Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Sound! Euphonium 3
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HannoX
Posts: 200 |
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I've thought this for a couple episodes now. I've even thought, "Kumiko, you dummy, go to music school and become a music teacher!" I think she'd be very good at it and her time as president of her high school band gives her experience that would prove very helpful. |
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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I think Taki-sensei recognizes Kumiko’s potential, too — though perhaps I’m mistaking genuine general pedagogy (“If you go to Nationals, it will be the result of your own efforts”, “The results of the audition aren’t due entirely the skill and talent of those selected, but how they contribute to the balance of the ensemble”), for showing Kumiko how to think like a teacher.
Sound Euphonium season 9: Reina goes off the deep end with jealousy as teacher-trainee Kumiko returns to Kitauji to train with Taki-sensei. (I thought I heard a bit of jealousy in Reina when she “caught” Kumiko leaving a private conversation with the teacher.) Also, I cheered along with Hazuki as she passed the audition. |
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HannoX
Posts: 200 |
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I think you're right. It's like in the movie Miracle when Kurt Russel's character (I don't know the name of the actual coach) said, "I'm not looking for the best players. I'm looking for the right players." In any team effort you want those who can contribute the most to the team, such as off setting the team's weakness in one area even if they personally are weak in another area. And Yea! for Hazuki. |
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ScruffyKiwi
 Posts: 707 Location: New Zealand |
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What? Kumiko and Rena have matching swimsuits? How are they NOT in a relationship! That’s next level yuri bating there!!
Edit: what it looks like they have done is buy different swimsuits and then swapped tops, which is even worse (or better depending on who you ship). |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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Reina really seemed to be angling for a “date” with Kumiko, there in the train station run-up to the break, and was getting frustrated at Kumiko’s (deliberate?) obtuseness.
Yes, I think they just swapped tops, though Reina did say she’d bought a “matching” swim suit. |
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ScruffyKiwi
Posts: 707 Location: New Zealand |
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The pattern matches on the two swimsuits. Also, considering some of the previous ruminations Kumiko has had regarding her bust size they would have had to have swapped bottom not tops which I find more than a little weird! |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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Going back to the movies, in the second movie, Reina and Kumiko have the same swim-suits for that year's obon break. As you note, they swapped bottoms this year. I went back to the movies to get a bit more insight into Kanade --- in particular, her attempt to "throw" her audition for Natsuki's (a less accomplished senior) benefit. I suppose it's only natural because of the school setting that we get themes repeated with each new entering class, but gosh, the Kumiko-is-flummoxed-by-thinking-about-her-future and can-a-newcomer-displace-a-senior plot devices are beginning to show their age. Interestingly, on the future-teacher-Kumiko front, at one point in the second movie Taki-sensei asks Kumiko how she is getting on in her role as shepherd for the first years. She's her noncommittal self, but the scene concludes with Taki-sensei remarking to a colleague that "she's a natural". Episode 8 spoiler[Kanade leaving her apple juice for the dejected Motomu was cute. It explained her frustration at needling him earlier in the episode.] That spider web has been a presence in the series for a long time, maybe as far back as the first season. |
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Glordit
 Posts: 643 |
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Mayu was constantly bringing up her doubts in her skill and comparing and them to Kumiko. She was basically saying "Oh well... I was only pretending to be bad! I could beat you if I wanted to but I'm holding back for your sake." Mayu getting the part instead of Kumiko must have really brought down all the confidence she had in her skill. It's only natural that she gets a bit of a reality check, though it's a bit tough for it to happen at this stage.
Now it would be interesting to see what happens between Kumiko and Reina. |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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I assume there’s another round of auditions before the Big Climax Event, and that Kumiko will knock herself out to be the soloist for that concert.
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druv
Posts: 40 |
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Yes, I believe this was the audition for regional (prefectural?), so as long as they qualify, she'll have time to win and go to Nationals. It would be an amazing twist if they didn't qualify, but I don't think they'll go that far. I do think that Kumiko doesn't quite realize how easy it is to fall back in old patterns. She mentions at one point that Mayu (I think) reminds her of her at the end of Middle School, when she didn't have a goal. But at the moment, Kumiko herself lacks a goal just like she did before. She's has the school band's goal, sure, but anything that has to do with her, like deciding what to do with her future, seems incredibly difficult for her right now. I mean, she's also being run ragged and probably doesn't have enough time to practice, but does she WANT to be the best eupho player in the band? |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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Episode 9 ends on a bloody cliff-hanger, such that I don't want to wait a week to see what happens next.
spoiler[And maybe Reina and Kumiko aren't the perfect couple, after all. I don't think Kumiko deserved that. I suppose it was partly Reina's disappointment coming out wrong, plus, well, her Taki-sensei obsession.] Last edited by dm on Mon Jun 03, 2024 7:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 758 Location: North America |
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Disappointed - I wanted to see Kumiko let loose on Reina for her comment the way Nina lets loose on Momoka in Girls Band Cry, since Reina would fully deserve it.
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Jabootu
Posts: 238 |
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Kumiko is not a let-looser. After three seasons we know these characters pretty well--particularly the two leads--and it would have struck a massive clanging note if the scene had gone as you suggest. Sound Euphonium is much too good of a show to engage in such inorganic storytelling. However, while reading Reina the riot act would be out of character, it's a sign of Kumiko's growth that she is bypassing dealing with a symptom (Reina) and going right to the source of the problem; to wit, Taki's blindness to the bandmembers' feelings and the effects of not explaining why he's doing what he's doing. (Moreover, Kumiko has to know that if Reina went ballistic at people criticizing Taki at a remove, she's going to go positively ape at the idea of Kumiko confronting him face to face.) Few have Reina's utterly blind faith in Taki, and the loyalty he's built up among the second and third year players is in at least some cases nearing exhaustion. And he clearly won't figure out how his actions are hurting the band unless somebody explains it to him. Good on Kumiko for being willing to take on that burden. She's turned into a pretty great club president. |
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Jabootu
Posts: 238 |
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Great episode. The forward momentum to the season's (and series?) conclusion is proceeding nicely.
I love the idea that the postcard is this one-time-only-use chit that Kumiko must expend to access Asuka. Along with the fact that Kaori, Guardian of the Flat, understands how it works too. Asuka clearly...favors?...Kumiko, but not to the point where she wants her dropping by the apartment all the time. Or even on rare occasions. Asuka's most pronounced trait is that she doesn't want anyone to be able to get a read on her. She's like the living incarnation of the Tatemae Face, especially as shown with how she portrayed herself with the band. Even the people who get comparatively close to her to like Kumiko (it'd be fascinating to see how much Asuka lets Kaori in now that they live together) are clued in to the fact that her Honne Face is entirely off-limits. They can get past that public face but are completely sealed within the No-Man's Land between that and her private one. Thus her emphasis that while she admired Kumiko's tirade against her, she also didn't agree with any of its actual content. It would be interesting to see if Kumiko is ever allowed to drop by after she becomes an adult. Probably not. I imagine that Asuka would prefer to be the one to mysteriously appear before Kumiko, and then only if the whim ever took her, and then probably depart like five minutes later. She's like the anti-Yui Hirasawa. As for the lack of concert footage this episode, well, KyAni might perform miracles, but they don't have the money to hire and record a full orchestra all the time, much less to animate everyone in the band playing their instruments. It's like how we heard the tail end of Fuwa Fuwa Time half a dozen times for every time we heard a full song on K-On! I imagine that's why they like making Sound Euphonium movies, as well. A bit more time and money for those big orchestra scenes. I especially liked how they used the main theme of Liz and the Bluebeard for the emotional climax of that film, and then we also got the full concert performance of the piece in the next movie. Here's my head canon, BTW. Kumiko indeed becomes a music teacher, and then is roped into being the advisor of her high school's Light Music Club when the daughters of the Ho-Kago Tea Time girls take it over. (Luckily, Principal Nodoka Manabe is on hand for when guidance is needed.) |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1460 |
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Was Kumiko channeling Asuka in the post-concert scene with Reina?
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