I read the first three books of the series while Kyoto Animation was airing the first season of its anime that covered the first of those books. They've since released a second season which covers the remaining two books of Kumiko's first year, as well as much of the content of the additional volume of short stories.
I didn't realize until recently that a two-volume sequel had come out, and by sheer coincidence started reading the day KyoAni released an animated film which is based on this sequel, titled "リズと青い鳥". From the previews however, the movie seems laser focused on Nozomi and Mizore's relationship, which is far from being resolved and is hardly mentioned thus far, halfway through the book. So right now I'm drowning in foreshadowing, but at least I have very little potential for spoiling the movie, for anyone waiting to see it.
One thing about these books that I really like that you might not know about if you're coming from the anime is that Kumiko speaks in a standard Tokyo dialect, but she's really the odd one out. As the story is set in the Kyoto area (specifically Uji City) everyone, understandably, has a thick Kyoto accent — and it is just wonderful to read aloud. I understand why the anime nixed this accent from everyone, but it's still a little disappointing. If you want to get your feet wet with a non-standard dialect, this series is a good place to start because most of the contractions are pretty clear and you have Kumiko to bounce off of for context — and as the narration is from Kumiko's perspective it's in the standard Japanese you're used to as well.
The plot of the Sound Euphonium books progresses through a large number of short scenes, each only a few pages long, but what it excels at is what it says between the lines. Kumiko's narrative style is very fluid, and it's clear that the author is very careful about what Kumiko focuses on and how she does it. How she feels about other characters is shown by how and what she chooses to describe about them. When she's in close proximity to Reina her descriptions get borderline erotic, while if she's disinterested, we suddenly have her describing things outside a window and you realize she's distracted (or she could be using how she sees the outside environment to reflect how she feels about the scene, both happen). Metaphors are in abundance, and they challenge you to delve into what's going on at the heart of these different characters and it makes you invested. The end result is you can have an explosion of two characters colliding, and look back in wonder because this or that climactic scene was only a few lines but it felt like a whole chapter.
Now to get to some of the things specific to this story, rather than the whole series. Kumiko's made it into her second year, and there are many new faces to contend with. Since Kitauji's gotten some local fame, many more students join the band. I forget the exact numbers, but the number of first years is about the same as the second and third years combined. There are four new students in the bass section alone, and as Kumiko is officially in charge of managing first year students with prior experience, there are even more faces to add to the cast list. Because of this jump, and because of Sound Euphonium's style of story telling, a lot of pages are spent really just getting to know all these new people, and at first and for the most part, they really aren't getting along all that well, at least in the bass section. But we get to see Kumiko's knack for being blunt at the right time work its magic and some of these relationships begin to get stitched up. The band makes it past the first hurdle, SunFes, and while there are rumors of a strong challenger to Kitauji on the horizon, they're still caught up in the delicate balance of human relationships keeping everything together. One of the biggest relationship strainers, auditions, an old and new source of trauma for Kumiko and others, are coming up. In the mean time, we learn Taki has decided to put a large emphasis on the free piece, a long musical arrangement of a fairy tale called "Liz and the Bluebird". The first book ends after the results of the auditions have come back and it seems at least that a tentative peace has been found at least in the bass section, but we've been hit with plenty of reasons to be anxious about the future, particularly the uneasy balance between Mizore and Nozomi, the lead oboe and flute players — who are both absolutely instrumental to the free piece. Something is about to break.
"Liz and the Bluebird" is a made-up fairy tale, and parallels can be drawn from it to almost any of the relationships between characters in the story. The fairy tale goes like this. A young girl who has lost her family lives on the edge of town by a lake. She goes every day into town to work at a bakery, bringing home extra bread after work. She befriends some animals by feeding them some of these leftovers and grows particularly attached to a bluebird. A terrible storm comes one day and the girl, Liz, is left shivering inside. After the storm she finds another girl unconscious by the lake, a girl with blue hair. She carries her in and nurses her back to health. She grows attached to the girl as a replacement for her lost family, but she notices a few odd things. She stays inside and hardly needs to eat, and another day she starts to find feathers. The girl with the blue hair tells Liz not to inquire where she came from or she will have to leave, but it does not take long for Liz to realize she is the bluebird. Wanting her to stay, Liz stays quiet for a time, but one day as she leaves for work she sees a flock of bluebirds circling her house, as if they were looking for their lost friend. Feeling pangs of guilt for caging this bird she runs back and shows the girl the feathers she had found. The bluebird pleads, I only wanted to be with you, why are you pushing me away? But in the end Liz explains that she could not bear to hold the bird away from the sky, to strip her of her wings, and in the end the bluebird flies off into the sky. The end. Reina thinks that the story is about people hesitating to hold on to happiness, Midori thinks it's about selfless love, and Kumiko does not know what to think and is confused about what she's supposed to feel about the different parts of the piece she will have to play.
There's a wonderful scene between Kumiko and Reina where Reina is anxious about one day growing distant from Kumiko and Kumiko asks her to play part of the song based on the fairytale, which Reina plays in her own way.
What we do know from one of Kumiko's outbursts which save the day, is that thinks the idea that all this needs to be a zero-sum game is wrong — so I'm curious about what how she's going to react to whatever happens between Mizore and Nozomi.
One refreshing thing so far I'd like to mention is that Kumiko doesn't always say exactly the right thing at the right time. She's human, and she screws up too — but it's very clear she has matured a lot since she has taken a leadership role. There's another metaphor where Kumiko is at a restaurant with one of the students she's supposed to be mentoring. She takes the paper thing straws come in and tries to make something out of it. She ends up ripping it, but afterwards she grabs the other student's straw thing from across the table, and does it right.
Anyway, if you were ever in band and want to feel a little nostalgia this can probably do the trick.
Comments
Post a Comment