https://v.animethemes.moe/HibikeEuphoniumS3OP2. Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute From the first episode all the way up through Ensemble Contesthen Oumae Kumikos journey has been one through reconciling her own feelings and trying to become more selfactualized. Its been a long road getting from there to here complete with many frustrations contradictions confusions angsts and apprehensions both from herself and from others that she is privy to hearing about or experiencing. Back then she was just a student mending her old relationship with Kousaka Reina and learning to appreciate just how much her senpai Tanaka Asuka meant to her. Here now at Hibike Euphonium season three she fully assumes the role of her predecessors as the president of that band taking on a new level of responsibility to the group to propel them to winning the gold at Nationals the prize that has consistently eluded them. With a new year and new leadership however comes new rigorReina IS an executive now after alland with that also comes new urgencies. Its not just about winning gold as Kumiko is so reminded by both her family and her teachers if not also the occasional conversation with classmates shes a senior now waiting on the doorstep of whatever potential and likelycollegiate future might await her and needing to decide about such things. But not all decisions need to be made straight away besides Reinas dream of performing with Kumiko at Nationals is only getting closer and closer until of all things a euphonium sound coursing through the air catches Kumikos ear. Its only a little later that we learn who made the sound: a new girl transferring to Kitauji High School sporting a navyblue uniform and a silver euphonium of her own Kuroe Mayu. Change isnt on the horizon its right there as plain as the reflection on Mayus euphonium and Kumiko being taken by the sound that comes from it. 550https://i.ur.com/JGUDvEY.png 550https://i.ur.com/uHJk1tL.png Mayus introduction to the season as an unknown and recurring mirror imagery and conversation employed throughout via Ishihara Tatsuyashttps://anilist.co/staff/100055/IshiharaTatsuya direction parallels Kumikos own preoccupations about what awaits her in the future both as the clubs president and postgraduation If Hibike Euphonium season three had anything that it could plant during the interim between Chikai no Finale and the first episodes leadup it was that you could take certain things more or less as a given that theyd occur. The narrative has always followed Kumiko as the point of orientation with the notable exception of Yamada Naokoshttps://anilist.co/staff/102498/YamadaNaoko masterful Liz and the Bluebird and that much has not changed. But with her now needing to assume greater responsibilities to the ensemble as a whole it likewise necessitates a major shift in orienting the view of that ensemble. As a student Kumiko was a participant in the exercises for marching and listening to Takis instructions on how to improve a practices performance. But in a position of authority she must take a more centralized birdseye view of the ensemble and we the audience likewise follow suit being the person that others would come to with problems and grievances and be expected to navigate through them. That shifted perspective regarding the ensemble accompanies a shift in the musics usage within the season. Inpart because of the single cours truncation there are not as many overt performances in the course of the thirteen episodes there are decidedly fewer times that we see the band collectively working together either in practice or in actually performing before the listening audience and likewise for the viewer. Hibike Euphonium season three however understands that the performances themselves were never the actual attraction for the series. Its not that they were outright unimportant or anything of the sort but rather that they were not the point. The melodrama of the season serves as the ensembles true performance allowing both discordant countermelodies and high emotion to come through as complements to the tone rather than the showboating they might have been otherwise. All of this is realized through its masterful visualacoustic storytelling and episode directing from some of Kyoto Animations most important figures like Kitanohara Noriyukihttps://anilist.co/staff/103069/KitanoharaNoriyuki or newcomer to the directorial side Miyagi Ryouhttps://anilist.co/staff/158652/MiyagiRyou who began their career on Hibike Euphonium season one and now gets to take a drivers seat role for its final act. https://files.catbox.moe/xyfwuo.mp4 https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/bd4d95140ecb1fd436b8f84f47117743.mp4 First clip includes audio. Be sure to unmute. Unknown credit for both clips. Kumikos new position as the president of the band likewise repositions the presence of music in the series there is less performing directly and more an attempt to integrate inuniverse music into the tone of the season rather than as events themselves But Mayu is the final and arguably most important ingredient to this general reorientation. Her euphonium playing and coming from a previous school known for its prestigious music program brings its own problems into the fore. Mayu heralds that Kumikos place as the one true eupho is on far shakier ground than she might have anticipated. Its not just because shes good but rather also due to Mayus general demeanor of friendliness and wanting to not rock the boat clashing with the inherent approach that Kumiko has in mind. The prior experiences with the trumpet solo audition from freshman year and Kanade from junior year were signs of needed changes. Those changes manifested in the form of Kumiko and Reina working to make Kitaujis band a place where regardless of ones status as an upperclassman or underclassman the best performances reign and have the privilege to perform at the competition. Its a doctrine that reads as the ensembles credo and one that Kumiko especially believes is best for everyone. 550https://i.ur.com/mXHbuiH.png 550https://i.ur.com/F4jcXlN.png 550https://i.ur.com/I4glxMh.png If Kitaujis meritocracy is to yield results it must by necessity run counter to the idea of everything going swimmingly and peoples feelings not being hurt. Kumikos attempts to assuage worries and keep the ensemble from having members drop out is one of her chief tasks as president Mayus behavior thus makes for a rather ironic response to Kumikos own perception of Kitaujis meritocracy. The entire notion of competing in Nationals means inpart by virtue of how audition processes work and having only a finite number of players allowed that not everyone can be satisfied or be having fun. Mayus reticence to replace anyone expressed early in the season serves as a challenge to that meritocracy ideology questioning its legitimacy and whether everyone sincerely feels that way and her continued insistence provides a point of consternation for Kumiko who just cant realize how to respond to this peculiar obstinacy. Its not that Mayu doesnt want to win gold at Nationals because she does otherwise shed never have voted to do so. Yet its a heightened form of Kumikos own desire to not have anyone drop out that shes essentially confronting a reflection of the passive version of herself from previous seasons that she thought she had moved beyond but now has to confront from a new angle. Confronting Mayus insecurity means confronting Kumikos insecurity creating one of the major thematic threads for the season. Mayu and Kumikos perspectives are thus each chasing a metaphorical rainbow that run parallel they may be headed in the same general direction but they cant cross. Because of this fundamental inability to see eyetoeye they cannot connect as easily. Mayus apprehension is just as despairingly resolute as Kumikos belief that what she herself believes in is the truth of how she honestly feels. Yet as each episode progresses and we see that perhaps Mayus apprehension seems allthemore to be coming true it gives dialogue and entire sequences a particular weightiness to each word and interaction. Emotions run higher and tensions run thicker not just because the stakes have increased for the main cast with increased auditions and graduation drawing nearer but rather because the ensemble collectively is carrying this sort of held breath every time with confidence wavering in confusion. I mentioned before that the melodrama within the band is the true performance of the season and it subsequently manifests in innerband friction both collectively and between individual members that is true Hibike Euphonium spirit. 550https://i.ur.com/SmntuMB.png 550https://i.ur.com/jV3teIz.png 550https://i.ur.com/W1oRoYP.png 550https://i.ur.com/H2LNKsf.png Mayus reluctance to perform if it means someone else loses a spot in the ensemble is a doubleedged foreshadow it hints not only at why she has this outlook to begin with but also reflects the attitude that will actively clash with both Kitaujis meritocracy policy and Kumikos own selfreckoning And that spirit of conflict always has its inverse that of optimism and understanding. Between Kumikos presidency Mayus apprehension Reinas perfectionism the new freshmen Tsukamoto providing insights of his own Kanades own rounding out of her edges and everything else Hibike Euphonium season three is juggling a lot of ideas within its thirteen episodes. It would be easy to assume that it would crumble under the weight of it all yet like magic it doesnt. The endgame for the season is more or less a surefire conclusion but the route it takes to get there walks the twilight between crushing and soaring even if it might change entire details of the original source material to achieve that. No matter how much it may pull out some brutal pathos punches or moments of sheer deflation it never tries to leave its characters out in the cold forever there will always be something to pull them back from the precipice. That may just be its most optimistic message of all for its audience and one that the series has been comfortingly saying since the very beginning with that flashback that started it all there will be hardships and times when you have to come facetoface with your own disappointment inability or uncertainty. Sometimes it may seem cruelly unfair or you may feel like youve taken two steps back for every one step forward. But underneath it all lies the tenderness of love and friendship bonds worth holding onto no matter how late they may have been forged. If this is indeed likely to be the final installment of this franchise I imagine Kyoto Animationhttps://anilist.co/studio/2/KyotoAnimation would want to move on to other properties to develop and see what lay within their imagination then it could not have chosen a better way to finish. Its characters left Kitauji High School better than when they came in. They bettered themselves not just musically but personally. Thats the true finale that the series had been building to since the beginning. All the desires to improve all the tears all the notes all the drama all the smiles and all the goodbyes season three is the culmination of everything Hibike in the end. https://v.animethemes.moe/HibikeEuphoniumS3ED2. 550https://i.ur.com/aLGUkyh.png 550https://i.ur.com/6YwScS6.png Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute. No matter what sadness or difficulties the year may bring the feelings left behind for the characters are always optimism for the future and a reaffirmation of love and friendship To you the reader let YOUR next piece begin.