Never thought I would have liked a side story more than the main one but here I am,talking about what has become one of my favorite animation products.
Liz to Aoi Tori is a side story to Hibike! Euphonium and mainly tells the relationship, far from simple, between Yoroizuka Mizore and Kasaki Nozomi, secondary characters of the second season of Hibike; combined with the narration of the fairytale Liz to Aoi Tori, name of the piece on which the two protagonists also prepare for the next competition of the band. Thanks to this alternation between real world and fairytale, the narration is never bland or too boring and there aren’t dead moments. Limiting the setting to just two spaces (fable and school) also creates a sort of intimacy between the spectator and the characters, which is also facilitated by the excellent writing of the relationship between the latter which had already been seen in Hibike Euphonium but which here is exploited to its maximum potential.
Mizore and Nozomi's relationship
Reading the story Mizore sees herself a lot in Liz, the protagonist who after so much loneliness finds someone she loves so much that she doesn't want to leave her and sees Nozomi as the blue bird of the story. What I really liked was the exponential evolution of their relationship over the course of the film, from an initial dependence on Mizore's part towards Nozomi, to a co-dependence, and then the overturn of this relationship to arrive at the beautiful final result.
#*Spoilers below*
Spoiler, click to view
The turning point of the film is certainly Mizore's realization that she is actually much more like the blue bird, caged and unable to fly and to express her maximum potential for the love of Liz, or in this case of Nozomi. I actually think that both Nozomi and Mizore have a lot in common with both Liz and the blue bird and therefore their role can simply change based on the point of view or perspective in which you look at their relationship. I also consider the latter to be a clearly romantic relationship and not limited only to a strong friendship. Once confronted, the two finally manage to build an equal relationship, also marked by the word joint at the end of the film as opposed to the word disjoint that was presented at the beginning. Other small additions to this thing that I really liked are the various scenes that we find just before the end, like Mizore finally "spreads her wings" practicing alone with the oboe and focusing on her goals without forcibly searching for Nozomi. I loved the fact that in the end the two walk side by side together, another sign of the evolution of their relationship and in contrast to the beginning, where the distance between the two when they walked was evident with Mizore blindly following Nozomi.
On the technical aspect, as always, little to say, KyoAni is the top and in addition I really appreciated the change in the character design of the characters compared to the first two seasons of Hibike Euphonium, which gives them more maturity and makes them even more real.
Hibike! Euphonium
Liz to Aoi Tori
In the end we have a film capable of telling in every detail the evolution of a relationship that is perceived as damn real and human, passing from addiction-friendship-love and finding a difficult mix to explain. "To love someone doesn’t mean to depend on it, but to find our own identity in it." "To love someone also means to have the strength to let them go."
