10 Second Anime - Hibike! Euphonium - Episode 4



Mr. Taki personally trains each of the sections for their next ensemble play. Some still don't like his attitude, but questions about his commitment fade away.

Heh.

If this is how Mr. Taki handles a band with aspirations to compete in the Nationals, would the kids have interpreted his laidback demeanor differently if they were a club who just wanted to make happy memories? Even when he was talking to the flute player about her lack of skill as a senior, there was no malice, but the words themselves, making the point about wasting one's youth, would have sounded harsh if they were read from a piece of paper. Plus the girl's crying...

 

I don't think Mr. Taki would have changed at all. He just would have asked the kids to do different things. After a week of his training, he sounded convinced this band had a shot of going to the Nationals. Maybe he always believed it, which is the reason he asked them last week why they were wasting his time.

 

Wasting time appears to be a thing for Mr. Taki. After he distributed the very packed practice schedule for their next public performance, he said, "If you gather the time you waste being young, this much practice shouldn't be difficult." I wonder how young this guy is.

 

Using all the practice time was a good way of meeting all the musicians, even if we'll never learn all their names. I'm going to start calling the trumpet player with the yellow ribbon "Dekomori."

Without a lot of time to use dialog to paint the characters, KyoAni did what it does best - it paid attention to details between the characters as it placed them in incredibly detailed settings. All those meaningful looks, short snippets of comments in the stairwells, the other students stray comments on how the band club is working hard, even placing parent-teacher meetings in the middle of all this to give us a brief look at Kumiko's family life, moved character and plot development along while the kids were just standing in place for a week.

Yes, Hazuki actually named her instrument "Tubacabra."

Kumiko was the source of a lot of funny faces, especially in relation to Reina, but there's just something about her and Shuuichi. The casual meanness on her part that he takes as their normal banter took years and history to develop, yet they still sit next to each other to talk. Again, these little details develop the characters and their relationships quickly, yet the plot takes its time without rushing. This is just excellent storytelling.

Reina had her chances to flash more personality too. She obviously would like a serious minded club advisor, judging from her emotional outburst in the first episode, but then she layered that with protectiveness, warning Kumiko and Shuuichi not to badmouth Mr. Taki. I wonder if there's not just the smidgen of a crush developing there.

 

In addition to finding out more regarding Reina's personality, Kumiko finally shared her own thoughts with Reina, without a veneer of cynicism or detachment. Juxtapose that with Reina's calm eyes when she apologized for her flash of emotion in defending Mr. Taki the evening before.

 

What's important too, is that the childhood friends learned that Reina is one of their neighbors. This could lead to Reina visiting Kumiko's house soon, throwing her all into a tizzy. I'm looking forward to that!

 

 

Hmm.

It looks like we're going the route of helping the students find their motivation, instead of kicking out the lazy ones and recruiting the ones who quit last year. There may still be sore spot there for some of the survivors, because we saw Aoi being disappointed that Mr. Taki believes their band has the potential to play for competitions. She also warned Kumiko that "three years go by in a flash," which is another reference to "wasting time" that is tied to Mr. Taki.

 

Kumiko's mom's brief appearance at the school let slip that the older sister was a band geek too, who gave it up to study for her college entrance exams and apparently never picked up an instrument again. That's a hint about some of the tension between the two sisters.

 

Mr. Taki may be right about this band's potential. In less than a week, their performance of a simple musical piece made the rest of the school notice something extraordinary happening. Of course, it wasn't perfect, but they only had a week to practice it the way Mr. Taki wanted. However, the soul of the piece was there, showing that the ensemble really was getting in synch.

 

Mr. Taki appears to be quite ambitious. Part of why he held the band's traditional performance at the Sunrise Festival conditional on how serious they were about competitive playing was to signal to the other schools, and the judges I presume, that they had to pay attention to their band too.

 

As we saw with Reina's disappointment that their junior high was not chosen to move on to the next level of competition, even though they had won gold medals at each of their performances, there's more to competition than just performing well. There's also establishing a rank of prestige among the local schools, and Mr. Taki does not want to waste time on even a festival appearance. Every performance counts when you gather up the time you waste being young.