_"I'll be the one going to nationals"
"no, I'LL be the one going to nationals"
"no, I'LL-"
_
There's no way I can say this without sounding like I'm gatekeeping the hell out of this show, but the thing about sound! euphonium is that I really don't think you'll enjoy it if you weren't in band. You could definitely watch it just for the characters (like most people do for like, sports animes, because let's face it - almost nobody watching Haikyuu actually plays volleyball) but it doesn't explain anything about the mechanics of band since it's only 13 episodes, and it has the potential to leave you super confused if you don't already know what they're doing. On the flip side, if you were/are in marching/concert band, you'd have a really easy time navigating the more jargon-y parts of the show.

A lot of people have described sound! euph as being "easy to digest," which is pretty much a defining quality of the slice of life genre, so that's not really a surprise. You can seriously turn your brain off while watching this show. Whether or not that's a good thing is pretty subjective.

At times, the drama is really stupid and over the top, and you can't help but think, "oh dear god, that literally doesn't matter; please shut your mouth - you're 15" and there are parts of the show that are supposed to be dramatic and impactful but you end up cringing at it. I wish I could say those moments are few and far between, but they're not. They're scattered throughout the series. Sound! euph takes itself too seriously. Like... know your place. This is an anime about concert band. Band is lame (coming from a former band kid). I'm not gonna take it super seriously, and you shouldn't try to make me! Maybe it's that my school band sucked so I can't relate to their... enthusiasm... about band.

[mild spoiler - please believe me when I say that when someone quits band, it is NOT that big of a deal.]

Also... in an ironic twist, for an anime so focused on band and music, the soundtrack was pretty lacking. Nothing about it stood out to me; although, the instruments sounded really realistic (especially the scenes where they were tuning their instruments). Actually, on that note (ahaha), I thought that when they were playing their instruments, they sounded great! Normally I wouldn't criticize the soundtrack of an SOL, but since it's all about concert band, you'd figure it'd be, like, up there...

People often ask if this is a yuri... it's not a yuri explicitly. But it's far from straight. Light years away from straight. Although there is definitely LGBT stuff going on, there's not enough of it to warrent watching the show just for LGBT reasons. It's genuinely 90% band, 5% cringy drama, and 5% LGBT. If you went into the show just wanting to see LGBT content, you're gonna be bored out of your mind.

And while I'm talking about characters, some of them felt super useless. Midori and hazuki, for the most part, were just... there. I genuinelly can not tell you what it is they contribute to the show. They're kind of annoying to be honest. The vice president was annoying too. Most of them are annoying. The only characters who are remotely interesting are kumiko and reina.

Okay i know I just dished out a lot of criticism but I actually enjoyed the show. Most of it is pretty solid, which is why the bad sticks out so much. I was really rooting for kumiko and the band by the last episode. I was in band, so it was also super nostaligic for me. It didn't really feel like a trip down memory lane so much as being dragged face-down through the mud of memory lane. Watching this seriously made me miss band so much. Throwing this in here since it would be confusing to hear me talk trash for 600 words and give it an 8/10 at the end.

The conductor is hot but it really throws me off how much he looks like an older, preppy, blue-eyed version of joker from p5 :/