Note: This review covers only the second season of this show.

Hibike! Euphonium! (Euphonium!) was yet another great entry to the music-themed shows of these last few years. It offered a solid foundation of decent girls even if they were plagued by the waifu templates common to Kyoto Animation. It had girl-romance, challenges, teachings about music, and ended with a competition where it culminated the emotional efforts of the school orchestra. Now it must lead on, charging through competition after competition to take us where the cast can reach.

A true sequel

The first thing to be said is that this second season of Euphonium! is solid. If you enjoyed the first there is little change in what it offers, perhaps only giving more room for thrill and tears in exchange for less time with a variety of cute girls. This is a natural progression though, and as in any sports show this works to make the audience understand the stakes are now higher and that the cast has evolved as musicians and as a team.

More about Asuka and Reina

If the first season had a tiny glimpse of nearly every girl around the club, this time we have a focus on the two most intriguing characters: Asuka and Reina. When dealing with Asuka, the show shifts to the events of the past year and explains in detail the situation that led the music club to deband. This, as a consequence, leads to a better understanding of some third-year students and in turn makes the very setting of the show more reliable and believable. If this felt just as an excuse for cute girls at first, perhaps now it can be seen as something a little less fanservice.

Girl-love

Reina, on other hand, proves to be what fuels Kumiko since day one, and when tackling with this duo the show borders a yuri romance and can certainly make you cheer for one. Fortunately this isn’t the focus here and Euphonium! never derails from what it is: a sports show about music competition.

And we finally have them!

After an entire season for a single competition, this time we get more along with the development of the third-year students and Kumiko’s love-affair. This is where Euphonium! gets thrilling and evolves. From KyoAni typical cute-cute chat we get to deal with selfishness, imbecile parents (because yes, every adult in a japanese animation is a dumbass who only makes wrong choices), and defeat. Although always surrounded by beauty and cuteness, these darker themes hold Euphonium! together and the finale is a satisfying and charming one.

KyoAni always kind of annoyed me. The fan-hype is stupid and if they sh*t on the screen people would venerate their job and claim it’s the best show ever released. Every year is the same. Every fuck*n year. Clannad is so overly hyped I still find myself thinking what people find so amusing in that show. Haruhi never truly gets that impressive with the boring characters it has yet people find it “smart”. Damn. Chuunibyou, Amagi, Kyoukai no Kanata… nothing truly deserving of their praises. Perhaps the only show I can give some room for doubt is the overly cute Hyouka and, of course, the insanely comical Fumoffu.

Anyway, Euphonium! came to give me some doubt before ditching a show because it is from KyoAni. It delivers a charming and decently dramatic tale of friendship and overcoming problems. It lacks the artistic mastery and tear-dropping power from Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, but it barely has drastic faults as most other shows from the studio. Cute girls? Not overly dumb as in Clannad, in fact some are awesome. Cheesy comedy? Just two genki characters to annoy, one of them being fairly complex in the end. Bland drama? With some thrilling competitions and lots of teen angst it delivers more tension than any other show from the studio.

Yeah. I finally truly enjoyed a KyoAni show since Fumoffu. Hurray!