10 Second Anime - Hibike! Euphonium - Episode 7



Aoi quits the band and Natsuki tells the freshmen of the band's drama the previous year.

Heh.

It was a rainy week, the colors were dreary to match the serious events, but let's talk about the most important thing here - Hazuki is aiming for Shuuchi and she will run right through Kumiko if she has to!

 

Okay, okay, that wasn't the most important thing. It was actually Reina sitting right next to Kumiko and Shuuichi on the train and not saying anything! I mean, how rude!

 

Okay, fine. That wasn't the most important thing either. The most important thing was that Kaori-senpai will never notice Yuuko over Haruka! Suck it up, Yuuko!

 

Okay, for reals this time. The most important thing this episode is that Natsuki could be this cute.

No, really. It's that important because it ties into how Aoi quitting the band was a mirror image of the serious band members quitting last year. Natsuki looked bored and disengaged earlier in the school year. She was one of the band members who didn't quit, because she was influenced by last year's seniors who were too cool for school.

 

Asuka had her pegged from the beginning though - she really did want to play music, but her personality wasn't one to go against the flow. Now she's going with the flow that is serious about competition, even if it's playing music for judges instead of playing for themselves.

 

Playing off the melodrama of last year's events, this episode was really a character study on the leading seniors and their friendship. Asuka, Kaori, Haruka and Aoi all survived the tension of the disinterested seniors the previous year, but it looked like Aoi was the last one to quit, which was even more painful because she appeared to be one of the serious ones last year. Now that she had to study hard for college entrance exams, she couldn't have the competitive music experience she wanted last year.

 

I think Aoi wanted the club to go the easy route earlier in the season because the people who didn't take music seriously were still in the club. But she was wrong about them, and the other seniors were right - the ones who made it through were serious about music.

 

People wondered why Asuka wasn't President and now we know - she knew she didn't have the strength to keep the ones who were really interested in playing music in the band until the next year when the bad influences were gone. In the end, it looks like Asuka is in her own little world of music and dealing with other people, even though she can, isn't something she enjoys.

 

Yuuko will never be number one with Kaori-senpai.

Only Haruka gets the hot potatoes from Kaori.

 

Asuka showed her hard smile to Haruka, but not to the freshmen.

This Shuuichi guy is pretty perceptive, and kinda nosy. He sensed a superficiality about Askuka. For Asuka, she's only really herself when she's playing music. Everything else is an act, which explains the funny vignettes she puts on when she's talking to other people. She shows her true self to her closest friends, and there's very few of them.

 

Reina is getting closer to Kumiko... at least on the train.

Just don't ask her to say hi yet. Reina doesn't do casual conversation.

 

It looks like the girls keep the same color ribbon throughout their three years in high school. Is that the custom in Japan, or do some schools have the same colors for the different grades and you have to get a new ribbon each time you move up?

 

 

Hmm.

I think it was very fitting that Natsuki was the one who told Kumiko about what happened to the band last year. She was one of the "lazy ones" who made the dedicated musicians quit. But it wasn't that simple an explanation, even though it looked like it earlier in the season. From the flashback, we saw that she was sitting with Riko next to the seniors with bad attitudes. From what we've seen of Riko, there's no way she could have been lazy about music, but the dynamic of younger students trying to fit in with older students came into play. We used to call that peer pressure, but I don't know what the cool kids call it these days.

 

I'm curious about these students who quit. They must still be at the school. What do they think about this new attitude the band is displaying? Is there jealousy? A skepticism about how genuine the transformation is? The scope of the story doesn't look like it will cover this issue. There's enough characters to deal with in the ensemble cast already. Maybe there'll be time for that sometime later.

 

Did we see a flashback of Kumiko being rejected by a girl? Is that why she's not interested in Shuuichi? The end credits show the red string of fate tied between her and Reina, so maybe Shuuichi just won't get his chance with her. Hazuki is going to try, though. Too bad Shuuichi only has eyes for Kumiko.