Sound! Euphonium 2

Episode 4

It's generally unfair to attribute a show's success or failure to its studio as a whole, given the dramatic influence of directors and other key staff, along with the fact that most studios rely heavily on freelance workers and have significantly variable scheduling situations. Even pointing to a director specifically can be a tricky proposition, given things like Akiyuki Shinbo's consistent but spurious directorial credits and Kyoto Animation's own splitting of directorial duties. But for Sound! Euphonium 2, it's easy to see where this fourth episode found its voice - episode director Taichi Ogawa.

Ogawa first did significant work on Euphonium for the first season's OVA, which bore the clear hallmarks of his style. In this surprisingly climactic episode of season two, his quirks are again on display, visible in the rapid cuts that mark this episode's segues and major emotional outbursts.

The first such sequences are subtle, more dedicated to creating propulsive transitions than conveying a stark emotional state. One follows Kumiko's exit from the band room, when a silly and very well-animated exit leads to her once again lamenting her stupidity against a wall. The jump from that moment to Kumiko at home is punchy but fluid, smartly conveying how her distracted attitude would make the time disappear until conflict again brought her to attention. A later sequence uses these cuts similarly - Kumiko is initially distracted by Yoroizuka's solemn practice, but Reina shaking her prompts her to decisive action, a handful of cuts jumping us from the classroom to Kumiko grabbing her chair to solo practice outside.

These sequences are dynamic and dramatically satisfying, helping place the viewer in Kumiko's emotional space while also emphasizing the solidity of the bandroom environments, but it's the next sequence that really demonstrates the power of these rapid cuts to facilitate dramatic conflict, when Kumiko realizes too late that Nozomi's about to set off a Yoroizuka-shaped time bomb. Shakycam and low-angle frames convey Kumiko's sense of disarray, and shots jumping between her and Nozomi emphasize the encroaching disaster. This building tension comes to a head as Nozomi and Yoroizuka meet - then the camera lets loose entirely, jumping from the falling music sheets to Kumiko's expression to Yoroizuka's panicked run, all framed to emphasize how exactly what Asuka feared has come to pass. While Asuka was hoping to avoid drama, every visual element of this sequence was framed to make clear just how public this drama has become. The moment of reckoning arrived at last.

Terrific direction aside, I was also happy to see Nozomi and Yoroizuka clash in a narrative sense. There wasn't enough substance to their conflict to truly last a season, and with them reconciling only a quarter of the way through the series, it's now clear that their conflict was just a way for the whole cast to articulate their feelings on drama and competition. That conflict was a canvas, and all the diverse members of Sound! Euphonium's cast left their own marks upon it.

Yoroizuka's confession was the final piece required to establish her as a sturdy member of the cast. Her feelings about Nozomi made sense - having always been an unsocial person, she knew their friendship meant far more to her than Nozomi, so she was afraid to learn their relationship had been one-sided from the start. Yoroizuka saw Nozomi's abandonment and thus Nozomi herself as a symbol of her own failings and couldn't truly get past those feelings to play oboe for her own sake.

Yuuko also got strong material here, both in her unexpected reliance on Kumiko and her ultimate anger at Yoroizuka's confession. Even Asuka got a “strong” moment of her own, in that her suspicions about everyone being self-centered perfectly echoed a general belief that others are more or less like yourself. The second half of this episode was both a major narrative step forward and another solid demonstration of Euphonium's very diverse cast.

Overall, this episode had something worth celebrating on basically all levels. Ogawa's unique directorial style was perfectly suited to the episode with the most overt conflict so far, giving a strong sense of dynamism and physical space to this episode's plentiful transition scenes. The cast were given many opportunities to demonstrate their unique worldviews and grow from engaging with others. The narrative in general moved forward quickly and effectively, resolving Yoroizuka's initial conflict while still respecting the weight of her feelings. While Euphonium is generally focused on elevating tiny moments, this episode demonstrated its equal confidence in hitting major narrative beats. Euphonium holds strong.

Overall: A-

Sound! Euphonium 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.