Sound! Euphonium is another series that caught me suprised. In essence, it's a show similar to Free! and K-On! in that it's a story about a high school club, produced by the famous KyoAni studio. However, compared to those two shows (which I didn't particularly enjoy), it takes some new and interesting directions which freshen up the stale formula, resulting in quite a unique series.

The most important part of Sound! are the characters. The series follows Kumiko Oumae, a high school freshman, who decided that she "wanted a new start" and therefore go somewhere where not many of her previous schoolmates went. Her two new friends and classmates are Midori and Katou, who are both very upbeat and friendly girls, but also the most generic moe characters in the show. However, Katou serves a certain purpose in the story and Midori is very over-the-top with her silliness and cuteness, which not only makes her a more enjoyable character, but also contrasts with how hardcore she is about playing contrabass (this is a recurring theme). Shuuichi is Kumiko’s childhood friend and a potential love interest. He's one of the few male characters and he's very bland, but his role is very minor, so it's not a big problem. The band advisor, mister Taki, is clearly passionate about the music, and is the type of person who will criticise you with a smile on his face. He has some unusual teaching methods and as a new member of the school staff he has an interesting relationship with the concert band. Furthermore, the section leaders are mostly nice and friendly, Kumiko's teacher is a strict but kind-hearted lady and various band members are mostly background characters. However, some of them get a small amount of screen time without main characters and small bits of personality, which is a nice touch that helps flesh out the world and slow down the tempo, giving the viewer breathing room without boring him.

The three most interesting characters are bass section leader Asuka, Kumiko herself and her friend Reina. Asuka is also the vice-president of the concert band club, and initially seems like a very outgoing person. She's the one talking the most to freshmen, convincing them to join the band, and later her section. She seems friendly with everyone, but also very full of herself. However, as we learn later, she’s not very reliable. Everyone wanted her to be the the president, but she didn’t want to and only agreed to be the vice-president as compromise. And she doesn’t take sides on any issue, avoids answering questions she doesn’t want to and generally refuses to take responsibility. In fact the times she seems the most honest is when she says “I don’t care”, whatever the topic is. However, she’s smart, good looking and a very good euphonium player, which makes her popular despite those vices. In fact the only time we see her upset is when she’s losing practice time due to teenage drama in the section (note - a major change of the character when with the instrument in her hands). I think she’s quite an interesting character because the longer the series goes, the more mysterious she gets - it’s very unclear what is the natural behaviour for her, and what is just a facade she keeps for whatever reason.

Reina is a talented and hard-working trumpet player, who previously played with Kumiko in a junior high band. On the surface, she’s polite, well-mannered and dutiful, but also distant and hard to read. However, she’s a major example of a character that is much different with the instrument in her hands. Especially because she’s very confident in her abilities, and doesn’t shy away from claiming she’s better than her seniors However, more than for any other band member, the trumpet is a mean to express herself. When band practice stops due to attitude issues, she vents by playing a fragment of Dvorak’s 9th symphony on the school grounds. When the band is nervous before a performance, she changes the atmosphere by playing a loud note on the trumpet, despite the fact they were asked not to play while waiting for their turn. She’s also notorious for practicing more than her fellow band members.

This contrast is later explained as she opens up to Kumiko and reveals her true nature - she wants to be special. She’s not interested in popularity or meeting expectations, but rather in standing out and living up to her own standard. This means not being afraid to compete against her seniors, not backing out due to peer pressure and practicing more than anyone. We also learn that she does in fact have feelings and empathy, it’s just that she holds them back from most people. And of course Kumiko becomes an exception, as it turns out she’s an opposite of Reina in certain aspects and they grow closer to each other.

What I mean by that is that Reina appears distant on the outside, but is quite passionate and caring on the inside. Meanwhile Kumiko is a nice, friendly and polite girl on the outside, but inside she doesn’t seem to care about all that much. I think it’s very interesting in how that comes out in the series. In public, with her teachers, with her bandmates and even with her new friends, she’s a very bright and modest person. Only with Schuuichi, with her sister, to some extent with Asuka and while alone is when she allows herself to either become absent or hostile towards people. Another example of her naturally distant nature is the fact she tends to space out, and it happens the more often the more she is invested in something. This is evident especially towards the end of the series as she focuses on practicing the concert piece and even her new friends start noticing that she’s becoming distant. But whenever something is bothering her, she pays very little attention to the conversations and her surroundings in general. She also has a habit of speaking her thoughts out loud, as if she forgot that there are people around her. Furthermore, her fellow section members point out that it seems like Asuka is acting a little different towards Kumiko, as if she had more respect for her than for other performers. Which is quite interesting considering that Asuka herself seems like a very distant person, and very strict in how close she lets people near herself.

But then again you can’t ignore how stressed she gets in more than few situations. At the beginning of the series she is very uncomfortable around Reina, as Kumiko is afraid that she is mad at her for a comment she made back in junior high. However, she is able to comfortably talk about the situation with others - going as far as pointing out that she doesn’t think her comment was out of line, even though it upset Reina. Later she becomes very anxious about having to compete for a spot in the main band with an older, but less experienced euphonium player (as traditionally the players were chosen by seniority), which almost makes her withdraw from the auditions. She also has hard time dealing with her childhood friend quitting the band when the practice time gets too long and starts interfering with her studies. However, in my opinion those emotions don’t necessarily contradict with her distant nature, as in all those cases it’s the fear of being pulled out of her comfort zone and drawn into a conflict that make her uneasy. If her nature is to be distant then it’s only natural that she panics when there’s a risk of being forced to deal with people.

Kumiko also has a very different relationship with her instrument compared to other characters. For starters, at the beginning of the show she doesn’t even want to play euphonium and would rather try something new. The only reason she played it for so long is because it’s an unpopular instrument and her previous bands needed someone to play it, which happens again in high school as well. But as Kumiko matures, so does her relation with the instrument. First she starts to notice the urge to improve, as she pours more and more of herself into practice, even admitting that just like Reina, she also wants to be special. However, it’s only a setback that makes her realise how much she likes the instrument and how important it is to her to become good at playing it (and also how important is it in life to have something you enjoy doing). Once that happens, it seems like she is much more comfortable with showing her true character, which admittedly doesn’t result in a huge change on the outside, but subtly shows the culmination of her growth and maturing throughout the series.

Something else interesting about KyoAni productions is that they take a very holistic approach to the topics of their shows. In this case, that means showing all parts of life in a concert band - instrument maintenance, transport to the location of performance, tuning instruments, individual practice, group practice, lots of different exercises that musicians do… Overall - trying to show being a part of concert band for what it really is, instead of ignoring the “ugly” parts to make it cooler. And that approach works really well for this show, as it helps set up the nice, slow tempo and generally helps with the immersion. Simultaneously they don’t put too much attention into other parts of characters’ lives, such as their pastimes or studying, only briefly mentioning them when they are somewhat related to the band. On that note, I must also mention that I really liked that romance was a very small part of the series, and whatever we got was very vague - perhaps that’s my personal preference, but I like that the show took a fairly unique approach on that front.

Overall I think the tempo of the show was fantastic. It tackled issues one at a time, only giving hints of what might be a next problem before the previous is resolved. It distributed information very slowly, not afraid of keeping secrets from the viewer when his focus should be on a different thread. The production (backgrounds, animation, voice acting) was flawless and while I’m not a classical music aficionado, I liked the choice of compositions performed in the show.

In my opinion Sound! is a coming of age story, more than any other KyoAni show I’ve watched. It deals with themes such as finding your identity, deciding what you want to do in life, maturing, and changing. It shows people’s paths joining, separating and crossing. Its messages are few, simple and told gracefully. Most of all, the series focuses on creating interesting characters and meaningful interactions, and I believe it succeeds at that. I’m not the best person to judge how it fairs in the endless stream of high school slice of life/drama series. But as far as the coming of age stories go, this one is fresh and unique enough to be worth recommending.