Sound! Euphonium Specials

Hibike! Euphonium: Suisougaku-bu no Nichijou is a hilarious series of short clips that can be enjoyed by anyone in just one sitting, regardless of having watched or not watched Hibike! Euphonium. The series is extremely short, with no episode being longer than three minutes, so as a result this review will also be very short. Usually my first paragraph would be a story summary, but Hibike! Euphonium: Suisougaku-bu no Nichijou is a seven-episode miniseries of non-episodic events, making a summary very difficult. Usually each clip follows Kumiko, Hazuki, and Sapphire with the ending being Hazuki surprised by something that Reina does, such as playing a Con her Trumpet. There isn’t too much to summarize but the series is less than twenty minutes in length, so it isn’t too hard to watch it in one sitting. I rather enjoyed this short series quite a lot. The joke with Reina and the end of a few episodes made me laugh each time and I loved to get to see a small snippet into the lives of a few members of the band. The lack of an intro or end credit song is unfortunate but the music that is present is already good on its own so that slightly makes up for it. There isn’t too much else I could say on this show, in the sense of praise. I do unfortunately have a few complaints, but nothing too bad. As I stated before, I didn’t enjoy the lack of an intro or outro but that is understandable due to the length of each episode. Besides that point, the animation was a lot less present than in the main series, which is understandable because this series was made in between episodes for the main show. I know I didn’t have too much to say, but I really did enjoy this short series and would recommend it to anyone, even if they haven’t seen Hibike! Euphonium. The episodes are actually more like a teaser that people interested in Hibike! Euphonium might want to watch before watching the main series to see if they may want to watch the main series, but it's even good to those who already watch the main show. Overall, it is definitely worth a watch, but I wouldn’t rewatch this show anytime soon.

To summarise, this series of specials for the first season of Hibike Euphonium creates a more lighthearted take on the anime that preceded it, which was certainly lacking in the typical humour or nonchalance compared to most other KyoAni titles - the Wind Ensemble symphonise, rather than choogle. While there’s nothing wrong with employing such a tone, easing the mood with some specials like these is a welcome addition, especially seeing as there’s only seven of them, two minutes in length each, ED included, and so there’s not a huge amount that can really be conveyed in such a short span of time, but, agood job was done with the limited tools they were given. As far as minisode spinoffs with a greater emphasis on comedy than their main series go, I’ve seen better ones, but I really haven’t got much to complain about regarding these specials, the animation quality is of the same standard as the rest of Hibike Euphonium, and the characters are as well written as they always have been, so, in conclusion, this suffices, I wouldn’t call it mandatory viewing, but if you want something with a total runtime of 19 minutes that enhances your overall Hibike experience, this does a perfectly good job of precisely that.