I have a lot to say about this, yet I don't feel like saying anything. The first quarter is truly difficult to watch. Given the subject matter, this was either going to be an exercise in frustration, or a careful examination about the weight of preconceptions and the difficult concept of atonement.
It's a challenging feat, pulling off a deaf character without making them feel like that's their whole personality. But Naoko Yamada knows better. Shouko does have a personality, which makes it all the more difficult to watch what unfolds. If she were little more than a plot device, I'd have no trouble glossing over
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Jun 30, 2024
Hibike! Euphonium 3
(Anime)
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It was a foregone conclusion that there would be a Season 3 of Hibike! Euphonium. If not now, then sometime later, and fans who saw Seasons 1 and 2 almost 10 years ago were right not to give up hope. I’m not one of those. I had barely any knowledge about anime - let alone that something like Hibike! Euphonium even existed - back then, and it didn’t occur to me until much later that this medium was full of surprises. More than I could imagine.
Knowing the situation of earlier seasons, going into the third one was always going to be an uphill ... climb. Much like the conversation between Taki-sensei and his wife, achieving results with high school bands is like piling rocks on River Styx. Only, they’re people - in our case, characters. This revolving door of members coming and going was always going to be something we’d have to deal with sooner or rather. An Uphill Climb Kumiko’s first year is covered in Seasons 1 and 2, while her 2nd gets no more than 100 minutes, so about 4 episodes. Characters from those two seasons have had time to develop and leave their mark, but their departure was always a given. Asuka, Haruka, Kaori, Natsuki, Yuuko, Mizore, and Nozomi are notable, established characters that would now be reduced to a passing mention at worst, or a brief cameo at best. Characters leaving like this would cause a gulf in their wake sooner or later. But this was also an opportunity to come up with something new. If you can’t break new ground, then rebuild the pavement. And Hibike! comes up with a colorful cast of first-years, with Suzume, Yayoi, and Sari being the standouts, while now-second and third years such as Kanade, Ririka, and Motomu have started coming into their own. While admittedly not the same, they still gave us something to look forward to every new episode. Aside from the usual band duties, Kumiko is now Club President, along with Shuichi as the VP and Reina as Drum Major. This was a tough legacy, not only because those that came before had an arguably better lineup to work with, but they carried themselves with such conviction. If the going got tough for Haruka, there was always Asuka to pick up the slack, and the same was likely true for Yuuko and Natsuki, what little we saw of them anyway. Aside from the human factor, the number of members has drastically increased, leaving Kumiko with lots on the table. While earlier seasons would put an emphasis on the performative aspect of music, deftly marrying it with potent character drama and powerful introspective moments, the final season takes a decidedly sharper turn in favoring the human aspect, and consequently, Kumiko’s transition into adulthood. The Third and Last National Gold is the goal once more. This is Kumiko's last year and third shot at the Nationals. She doesn’t get a fourth one. The three-audition format marks a departure from the one-and-done approach of past years, and as it turns out, it’s hardly a morale booster as members have to constantly up their game and put their best foot forward. Understandably, this causes a ruckus at Kitauji, and to quell all doubt, Kumiko has to reassure, reinforce, and consult with any affected band members. This format causes its own set of problems, and if the goal of the journey is to get Gold at Nationals, band morale is the pavement they have to walk on to get there, with Kumiko shepherding everyone to victory. This is no easy feat. Add the new third-year transfer student into the picture, and the composition becomes all the more difficult to balance out. If promotional material is anything to go by, Mayu Kuroe is not to be trifled with. As it turns out, she is every bit as talented as it is suggested, but does bear her fair share of burdens. Mayu is a vexing character. She is everything Kumiko was and isn’t. There is no sense of self within her as she always chooses the path of least resistance and goes with whatever everyone else is saying. True to herself, she is skilled, precise, and never wavers when she’s on the euphonium. When she’s not, she’s a blank slate, a people-pleaser that just goes with the flow. Yet she’s honest to a fault. She only wants to enjoy the band and play for fun, which directly clashes with Kitauji in more ways than one. While some members would happily concur with this idea, they would be a minority. We get a first peek when her viewpoint directly opposes Kumiko’s no band member left behind policy: if someone wants to quit, let them. This is further compounded by the soli problem, where Mayu repeatedly advances her intention to forfeit in favor of Kumiko. Kumiko’s Kitauji is meritocratic, a core principle that defines her journey through the third season, so she naturally refuses. In order to win, they need to field their A team, and to do so, only the best will get chosen irrespective of seniority. The Price of Ambition So let’s recap some of what Kumiko has to deal with: growing unrest among first and second years due to the pressure exerted by the three-audition format and the questionable decisions of their advisor, and a third-year transfer student that is talented, but also a handful. What’s next? Reina. The later half of the season brings to light the disparities between her and Kumiko, as well as her abrasive nature, which causes a massive rift at Kitauji. That there would eventually be friction was known, but it didn’t make it any less difficult to deal with. The OP hints at them growing apart from one another as they’re shown standing back to back with teary eyes, and we see more tinges of that as Reina goes scorched-earth to uphold her Taki-sensei infatuation, even going as far as to call her longtime friend a “failure of a president.” The shock comes with Mayu taking the soli part away from Kumiko furthers this uncertainty. Is Kumiko enough? While prior seasons would often show her practicing undisturbed, that’s not the case anymore. It’s where Mayu’s framing becomes increasingly deliberate as she, knowingly or not, encroaches on Kumiko little by little. Mayu is a great foil for Kumiko in that sense, as she challenges Kumiko’s beliefs at a fundamental level. Episode 12 exemplifies this difference between them. Reina says she wants to play with her friend, but when push comes to shove, it’s Mayu she chooses. She is assured, precise, clinical in her playing, setting the stage for Reina’s trumpet, whereas Kumiko’s euphonium is expressive, commanding, and wants to be heard: the former accompanies Reina, blending into her sound, while the latter speaks to her, responding in kind. Wants and Feelings Hibike! Euphonium 3 thus addresses its characters’ convictions with greater clarity than ever before, testing Kumiko’s ideals and wants by putting her in situations where the easier choice would be to renege on those goals. Incidentally, this also stresses her relationship with Reina, who expects nothing less than perfection and is never one for half-measures. The show has been setting this up for a while, and while Kumiko winning was never a given, you’d have hoped to see her get a reprieve of some sort. A lifeboat in a sea of defeat. While unfortunate for optics, it isn’t all bad. This is not a traditional hero’s journey: our protagonist fails time and again, then picks themselves up to face defeat once more. Yet her victory is arguably much greater: she’ll be remembered as the one who led Kitauji to glory. Not Reina, not Mayu, and certainly not Taki-sensei. Kumiko is a people’s person. She convinced Natsuki to continue playing, mediated Nozomi and Mizore’s reconnection, and was the one people counted on to bring Asuka back into the band. And as their ideals are challenged in Season 3, the road taken by Reina and Kumiko is a rocky one. Reina is a solemn, almost mythical being in Kumiko’s eyes, and picking Mayu over her friend is her own twisted way of upholding their promise: being true to one another, because it’s the only way this thing of theirs can last after high school. I found their relationship profoundly beautiful. Kumiko wanted to win on merit, but Reina couldn’t lie to her. The Mt Daikichi scene broke me. It made me physically sick. These two teenage girls, knowing they’re about to plunge into the unfeeling world of adulthood, still chose to cling to this utterly silly, noble ideal, even when it didn’t favor them, because that’s how much it mattered. And they wept to see each other suffer. End of the Line All good things must come to an end, and Hibike! Euphonium was more than good. While I still have a few misgivings about Season 3, most of which have to do with the 13-episode format not being quite enough for this kind of material - a 2-cour season would have given it all the breathing room in the world - this was nevertheless something to remember. I know I'll be thinking about it for a while.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 30, 2021 Recommended
Note: This is more of a commentary on Evangelion, much less a review. I felt it was necessary to provide a bit of a background on the world of Evangelion, hence the first few paragraphs talk about the TV series, aired in 1995 - this part contains spoilers for the later episodes of that. A caution for when the spoilers for the film begin has been marked a few paragraphs below.
If there was anything to galvanize your interest towards the world of Evangelion, the happenings in Episode 19 of the TV series provided such a moment. It was then that the well-established setup had gotten ... to its tipping point: this was the culmination of the Angel-of-the-week configuration, so majorly altered in those closing moments by way of a reveal whose emergence stood to confirm one thing - that if we thought we'd figured (most of) the world of Evangelion, we were wrong. Shinji was no longer a pilot to Unit-01, but an actuator for the Angel within to acquiesce to his commands. When those parameters were no longer met, the bellowing sound of the Angel awakening needed no further cue to signal the unknown that was to come: that there was more to this world than was being let on. The last episodes of the TV series, whilst in keeping with the general veering of the show towards supplanting action with psychoanalysis, perhaps left some to be desired. The shift seemed rather brusque and the full-blown delving into metaphysical territory could have been tempered in a more concentrated manner. There was more to want from Evangelion, in essence. And The End of Evangelion was there to provide just that: a more definitive version of the universe that hosted Tokyo-3. In a series that has built up a foundation for the sole purpose of tearing it down, Hideaki Anno's creation is both an exercise in restraint and exasperation. The former takes hold of the series until its mid-to-late stages, most observable in the quiet interactions between the members of Misato's household. A rather moving instance where Anno's restraint is beautifully transmitted is through the Shinji-Misato relationship, specifically in the way it evolves - and how they appear to be much closer to one another than it had been suggested. In truth, anything that resembles Misato - and even Ritsuko - is a demonstration of thoughtful directorial restraint. The orderly-yet-disorderly antithesis that best describes Misato goes a long way in the proceedings of her tale, but there's also her seeking of human connection that's so integral to what she is about. Her inability to put herself out there without feigning resilience of character is merely one of the many facets to one of the characters in this series. And Ritsuko, too, with the glaring irony of not retreading her mother's steps in life - yet doing just that - substantiates another of Anno's attempts at probing into the human nature. With Evangelion, its study of interhuman relationships is just as necessary to account for as the unabated mecha set pieces it trots out. Make no mistake, to prop up the fighting sequences in that manner and to then supplant them with intense character study was a long-in-the-making matter. Shifting towards psychoanalysis by the later episodes didn't relocate the objective or narrative goal of the series - it merely stood to remind that what mattered was inside the mechanical robot, not outside it. As it concerns itself with the study of the self-doubt and the loss of self-actualization adjacent to its characters' headspaces, the abundance of depressive behaviour that's portrayed is not at all surprising. It's a dire and unfeeling world out there in Tokyo-3, and with examples ranging from the insecurity-ridden Shinji to the validation-starved Asuka, all the way to the stifling aloofness of Rei (which hints at a strange backstory); there's something that lies inward of those characters that's so curiously morbid to uncover. And the results of draping their backstories by their narrative threads in the last third of the series pulls forth some disquieting reveals, with Asuka's being so disheartening that I fail to conjure any string of words to have any rational say. There's a palpable sense of dread to virtually anything happening in Anno's work. That sentiment is continually amplified both throughout the series and in the film - and it's crushing. The sheer anticipation you sense during Evangelion is nigh unbearable, because it's not the pleasant kind. It's akin to knowing there's something that wasn't yet revealed about something that you fear inwards. It's this anticipation that works so effectively in Anno's fictionalized world, and it functions twofold: for one, it quantifies uneasiness toward future events through fear of the unknown, which it capitalizes on in ways that are as twisted as the anime's universe. And through those ways, you are being thrown in for a feedback loop in which you only expect the worst to come. In fact, Evangelion can also be classified as a foray into the unknown and into quandaries that lie beyond human comprehension. The designs of the Angels exemplify that notion, as the tamer, more conventional forms are rolled out in the earlier episodes, with the increasingly more bizarre entities introduced midway through the series seriously testing the realms of comprehension and...creativity! Oddities such as Leliel, Sahaquiel and Armisael look downright peculiar, for instance. Spoilers on the film to follow. When talking strictly about The End of Evangelion, one has to retain that the vehicle to transport Anno's narrative doesn't much change, relative to the series. The main engine to propel everything forward feels very much familiar: the film starts brazen and bold, and continues in that manner. It debuts with an urgency that it manages to maintain fully without a hitch. Perhaps what was envisioned as the ultimate irony came to be: humanity is the ultimate foil and the final angel. And right off the gate, Anno doesn't waste any time with niceties: it's a full-on man-on-man assault. Where the series would likely fete us with some extraterrestrial beings for the humans to fight, the film upends that course of action immediately by getting SEELE to deploy an onslaught on Gendo's organization. But the beginning of Anno’s film isn’t just that. The hospital room we’re thrown into in the opening is desolate and lugubrious, not just in tone but also in content – as we see a dejected Shinji pleading for a bedridden, unconscious Asuka to wake up. What follows in the absence of a reply can perhaps act as a disclaimer that Anno has been given the artistic freedom he’d long coveted, for better or for worse. Anno has oftentimes stated that Evangelion is the result of many years of heavy mental toll as caused by severe depression. That Shinji, Asuka, and Rei all act as facets of that depression is already known, but it nevertheless makes for an interesting case still. If the character Shinji is to embody the more withdrawn and reclusive spells of the author, thus understandable as the lows of Anno’s depression; the foundation beneath Asuka could very well be a placeholder for the more animated highs of Anno’s depressive bouts. With that in place, Rei would slot right in the middle, if one would recognize a state of general aloofness and relative detachment to be the default of depression. This is just my interpretation, so it’s entirely possible I may be horribly mistaken. Regardless, the arcs of these main characters skew terribly for the worse in End of Evangelion, which nonetheless helps a lot with empathizing with Anno’s case. And in case that wasn’t enough of a confirmation, what developments the main characters go through during the movie may just as well settle it: if there’s one thing that Anno wants to remind you, it’s that he’s not willing to relent on this one. As Shinji’s mental health deteriorates, the onus falls on Asuka to deliver. As a departure from the series’ ways, this is quite major: where Gendo’s shut-in son would usually be the one to make the difference as Asuka’s boisterous performances proved unremarkable. This window of opportunity presented the Unit-02’s pilot with just the chance to finally prove herself. And she does… Battling the Mass Produced Eva series, in a segment which is simply outstanding - both visually and sonically – is one of the greatest gifts that Anno delivered with the End of Evangelion. There’s an already established grim ambiance to Evangelion, and that is a moment in which it all peaks. It’s a culmination of that uneasy sentiment, where what was ghastly and unknown was hiding in plain sight; it’s humanity fighting itself, using the tools it had used prior to repelling the invading alien forces. And that, now more than ever, is an irony of inconceivable proportions. How droll it is, for humans for fight amongst themselves using the very means they had developed to stave off the invading, foreign entities. It is arguable that this speaks to the predicament of humanity: that somehow, in the most inopportune times, it finds a way and reason to self-hate. God’s in his heaven, all is right with the world is curiously the slogan of Gendo’s organization, Nerv. Various interpretations exist and each sees the message from a perspective, construing it in just as valid ways. But where – if I retain correctly – the predominant understanding is that Gendo’s organization is doing God’s work - thus leading to all being right with the world – I however have a more despondent outlook on its significance. What with the happenings in Evangelion, depressing as they are, I see the quote mentioned prior as a jibe at the state of humanity: God has abandoned us, leaving us to tend to our self-destructive path towards ruin. It is through this that Anno’s interpolation of such a quote into his work gives it new meaning. All being right with the world of Tokyo-3 is thus not more than a derision at its state of affairs; the meaning is just as ironic as humanity turning on itself, after having staved off its alien adversaries. Hence, all being right with the world is a grave misrepresentation of the state of humanity, a jab at its competence to mock and self-flagellate itself. Returning to Asuka and her section midway through the film: it’s one for the ages. Beyond the sequences providing some of the smoothest yet weightiest-feeling battle scenes from any medium, they’re also ripe with meaning. Owing to the quality of animation, the feeling and intensity of every punch and laceration have stupendous force. And Asuka herself is a precious force in this culmination of her arc: she’s punching, stabbing, ripping, tearing those MP Evas, and you feel every bit of that. You feel every jolt, writhing, and every drawing of breath of hers to keep pushing on. It is through this that what is transmitted is thoroughly transposed beyond the screen. Asuka’s final battle is a superlative feat; it is more than a neatly stylized section where robots fight one another, but a spell in which the troubled childhood of one of the characters is finally made away with for once. It is now that such a past finally meets resistance, granting us the ability to see true potential being met: we’re witnessing a heroine now at peace with herself, no longer defiled by self-doubt. Witnessing Unit 02 lift an aircraft carrier as it rises from the seabed is a particularly moving sequence. It’s a powerful case in which the visuals connect with the message so faultlessly that all you can do is lap it up and relish the moment. It is a sequence like few others, where it feels like all the momentum had been building up to that, funneling into this one set piece. And you certainly feel it; my reaction faintly making me reminisce what I’d felt firsthand whilst watching Game of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards; the endings of The Florida Project & Parasite, and, more anime-related, Attack on Titan’s Declaration of War. Simply put, it’s as if the fabric of this entire fictitious universe is bursting at its seams, ready to unravel and scatter before you. And Anno does a lot with what pieces there are on his board: the 15-or-so minutes of Asuka’s battle befit a triumph (however temporary) over this larger-than-life, Lovecraftian envisioning of depression, where it can be likened to celestial entities, seldom comprehensible and thus, often misunderstood. Incidentally, I also happen to see the different Angel entities - though they may signify no more than a backdrop for the depression-centric thematic - as extensions for the elusiveness of mental illness, hardly palpable yet still immediately apparent; where, when the protagonists manage to upend these attackers, a step is made to curb said mental hurdles. Of course, this would not be an Anno creation if the set piece mentioned prior did not come with a caveat. And a grisly one, at that. Having the MP Eva units self-revive after Asuka trashes them is the kind of sardonic wit that somehow doesn’t feel displaced in the slightest here. What follows is something that is perhaps just as exceedingly disquieting as it is gratuitous. With the overhead that Anno has been feted with for the movie, his penchant for the macabre is most evident now, more than ever, as it looks to spill into gratuitousness. It is through this argument that I extend that some toning down wouldn’t have been amiss. The End of Evangelion is uncompromising, truly. But it is so to a fault. Some violence and body horror that occur in EoE surely wasn’t all necessary. I shall return to this later on. However, I reckon the talk regarding Anno’s artistic vision is best saved for another time. And yet, with what happens to Asuka, you expect something positive to come of it. Anno unfolds the Shinji getting back into the EVA plotline in tandem with Asuka’s battle, which naturally gets you to expect the classic eleventh-hour save from Shinji. Surely, as other media had taught you prior, there’s a high chance that Shinji’s right on his way to rescue Asuka. Thus, you await salvation, conditioned by what those other pieces of media would normally provide you with. And yet, salvation does not come. Neither Shinji nor his peers manage to miraculously resolve his anxiety and despondency. This is perhaps another of Anno’s attempts to prod at the make of fiction: it may help us in temporarily escaping reality, but Anno’s creation isn’t much of a reprieve in that sense. I would be remiss in my commenting on this if I failed to adduce the other factors that contribute to the full Evangelion experience: the animation and visuals are quite fantastic, there’s a primitive sense of rage whenever the Eva units are sent into battle, much like you’d see in something like Attack on Titan or some such works. But there’s Sagisu’s score, which I feel is the one element that aggrandizes Evangelion. As we see Unit-02’s impaling by a wayward Longinus Lance, it is the notes of Sagisu’s Munashiki Nagare/M3 that cover the sonics. The marrying of Sagisu’s score to the demise of Asuka is simply beautiful, turning into something so much more than a solemn sendoff, barring what happens after the MP Eva revival. Given how Bach’s BWV 1068 is the prior piece makes one appreciate Anno’s choices just that bit more. It’s something for the history books, in all honesty. Furthermore, it would be dismissive of me to not account for the vocal performances of the actors. Prior to the airdropping of the MP Evas by SEELE, hearing the “It takes poison to quell poison, after all” quote in Japanese felt as menacing as its implications. All the same, the English dub itself works to building and maintaining the immersion to good effect. Given how oftentimes dubs are typically seen as second-grade renditions, I found the one of Evangelion to be stellar. Each character is given a distinct identity, and it all fits them so well. In fact, I cannot envision anyone other than Allison Keith as Misato; her English rendition is a top-drawer performance, plain and simple. Asuka & Shniji, too, get proper treatment from the voice actors, and with this I again retain a preference for the English interpretations. Back to the goings-on in the film, Shinji’s reaction whereupon witnessing Unit-02’s remains is particularly of note. I reckon that could be interpreted even as a placeholder for the viewer’s reaction and perception of all that happens during Anno’s film: what does it all even mean? For what it’s worth, Shinji looks just as flustered and confused as us all. That the film then segues into the onset of the Third Impact is another source for consternation. At some point during the Third Impact – whilst Komm, Susser Tod can be heard playing – Arianne candidly singing that “what’s done is done/it feels so bad” and that “my world is ending” is perhaps the most fitting lyricism to accompany the visuals. It’s all past the point of pleading or groveling; the song is a declaration, a recognition, an assertion of the fact that all is so irreparably broken that the only solutions are for naught outside of a hard reset. What’s most poignant about Komm, Susser Tod is how unflinchingly honest it is and how it's performed in such a casual, almost blasé manner. It is thus true that the fate of destruction brings about the joy of rebirth. If the place of such a quote was hitherto hardly legible, the occurrence of the Third Impact now validates it. Even if we flounder, Asuka’s revival portrays a second chance. While this may seem off-base in relation to the overarching progression at first, thematically it does make sense. If Anno sought to found a bleak and dismaying tale that ultimately ends on a life-affirming note, he achieved that with Evangelion. This is strictly talking about the artistic intent at the crux of Evangelion: I would have a hard time believing that it was meant to be anything but life affirming in the end. To add to the previous paragraph, while I may have considered the revival part of the Third Impact to be a bit of a crutch initially, I uncovered enough meaning behind it to understand and even sympathize with the choice. Again, the ending of the film – after all the tribulation that pervaded Evangelion - has that much more of a jolt. Especially as the lap of honour here is curiously one quite at odds with fiction, it’s essential that Anno’s message gets to the viewer. Through fiction we can escape reality, but only temporarily. And Anno’s make of fiction is akin to reality, in many ways – as had been presented earlier. While it may be natural for one to turn to fiction when the real world poses resistance to their ideals, entirely relying on that fiction is dysfunctional. Along comes the ending. In a project meant to probe into the throes of depression and prompt a deeper look at the fortune (and misfortune) of human interaction, Shinji’s attempt at strangling Asuka encompasses that very nature. Asuka caressing Shinji as he’s trying to subdue her provides a fitting bookend to Anno's hinting at a nascent future. It now stands to reason that the sheer depth of Anno’s creation amazes. It punctures the very cloth of fiction it’s built for itself, becoming something beyond its own dimension. The potency of the medium has been stretched to such lengths that Evangelion’s renown is not without reason. One can thus say that the trajectory of Anno’s project, focused on the metaphysical as it examined what lay inward, returned one of the most life-affirming answers: that the joy of rebirth can happen more than once.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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