd be difficult. As such, I recommend just pretending season 3 doesn't exist.

They not only make Kumiko's 3 year journey end up in the realization that she's just not good enough (again note, ... this is changed from the novel), but the way they do it is by Reina directly backstabbing her, and then instead of that completely destroying both Kumiko's mental state and the cohesion of the club, they just proceed like nothing that happened in episode 12 even mattered (which makes sense for storyboarding because it's actually not what happened).

Visuals: 9 - great production, obviously
Story: 1 - because endings and payoffs matter

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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