Between Girls Band Cry, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night, and now Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau (Whisper Me a Love Song), this season is filled to the brim with anime that is either centered around or involves music in some way, shape, or form and I’m not complaining one bit! These types of shows are not in this much abundance but this season sure has a lot of them… including S3 of Hibike! Euphorium! I liked the first two I mentioned; however, they can’t ALL be good, can they? Let’s find out.
Let’s go!
First Episode Synopsis
It’s the first day of high school for Kino and her childhood friend Miki. When they arrive, Miki says that her sister plays bass in a band and that band is performing after the opening ceremony. When they watch it, Kino falls in love with the lead singer, Yori, at first sight! After school, as luck would have it, Kino runs into her by the shoe cubbies and decides to confess by telling her that she fell in love with her. Yori, who has never fallen in love in her love nor knows what it feels like to be in love, was taken aback by that confession. Something stirred inside of her and she found Kino way too adorable to ignore! She, too, has fallen in love at first sight.
Miki thinks the same thing so she asks her sister to give her the details on Yoni, which she then relays to Kino. She even tells Kino that Yori loves to sing by herself up on the roof so, what does a girl deeply in love do? She goes and pays her a visit. After some encouragement from her fellow band members, Yori works up the courage to tell Kino on the roof that she fell in love at first sight, too!
Then, the most magical thing in the world happens.
Kino says “YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH SINGING, TOO!? WE’RE LOVE AT-FIRST-SIGHT BUDDIES!!”
It was the misunderstanding of the century and you could practically feel Yori’s heart rip in half at that very moment; however, she will not be denied! When Kino says that she wants to come up to the roof and hear her sing every day, Yori says it’s fine but she’s going to make Kino fall for her harder than she has already! Now, a story begins where Yori is in love romantically with Kino but Kino thinks it’s just a mutual admiration for singing!
Worth Watching?
YES – I’m not going to lie… the anime had me in the first half thinking that this was going to be some mid-tier rushed relationship episode. I should have seen the twist coming from a mile away; however, with how dumb and airheaded Kino came off, there was a part of me that truly believed we were going to get an Ep. 1 Yuri ship and that this show would be about them growing as a couple while learning to love both music and each other at the same time. While that still could have worked, the twist turned this from a MAYBE into a HARD YES.
Now, we have Yori, a girl who has a lot of self-confidence issues falling in love for the first time ever in her life and going through the painful sting of rejection through a misunderstanding; however, you have to admire her strength to not give up. She quickly realizes that not all is lost and that Kino has no idea what her true feelings are. Given that this is the first time she has ever felt romantic love in her life, she doesn’t want this feeling to fade. She wants to grab that dream, hold on to it, and shoot for the sky and you can’t help but cheer her on. Even if it’s just the first episode with not much to build on character-wise, you immediately get a sense of how lonely she is. Just from the way she talks, her tone, and the almost subtle hints of pain in her voice, you instantly fall for her and want to see her happy.
The fact that the misunderstanding didn’t sway her also indirectly shows just how sick and tired she is of being alone. Anyone else could have accepted it and returned to their normal life while saying “Welp, I guess it was too good to be true just like everything else that happens to me.” But, she didn’t. That alone makes you want to see them come together.
On the other side, Kino just wants to love music and admire singing. Even if she’s just a fan of Yori, she seems too dumb and innocent for this to just be a dead end for Yori to chase. I think if Yori helps her love music, she can ease into the whole relationship thing and sway Kino’s heart.
While I was singing this show’s praises, there were a few stumbles that I didn’t like. One of which WAS going to be the forced pairing in the first episode but that swerve quickly negated that. The other has to deal with Yori’s bandmate, and drummer, Mari.
It was made clear that Mari is a super-rich girl who can afford just about anything. The positive here is that she doesn’t come off as a snob but she also isn’t afraid to be like “I’ll just buy this.” Without having to think about how much it costs. So, why does that bother me?
Well… first off… why is someone so rich going to a public school? That doesn’t make much sense but it does leave the door open for some mystery. I wonder if something happened that caused her to have no other choice but to attend a public school, and if so, I hope that reason is hilarious. Secondly, she’s used as an awkward way to introduce the characters for the first time. For example, during a normal conversation, she says “Isn’t that right, Tachibana Kaori?” or even calls our main character by her full name “Asanagi Yori.” Like, who says someone’s full name in a casual conversation like that?
Then, we discover that it’s more than a character introduction plot device, that’s her gimmick… which kind of makes it excusable but still… it just came off kind of odd.
Outside of that, this episode ended up being fantastic and now I have, yet, another rom-com built around music to watch this season. Can we just mash them all together and create Hibike! Girls Band Whispers Me a Love Song in the Night?
Maybe not…
