Forum - View topic

EP. REVIEW: Sound! Euphonium 2

So the big drama with the second year things really was just some of them left? The way they made such a big deal out of it I thought someone killed themselves or something like that, but a few people left is all it take to emotional scare the entire band? Yeah, I find it really overdone.

As for the Yuri bait, gender flip either of them and there wouldn't be any question of whether or not there was love between them. If one of my friend did some of the stuff Reina did to Kumiko in S1 and they didn't want to fudge me, regardless of gender, I would be really weirded out.

But let's take these two outside of that for a while, and let's say they're in a completely fictional setting, if you told me "these girls get together at the end" it would be completely believable for me, narratively speaking.

This is anime...

Valhern wrote:

But let's take these two outside of that for a while, and let's say they're in a completely fictional setting, if you told me "these girls get together at the end" it would be completely believable for me, narratively speaking.

I agree, but my main issue is that, for years, anime fans have been criticizing stuff like this, labelling it "unrealistic", "pandering", "yuri-bait", etc.

Whether you agree with that opinion or not, I don't see how critics can honestly claim - as Nick does in this review - that anime has "demonstrated a frustrating unwillingness to acknowledge or validate such same-sex relationships", and then turn around and suggest that this show has done a better job. It hasn't, it's just Class S wrapped up in a prettier bow and marketed to a broader audience than just "yuri fans".

Please, reviewers, don't make the claim that this show is somehow above the curve when it comes to not pandering to yuri fans. Not only does it sound ridiculous to those of us who are deeply familiar with Class S shows, but it also doesn't jive with the show's frequently pandering imagery (there was a moment this episode where a girl was talking and the show literally cropped out her eyes so it could frame her breasts better, that sure was a real "smartly framed" shot).

Also, it looks that good that people are usually pleased with it, even with some kind of questionable framing, it doesn't feel like the show has the particular intention like an ecchi show, so you really don't get that same reaction, I at least didn't.

Valhern wrote:

Also, it looks that good that people are usually pleased with it, even with some kind of questionable framing, it doesn't feel like the show has the particular intention like an ecchi show, so you really don't get that same reaction, I at least didn't.

Yeah, I ended up editing that out of my post around the time you were responding to me; it's really another issue entirely. All I'll say about it right now is that I didn't notice the shot framing as much until the person who was watching the show with me pointed it out, and now I can't really unsee it, you know?

So the big drama with the second year things really was just some of them left? The way they made such a big deal out of it I thought someone killed themselves or something like that, but a few people left is all it take to emotional scare the entire band? Yeah, I find it really overdone.

Smart framing? Debatable, I don't think it was supposed to crop out her eyes and show her boobs because pure pandering specifically but it does stand out giving the clothing, I don't know if there would have been a better idea to make the same movement without showing it like that, perhaps another angle, like from the sideways, would've worked correctly.

Valhern wrote:

Smart framing? Debatable, I don't think it was supposed to crop out her eyes and show her boobs because pure pandering specifically but it does stand out giving the clothing, I don't know if there would have been a better idea to make the same movement without showing it like that, perhaps another angle, like from the sideways, would've worked correctly.

That's pretty much what I took away from that scene. Recreate the scene, but them wearing school uniform, casual wear, or having a late-night talk in their PJs (like in the episode #2's 2nd half) and it might have been clearer. But that small, Phantom World-esque feeling was there, too.

That couldn't have been possible, Nozomi didn't go to the camp; she is not part of the band.

or hanging out on a too-crowded grassy plane

From there, the two of them actually got into a lengthy conversation about Nozomi's thoughts on the band. This talk, and the later one echoing it from Natsuki's perspective, felt a little clumsy in my mind. Nozomi's role in this narrative isn't a natural one - it's understandable that third-year students who left during the chaos might return now, but we've been given little reason to care about either that conflict or these characters, and their complete non-presence before makes this feel very much like a “season two conflict.” It's natural for shows that weren't guaranteed a sequel to need to invent new conflicts, but in a show with storytelling as generally naturalistic as Euphonium's, it does add something of a speed bump to the dramatic trajectory. In that context, both of these conversations felt slightly expositional; the pacing of the dialogue and body language were still very natural, but the content felt a little spelled out for the sake of the audience.

I just flipped through the second novel again, and man are they speeding through it - we're already at the events early in the second half of the book! There were also barely any added scenes, and the only scenes I can recall that have been skipped are those of more immediate importance to the competition itself, so there's a chance we'll be seeing some of them later.

One interesting thing I've noticed in comparison with the first season is that, while the first one went out of its way to play up the homoerotic aspects of Kumiko and Reina's interactions, in the second season it's actually toned down in many places, the end of the fireworks sequence being the major exception. I'm thinking particularly of the leadup to the pool outing and the moment of intimacy during the training camp.