Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Justicefornoone
In my short life watching animated series, if there's something I learned through the years is that the best pieces of animation are those ones which can balance remarkable and original art, animation with a fascinating or at least compelling story with well written and rounded characters, and last but not least, making a good use of music to make the experience more delightful, memorable and even complement the atmosphere and characterization, especially if music is the central theme of the aforementioned series.
In this case I am reviewing one which art is kind of remarkable, with decent musical compositions, but appalling melodrama and cardboard characters: Sound! Euphonium.
Art & Animation:
I am, like everyone, a biased person, and I have to confess that I'm not a fan of how Kyoani c…
Read at the sourceCodeBlazeFate
There is a sense of wonder and grandeur that hit upon witnessing the first episode of Hibike Euphonium. Perhaps it was due to the outstanding score or the sheer glow the characters had. Perhaps it was how its main character, Kumiko, was immediately presented. It’s hard to quantify such a feeling, but it’s an undoubtedly great feeling as you discover that you’re going to fall in love with a show that is confident in its own greatness.
Perhaps the most immediate aspect to hit me was the soundtrack composed by Akito Matsuda. Several of the show’s background pieces convey a sense of tenderness and swelling emotion that few OSTs can truly match. “Hajimari No Senritsu” stands out as the first piece to provide that intimate and wondrous feeling the soundtrack wishes to convey, and others such as…
Read at the sourceJacklives
I had a lot of hope for this anime and it not only disappointed me but also upset me. The premise of the series was promising and it offered characters and a plot I could relate to being about high school band and such. It was also produced by Kyoto Animation who did a phenomenal job as always with the animation and character designs. You’ll still see me reblogging pictures and gifs of this series because-despite what I’m saying now-I appreciate how much effort went into the presentation of this anime. My issue lies with the writing and character development because there is little to no substance there. I understand that you can only do so much in the span of a 12 episode series, but even so I felt that it introduced too many characters that were never fully developed.
What started off…
Read at the sourceBuncyTheFrog
Hibike! Euphonium is a wasted opportunity. It has great attention to detail in both art and sound design when it comes to the instruments, but falls flat on its face in almost every other aspect. Having just come off of Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso/Your Lie in April, which has two great musical sequences in the first two episodes, the fact that it took until episode 3 for any real music to pop up in this series frustrated me too much than it should have. That frustration followed me throughout the series.
The series seems to at times WANT to be about music, but is dragged into drama because that tension is supposed to move the story and characters along. Ultimately, it seems as if only a few characters really meaningfully change, and we're left with maybe four decent performances in the 13 epi…
Read at the sourceLIQfilms
Kyoto animation is often described by many people as the studio in which they keep producing the exact same shows endlessly, that show being cute girls in a school type setting. While it is true that many, if not all do feature some kind of cute girl in high school, each one of Kyoto's works carries its own distinct flavour and personality that sets it apart from the others shows they have made. Hibike Euphonium is the latest anime by Kyoto and perfectly presents the reason why I fell in love with this studio in the first place. Furthermore, while this anime can be compared to K-on since they both feature cute girls playing music the content is quite different which I'll get into a bit later in this post.
Like most of the works from this studio, I was blown away by the high quality animat…
Read at the sourcelollith
As a person who has had his fair share of pointless Moe blob shows I admit that my initial impression of Sound! Euphonium wasn't the best. In all honesty, The moment I saw the cover of the show I dismissed it as another Moe blob show and skipped it without much thought, and It was only through high ratings and numerous recommendations that I decided I would give it a chance. But even then I wasn't convinced. I went into the first episode with a face of disdain. Only to watch further and further until I realized how terribly wrong I was. Sound! Euphonium gave me a slap in the face and made me realize how shallow I have become. I shall never judge a book by it's cover again.
The story follows Oumae Kumiko, a former Euphonium player who looks to change her life as a High School Freshman. Iro…
Read at the sourceAmbiguousMonster
Hibike! Euphonium is a curios production that in narrative, visuals and music has moments where it truly shines, but sadly they are diluted by mediocre plot points, unnecessary characters and unusual story structure, taking what could have been a strong and emotionally resonant series down to a pleasant, but ultimately scarcely memorable watch.
The story, centered around Kumiko Oumae and her music class companions as they try to get to the nationals, is very inconsistent in terms of emotional intensity, pacing and enjoyment. Throughout the early episodes, the story is focussed on introducing Kumiko and her friends, Midori and Hazuki, to the audience, however this is little initial tension or overbearing atmosphere to keep the audience engaged through this middling introduction. Hazuki inc…
Read at the sourcecodydang
"Music is nice. You can't lie. You can only admit when something sounds good."
Isn't that so true? Whether or not you like Kyoto Animation, it's hard to deny that Hibike Euphonium sounds amazing.
Hibike sounds alive. I don't know how they pulled it off, but the show sounds so human. You hear as students warm up and tune their instruments together, you hear when the trombone players goof up, you hear the protagonist's tone change as she develops her skills, and when the whole band plays together, it's a real treat. This is great sound design--this is music anime done well.
Besides the music, Hibike looks fantastic too! The attention to detail is especially high with instruments, and with how well the animation syncs with the sound. The combined result of vibrant visuals and lush sound…
Read at the sourceFlawfinder
You know, the circumstances surrounding Sound Euphonium are more interesting to me than the show itself. With the moe trend all but dead because “light-novel fad” didn’t want to play nice and share - and KyoAni proving said fad had a point when their attempts to jump in on its territory whilst still maintaining a commitment to cute were about as well-received as second-degree sunburns in the middle of the North Pole - their fall from grace in terms of the public was pre-determined the moment K-On became so big. Word of advice: nothing ages faster than an anime that tries to cash in on a popular trend. Because even the really good products to come from ‘em don’t connect well with future audiences. Or at least, that’s the reason I use for why I can’t get into Bringing Up Baby.
Unfortunately…
Read at the sourceDivin3Wind_
This will be a very long review (I dare to call it an essay!), and while it may not exactly contain spoilers, I have included 'hints' which one may wish to look out for in watching this anime.
Personally, out of all the other studios, I find myself following and noticing trends in Kyoani's releases the most. After all, while the moe wave was not (exactly) started by them, K-On contributed hugely to it, and from there, I found myself observing how Kyoani seems to have very acute marketing tendencies - they would just somehow hit the demographics right, appealing to various clusters of viewers while still producing what are basically decent anime.
I was not expecting very much from Hibike! Euphonium at all. After all, its resemblances to K-On are pretty eerie, and not being a great fan of…
Read at the sourceChrissyKay
I'm a music person. I've always been one, though at the beginning it was in heart alone. In middle school I played violin, trumpet and sang in the choir, and I was told promptly and I quote that I sounded like "a cat being run over by a lawnmower". This didn't get me down though (for some reason,) in fact I saw my apparent absolute lack of any talent whatsoever to be a sign that I was meant to pursue music. I continued to practice much to the suffering of everyone around me, and though I experienced harsh criticism along the way I'm now in college and I'm part of two prestigious music groups and consider myself to be a functioning member of the music community. I can look back and track my progress from hopeless wannabe to soloing for Joe Biden at his Christmas party at the National Observ…
Read at the sourcePyraXadon
Ah, band. The fond memories of a music player such as I, remembers the time back when you were but one of a group of 50+ students, playing a piece conducted by the music teacher at your school. But since there isn't much anime out there that encapsulates such an idea, this season of Spring 2015 brought us Hibike! Euphonium, a show that truly does capture the essence that is the high school band.
Story (7.66/10): Euphonium follows the story of Oumae Kumiko, a Euphonium player (basically the instrument is that of a smaller tuba) our main female protagonist of this series. After a brutal experience in middle school with her middle school band not making it to the ever coveted spot of being a participant in Japan's band Nationals, she becomes very distraught by the experience and swears not t…
Read at the sourceNeetfriek
I really don’t know about this series. I know for sure that it WAS NOT good, but I don’t really know what to think about it and what exactly I liked and disliked about the series. I know that it looked really pretty and there were some beautiful moments, but many of these key scenes didn’t have a purpose that was fulfilled by how they looked. Its as if the show wanted to look nice just to look nice and the images didn’t enhance the plot as much as they should have.
Speaking of the plot, it was mostly hit or miss with both the first and second halves feeling weak in their own ways. The first half had some enjoyable parts but the main cast didn’t really mesh together in any real or believable way, and most characters didn’t have anything to really like about them. Many were bland and didn’…
Read at the sourcevegetablespirit
Kyoto Animation's success with K-On gave a new face to the genre of music anime—a face that focused on the activities of cute girls in a group, and to a lesser extent, their relationships. Hibike Euphonium is more or less the same formula, but on a much larger scale; a school band of boys and girls alike. Said school band is aiming for a mere shot at the nationals with the help of an instructor much stricter than they'd prefer. It's by no means an original concept, but it would be acceptable if it showcased the trials a band faces in an admirable fashion; instead, Hibike is more concerned about weak shoujo ai coupled with the insecurities of its characters.
Kumiko and her friends are the main source of those insecurities, and they're not much more than what you'd expect from a teenage gr…
Read at the sourceTozzy
Watching a Kyoto Animation anime is like being served up a delicious cake. It’s the same cake every time but you know what to expect. There’s icing on top, being the pretty visuals and animation, but usually plays it safe with a ‘vanilla’ group of characters. It’s easy to digest. Hibike! Euphonium however wants to be different. Not only does it comes with sprinkles of substance but it has layers to it, different flavours working in harmony. They aren’t the most incredible flavours you’ve ever tasted but they are still enough to put a smile on your dial. This high school, musical showpiece took me by surprise with its fun blend of band politics and self-improvement. While it hit the odd sour note in the dialogue and story department, this sill became an easily recommendable music feast.
St…
Read at the sourceTavinreyes257
Hibike! Euphonium was absolutely gorgeous and blew away my expectations in every field. Kyoto Animation at their best what I mean by that is their ability to make the viewer fully engaged into a slice of life anime. Throughout my extensive catalog of anime I have had my fair share of the slice of life genre and I can say with the utmost confidence that Euphonium is definitely one to check out. I started watching the anime on the pretext of a group of people saying it may be the anime of the season. Upon hearing that statement from my high horse I decided that it may be worth looking into. In the course of watching the show I constantly reminded myself that SNAFU Zoku was the anime of the season and as I completed the final episode of Euphonium I painfully, but not regrettably, give Euphoni…
Read at the sourceGlacialis
This is it, their grand return. While the past number of shows they’ve animated may not have quite hit the mark in terms of greatness, KyoAni has captured the magic of what made me fall in love with the studio in the first place with their newest work, Sound! Euphonium. What many brushed off as just a K-On! 2.0, Sound! Euphonium is one of the best anime that I have seen in a long time.
Sound! Euphonium follows the Kitauji High School Concert Band, a group that sounds fairly mediocre, and follows their journey as they grow both as musicians and as people in their efforts to truly accomplish what they before just claimed as a pipe dream: make the nationals of the Kansai Band Competition. The story itself is fairly simplistic, but the real meat of it is focusing in on the journey that is wa…
Read at the sourceReinhath
Hibike! Euphonium is like a symphony. It starts off slow and mellow, then comes at you full force, not letting you go until the very end.
Story: Being that it's a KyoAni work, many people deemed the show "K-On in Concert Band" without further thought. From the first two episodes, the show seemed to just be a simplistic slice-of-life, albeit a cute and fun one. However, the plot picks up surprisingly quickly from the show's brilliant third episode. From that point on, Hibike! Euphonium becomes a terrific coming-of-age story, that roused feelings of nostalgia from my very core. The storyline is paced wonderfully, never going too slow or too fast. Plot threads reveal and close themselves in beautiful ways. Sadly, Hibike! Euphonium is based off a series too large to adapt in one cour, so the…
Read at the sourceStark700
I’d like to think of music as a form of art. It’s a vocal expression by taking the form of instrumental emotion. And by talent, we see the beauty of it. What does that mean for a show like Hibike Euphonium? A lot. To me, this series is a musical adventure. If you’re interested in a series about following dreams, building strong friendships, and exploring youth with an unforgettable experience, then you’re in the right place.
What is Hibike! Euphonium? (Sound! Euphonium) It’s an anime adaptation of a Japanese novel written by Ayano Takeda. Taking place in Kyoto, the series has its focus on a group known as the Kitauji High School Music Club. Directed by Tatsuya Ishihara with storyboard written by Jukki Hanada, this series is an explosive youth of the coming ages.
The series is pretty st…
Read at the sourceFurankuSan
EDIT: Now that the series has finished, here are my thoughts of the series.
I am sick and tired of seeing people saying that this is just another show like "K-ON!". Because it's KyoAni, people will think that this show is less on music and more on moe blobs.
Seriously? It isn't.
The story is really simple and I like it because it stays that way. It doesn't go overboard and it doesn't even complicate stuff. The story is about a struggle of one band trying to get in the Nationals and take home the gold. And guess what? They portray the story realistically. It portrays so much real life problems of a band and KyoAni really pulled it off so well.
Now, I am not a band geek nor have I joined a band but probably, those things happen.
If you're asking if there is some romance on this anime we…
Read at the source