There are three main types of "specific interest" story. When author knows and wants to submerge its viewer (or reader) into the world of interest; when author finds something unusual and shiny, googles about it and decides to make a story about it; and something inbetween.
What you have here - is the story inbetween. Author knows about it, but puts it as unusual and shiny.
It is called "Hibike! Euphonium", and it is about big beautiful brass that shines, but does not breathe.
Most of plots in modern anime about music tend to look like this: protagonist making or taking part in a band or orchestra, grinding
...
its skill and becoming popular and famous in the end. This plot was used so many times that not it is not very interesting to follow it.
So, as a multi-instrumentalist with a strong knack for musical instruments, before watching, I made a supposition: maybe these series will show us characters actually playing musical instruments? Maybe it will tell us about secrets and mysteries behind brass techniques? Or - in the most extreme case - would it turn me into a brass fan and persuade me to buy a trumpet, as I wanted several years ago? Let's wait and see.
Obviously, with shiny brass and glossy art in preview arts and videos, my first impression was positive enough. Even though the studio making this show would be Kyoto Animation, infamous in latest years for its beautiful bug-eyed art and lack of plot and character development.
For example, the notorious K-On lacked any skill development, jumping from zero to hero in an instant for no particular reason.
If you play a musical instrument, you should have known that learning to play any instrument, from recorder to tabla drums, takes a lot of time and work. Obviously, non-musician viewers would not be insterested in daily routine with blistered fingers, aching back or dry mouth, but a proper amount of these scenes would make you believe characters on screen are trying their best to do music. I did not believe K-On. Should I believe Hibike? Let's hope.
Now for the actual reason: I decided to give this anime a try for having a character playing double bass. Why? Because this instrument is very uncommon in girl-cast shows.
Lots of different characters in different anime series are playing violin; again, mostly they are girls, and violin is supposed to underline their femininity, giving them a very artistic and porcelain-ish aura.
But suddenly here comes a tiny curly-haired moe-girl carrying a stringed coffin larger in size than her. No way it could be feminine: trust me, double bass is really that large and cumbersome, but - surprisingly - not so heavy and loud, being a low-pitched instrument. Would a moe-girl make it roar and slap? Let's watch.
Here it goes. Beautiful art, girls in uniforms, everything is polished and nice. Girls, be ambitious...?
Nope. Girls, be boring, dull and slow-paced.
This is not the show about music. Music is not needed here. This is a show about problems.
It should be called "Naku! Ennuiphonium".
Even K-On made a good and happy, yet poseurish, mood, and here we just watch characters playing in band with sad faces on.
Again: I like happy and cheerful people and characters. They charge you with a will to live. With female protagonist being boring, slow-paced and not pursuing her unfinished dream (which every young musician has) with burning eyes, I can not empathize her. Yes, she had a loss in past, though would it be a shounen-oriented series, she would think something like: "I lost? Who cares. I'll just grind more". She prefers to dig deeper into her thoughts, without even thinking about how she could overcome her sadness.
The problem of this show lies not only in un-empathetic protagonist, but in wrong deepness balance of the whole show. Instead of dripping us, viewers, into the world of music, it drips us into relationship problems of female protagonist being afraid to speak with her childhood friend, who grew into an aloof-dark-emotionless-long-haired type (I personally hate such characters, but that's not the question).
With all this drama bubblegum (as well as biseinen teacher not stopping to smile), Hibike looks more like a shoujo show with cheap plotline, but great art instead. Only Asuka (who looks like Mita from Hatsu Inu, by the way) tries to be the main genki and fanservice source of the show, making me change my opinion about Hibike being a pure shoujo.
By the way, let's stop a little bit on Asuka, until we started to rant about everything else. It is the only character of the show with no purpose other than being better than others.
She pushes female protagonist to the plot, makes her progress more and more, and does not actually care about sad things happening around her. Looks very similar to Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but if Kamina was a charismatic character with a big dream and looked realistic and vivid in his setting, Asuka looks and acts like she came from nowhere to do everything better than others. Got what I mean?
Yes. Asuka is a Mary Sue.
And being a Mary Sue is not a good way to push the plot. Because you're not a character, but more like a random person on stage caught improvising.
Where was I?... Another bad thing is that plot jumps from one place to another too much. With unneeded amounts of drama atop it reminds me of Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai, with the only difference Hibike being realistic enough.
The second problem lies in over-dramatisation and depressive atmosphere suited only for 15-year-old girls experiencing coming-of-age period, because it is the time when you try to cope with your seeings of the future. In short, the characters are constantly sad.
And the sadness keeps going and going! Compared, for example, to Hanayamata, nobody ever tries to turn the sad situation on screen into aspiring, funny or just interesting. Each episode looks not at all like a show about dreams and future, instead looking more like a footage from some dark arts circle. Dress all characters in black, make it rain outside, and the atmosphere would be ideal for the show.
Seriously: the lack of any happiness in characters' onscreen life makes you believe that it's a show about a funeral band.
Again, you could take musical instruments out of the show and replace concert band with some other props to make the plot flow. Replace the setting with an artist academy, shooting range or tube-rolling mill, nothing would change drastically: a bit of inner works, and no actual gravitation of these works. They just exist.
The characters are portrayed as realistic. But are they?
Actually, they were balanced enough for a boring setting at the first six episodes of these series. Not counting female protagonist and her turned-aloof friend, we also have Hazuki, who I found really funny to watch, and again, typical quiet moegirl Sapphire with a large double bass. The problem is she did not play any bass soloes, and is also rarely shown in orchestra, with main frames being occupied with big beautiful brass. This does not make me happy as a contrabassist (self-taught, not the best on, but still learning!). The only moment of her starring was in a trio with Hazuki and female protagonist. And this is not enough for a main character with a double bass.
The most "realistic" part of these series is that characters always shed tears for other characters. Without even thinking about how exactly they could make a profit for themselves, I say. This, being Japanese enough trait, takes all characters down.
I do not propagate egocentrism, but if you want to live the life, you'll need to think about yourself first, not about your senpai. Just remember: if you give your clothes to everyone, you'll leave yourself naked and probably die of pneumonia.
Any lack of self-esteem in characters makes them unsympathetic and uncatchy, turning them into grey goo of depression. And the show without individual characters is not an interesting one.
One more question to discuss is the yuri part of the show. As some people already noted, this part was really unneeded in the plot. With Reina acting les-yay for Kumiko, I can only suppose it was just a move to attract more audience. Of course, they are in an absolute need for a mutual kiss, ain't they?
If I am right, the original novel did not have such shameless fetish expositions to attract more audience, because female protagonist already had a potential partner.
And the show has no need in this yuri fanservice. The show needs yuri like a goat needs an accordion (or a fish needs an umbrella, or a dog needs a fifth leg, as we say in Russia).
I had hopes on the series. Yet still, after the first 6 episodes, drama bubblegum goes on, female protagonist is still acting boring and unempathetic, and even cheerful Hazuki and Sapphire are turning into snot-chewing scenery, making these series even more uninteresting and boring.
The problem can be described as such: every important character in this show (even the optimistic ones) survives such an unempathetic and dull background you just don't have any wish to feel with them.
All problems with unsaid words, insincerity and fake feelings could be easily solved, but - apparently, the strong and noble people of Japan (with all their strength and nobility still raped by Soviet Union and USA) are not allowed to express feelings as they wish.
Aforementioned over-dramatization of events in these series makes you want to turn it off and think your life is much happier, even if you are a bankrupt disabled widow. This does not even look like a character development, it's a character degradation, a thin reason to turn characters, potentially capable of living, into fools walking through the forest and searching someone more stupid than them. (It was a reference.)
Strange enough, with Buddhism being popular in Japan, to see every character in this show in sad mood, dramatized situations, uncomfortable around each other. Each and everyone of them does not even try to become a Bodhisattva and to forget any perishable bad luck of this world.
Girls, stop this. At the moment someone suffers more than you, stop crying over brass.
Special mention goes to Reina. As I said before, I greatly dislike "aloof&emotionless" type of characters. They always look like they try to act grown-up, forgetting that not the actions are measure of growing up, but experience is. Reina's case is similar: she even states she tries to be special, that's why she wants to play trumpet better.
You want to be special by playing trumpet better?
Reina, playing trumpet does not make you special. Even a street cleaner can learn to play trumpet, if he wants to. And becoming the best is the dream of all shounen main characters.
If you want to deal with a trumpet, you need to play it in a special way. In a way nobody ever played it. No matter what, just do something unusual.
Play djent on trumpet.
(All right, jokes aside: check out Pierre Bastien. That's what "special trumpet" means.)
And later this striving for being special became contagious. This is it, the unfinished dream to make your eyes burn...
Not. This part of plot is so far-fetched and hastily-made you don't have enough time to live with it, to believe it and, of course, to empathize with such aspiration. If KyoAni pushed it i the beginning of series, you could believe it more, though the show would really play itself like a badly-written shounen story.
The only part of the show that I watched without taking my eyes away was the ending song. The ending was suspenseful and overall gorgeous. Such a shame that for such an ending the anime would suffer such a depressive mood without any chance of happiness in the characters' eyes.
In this quality, we have:
Story: 5/10 (for being not very original, but okay)
Art: 10/10 (again, instruments are really beautiful)
Sound: 6/10 (nothing special, but let it be 6/10, it's a show about boredo... err, music)
Character: 4/10 (unempathetic ones are overbalancing empathetic ones)
Enjoyment: 3/10 (so depressive and boring, you could go mad).
Let's set overall score of 5/10. I really wished it could be better, but with the series being such a mood-dropper it could not.
That does not mean Hibike is bad. It is believable in some way, it is beautifully drawn, but it is overly dramatized, plays itself in a very unhappy and unwilling mood and, worst of all, does not have a hook. A quirky idea to be interesting enough to watch.
Of course, there is a potential to watch it. But not to breathe it.
Cry, ennuiphonium. Until the last episode.
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May 9, 2015
Hibike! Euphonium
(Anime)
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There are three main types of "specific interest" story. When author knows and wants to submerge its viewer (or reader) into the world of interest; when author finds something unusual and shiny, googles about it and decides to make a story about it; and something inbetween.
What you have here - is the story inbetween. Author knows about it, but puts it as unusual and shiny. It is called "Hibike! Euphonium", and it is about big beautiful brass that shines, but does not breathe. Most of plots in modern anime about music tend to look like this: protagonist making or taking part in a band or orchestra, grinding ... 
Feb 4, 2014
Steins;Gate
(Anime)
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The most frostbitten and grim problem in science fiction is that it does not go well with actual science.
The second problem is that it usually appeals only for popular and trendy themes without going further into their hard scientific side, which can be used to understand them realistically. I'm not talking about turning all science fiction into thorough research on the problems and tying it up to reality, but about careless swinging the science like it can do everything at any time you wish. Sad to say it, but a lot of science fiction authors pretend not to notice that science needs a REALLY long ... |
