Season 3 of Hibike! Euphonium has been a masterful exercise in building up dread out of the mundane, with just as uncanny of a combination of storytelling efficiency and whimsical charm. But how did its team achieve it, and what awaits the show and studio in the future?

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Hibike! Euphonium 3 is one of the most challenging TV series that Kyoto Animation has had to produce; deceptively so in some ways, as is common for this franchise, and quite obviously so in others. The contextual challenges mostly fall in the latter camp, as Eupho was massively impacted by the arson attack of 2019. Though there is no project that can count itself unaffected by such a brutal incident, Eupho in particular has had to reinvent itself when it comes to its pillars as a production. Most notoriously, its series direction, character design and animation supervision, as well as its renowned portrayal of the instruments and musical performances.

A mix of newcomers and returning faces have found answers for each of those aspects, which lean heavier towards continuity or actual reinventions depending on what they deemed best for storytelling purposes. As the new animation and design leader, Kazumi Ikeda approached the role with as much caution as she had awareness of the heavy fan expectations. When it comes to a series where everyone moves and acts in a very specific way, which is fundamentally tied to their character writing, altering that would shatter the immersion. The core of Eupho’s animation had to remain the same… and yet, the production had already spit in the face of a consistent look, as the visuals were meant to embody the growth of the cast.

Over the last few iterations, the staff had been instructed to go off-model to make everyone appear ever so slightly older, with general precepts like smaller eyes. Thus, Ikeda has spent a lot of time revising character sheets to solidify that growth, on top of drawing all-new ones for the ridiculously large number of characters. It’s worth noting that the younger additions skew much closer to the original childlike look of Eupho S1, not just in their design, but in the way they’re animated as well. This mix of charming familiarity with more seasoned texture for the main cast succeeds at Ikeda & co’s goal of offering something that is distinctly Eupho, yet corresponds to the evolution of the series. All of that, while maintaining the exceptional level of quality that people have come to expect as well; something that is arguably more impressive on a technical level, but that you can take for granted more easily with a team like this.

In contrast to that attempt to emphasize continuity—even if that meant to continue changing in the same way as before—the new (co-)leaders of those two other pillars were happy to adjust their approach in major ways. Mind you, those are formal changes, as the philosophy behind the direction of Eupho remains essentially the same. When prompted about depicting the growth of the cast by animate Times, director Tatsuya Ishihara compared the process to something akin to running a simulation; they may be the Gods of their own creations, but in approaching their casts as people, they become something closer to witnesses to their natural behavior and growth.

This mindset about the continuity outside the camera is a dogmatic one for Naoko Yamada, who was once the person to lead the charge for the series as its original series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario.. Though it’s not as deeply, uniformly implanted in Ishihara, her mentor is very much acquainted with a vision that has become integral to Eupho’s anime adaptation; and, given that he now shares responsibilities with a pupil of Yamada herself, no one is going to push back against this idea.

While those precepts are the same, though, the way to manifest them has deliberately changed. That pupil we just spoke of is Taichi Ogawa, who has been heralded as one of the studio’s up-and-coming stars for long enough that it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see him burst into his first TV show with such confidence. Despite his obvious Yamada influences, Ogawa has carved a personality of his own through his ability to isolate objective aspects of a moment—temperature, precise time, humidity, the exact force of the wind, you name it—to evoke subjective feelings in a very compelling way. Aware of his own strengths, Ogawa has expressed his desire to push for new forms of expression in this season, as has been apparent since the start. Those also include a reformulation of how instruments are depicted in the show, going from the astonishing precision led by the late Hiroyuki Takahashi to the dazzling subjectivity of Minoru Ota. For a more extensive look at this change and its thematic meaning, though, we’ll have to wait until the next article about this series. Because as it turns out, Eupho S3 is one tricky exercise in storytelling.

If all those previous aspects were the obvious challenges in producing a new season of Eupho, the subtler ones are arguably more fundamental. It’s not as if this team hasn’t been entrusted with solid material—Ayano Takeda’s character writing hasn’t lost a step in the duology of novels that make up the so-called Final Movement for Kumiko. If anything, these might be her most interesting ideas yet; the common scenario that links graduation with the scary choices for the future is as grounded as it is sharp, and she feels more daring than ever in how she drags characters and readers alike into a muddy situation that offers no easy solution. For as interesting as that is, though, that murkiness seeps into the bones of the work in a way that makes its structure somewhat cumbersome. As a story that intends to put the reader through a grinder, accidentally lengthening that process with an unfocused delivery can make it a bit of a tough read. A fascinating one, however, with strengths that greatly exceed that structural drawback.

Although this issue further raises the difficulty of the adaptation, it does so in a way that also opens up an obvious door for improvement: if you were to structure the story better, matched with the high-level execution that is expected of this team, you’d have all the compelling aspects of Final Movement with none of its original drawbacks. Although it might sound silly already now, there was growing unrest among its most dedicated fans that the anime would accentuate this issue; the announcement that Eupho S3 would seemingly only have 13 episodes at its disposal to adapt 2 novels raised alarms in that regard. A single episode, which incidentally confirmed that this would indeed be a full adaptation of Final Movement, was enough to extinguish those worries.

Now, don’t take this to mean that the apprehension was ridiculous. While I think the harsh criticism it faces is exaggerated and clearly motivated by other aspects, it’s true that the Chikai no Finale movie that covers Kumiko’s second year lacks the breathing room that makes Eupho as a whole so enjoyable. More than cutting content, the idea of rushing through Final Movement is scary; especially given how heavy it can be, something that both requires pause to absorb the charged atmosphere and breaks so that it doesn’t asphyxiate you.

What those worries ignored, however, were two important aspects: the studio’s tremendously efficient storytelling, and their willingness to adapt Eupho in a liberal fashion. KyoAni’s visual delivery being leagues above TV standards shouldn’t come as a surprise, and for this series in particular, they’ve built up perhaps the most impressive acting library in anime altogether—a result of Takeda’s charming writing and nearly a decade of inspired, character-specific animation. Few shows have a comparable ability to say so much with mere gestures and gazes, which is a key step in untangling the mess of Final Movement.

While this thins it out internally, that transformative series compositionSeries Composition (シリーズ構成, Series Kousei): A key role given to the main writer of the series. They meet with the director (who technically still outranks them) and sometimes producers during preproduction to draft the concept of the series, come up with major events and decide to how pace it all. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves. reshapes it to fix the issues of the original and make it comfortably fit within these 13 episodes. Takeda’s love for KyoAni’s work is so strong that she has continuously backported their choices into the novels themselves, to a point where it’s easy to forget that the studio has never approached them in a straightforward way. From the abundance of original content in the first season to Yamada’s ethereal reimaging of Liz and the Blue Bird, Eupho hasn’t been an anime to shy away from changes. And, in this regard, this third season has undergone the most involved process of rewriting to this day.

Despite covering more or less the same events as the novel counterpart, Eupho S3 changes the timing, situation, and framing of right about everything. Though its true value will hinge on whether everything wraps up in a satisfying manner, the series compositionSeries Composition (シリーズ構成, Series Kousei): A key role given to the main writer of the series. They meet with the director (who technically still outranks them) and sometimes producers during preproduction to draft the concept of the series, come up with major events and decide to how pace it all. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves. work led by one Jukki Hanada is one of the most impressive efforts I’ve seen in TV anime; even if the team made those choices so long ago that he has admitted to having forgotten a bunch of discarded ideas already, surprising himself when he stumbles upon his old notes.

On the whole, Eupho S3 is a beautiful streamlining of this story, with smart schemes that will only become obvious to new viewers in retrospect. The more episodic format of a TV anime compared to novels with few yet long chapters served as an excuse to intensify the thematic focus every week, making it flow much more smoothly than the sometimes-meandering source material. With countless micro adjustments and sneaky shifts of a macro level, this third season has aced its first assignment: gradually building up unrest, a dread that you know is coming and yet it finally hits you like you were ambushed by surprise. To see what does that exactly mean, let’s finally go through the first 8 episodes of Eupho S3.

Ogawa intended to start the show with something special enough to be worthy of Eupho’s return to television after 7 years, and to do so, he relied on what the series and studio are now. The introduction elegantly nudges in the direction of the show’s themes—Kumiko’s once plain cactus now has 3 bulbs, one for each year thus signaling the end of her school life—while also being a very smartly put-together sequence; its tricks to imply continuity are neat within the moment, and contribute to a greater scheme that will not be confirmed until the end of the show but that is already clear if you really pay attention the details.

If there’s one thing that immediately stands out, though, it’s the musicality of the montage—a quality to the direction that goes much further than vaguely setting it to the music. The way the scene screams spring embodies that Ogawa style we spoke of earlier, but its playfulness and the way it’s attuned to Kumiko’s walk and the people she meets make it the perfect comeback for a series that is all about music. And through this execution where visuals and sound go hand in hand, it’s also a flex of the muscles the studio has been training in recent times. In our coverage of KyoAni’s works of late, we’ve been consistently bringing up a couple of points: that the studio is increasingly more involved in producing the sound and editing the works themselves—tasks no regular anime studio handles—and that their production schedules have widened to a ridiculous degree, which also makes it easier to fine-tune aspects like these. And so, both for Eupho and for the studio, this beautiful intro feels like a statement.

In a similarly emphatic way, though by design one with more mystique, the first episode gradually introduces the most important new addition to this third season: Mayu Kuroe, a third-year transfer student who also happens to play the euph. In one of those countless adjustments we alluded to earlier, the anime delays her appearance to build up her vaguely threatening persona. Before she even meets her, Kumiko has already heard the sound of her instrument, which vaguely reminds her of her beloved senior Asuka. They’d yet to exchange words properly by the time Kumiko picked up on the color of her instrument; silver indeed, like Asuka’s had been. Mayu appears to be an ordinary girl, if anything a pleasant one, her mere presence feels indescribably ominous in a way that this brilliant introduction paves the way for.

Ishihara picks up the baton as the director of the second episode, which puts all the ideas that float around the premiere in more concrete terms. For one, it begins testing Kumiko’s indecisiveness with a need to face the future and begin making choices; in the long term, the career ones she’s been putting off, and in the short term, choosing the right piece for the club to play in the next competition. Though the former won’t be easily solved, Kumiko at least manages to make the correct choice for the latter—which is to say, she picked the same song as Reina and Shuichi, meaning their visions for the club are more or less aligned.

That is celebrated with a gorgeous, again very rhythmic sequence that kicks off with cel-animated lighting to signal Kumiko’s correct choice. Incidentally, that scene is also one of the many examples of the show and the studio’s critically important relationship with their location, as well as the former’s time capsule aspect; those chimneys you see haven’t existed for years, but since this season is meant to be Kumiko’s third year and she started high school in 2015, the team aims to portray the city of Uji exactly as it was in 2017.

For as cheerful as that scene is, it’s not enough to fool any viewer into believing that the club will sail smoothly. Rather than ending on that feel-good moment, the episode makes a point to do so with Reina’s declaration to the club that they’ll ambitiously aim for the top—something that earns applause, but that is framed in a considerably ominous way. The more that Kitauji’s Concert band has succeeded, the more it has grown, the more it has opened up to different goals and understandings of the club clashing. A club with nearly 100 members who have joined it in different circumstances inevitably gathers radically different perspectives. Though everyone likes the idea of success, it’ll quickly become obvious that not all of them will enjoy the harsh environment of a club fighting for a spot among the country’s best.

Of all people, it’s that mild-mannered Mayu who first pokes the hypocrisy of Kumiko’s club. Our protagonist is, despite her harsh remark, a very nice person who genuinely wants to enjoy herself playing with friends. And yet, the environment to do so is an often ruthless meritocracy, which to this point she has been more or less content with because that group of friends has largely succeeded; save for Hazuki, whose time has finally come this season. The last thing Mayu wants is to rock that boat, but her remarks point out its precarious equilibrium; is it really fine for her, a third-year euph player, to actively participate in the club’s auditions? Kumiko instinctively understands that danger and it adds to Mayu making her feel on edge, but she doesn’t really want to face the situation head-on. In contrast to that, notoriously sharp gremlin Kanade immediately goes on the attack and puts up a wall between them. Her behavior from this episode onward might very well be the rightfully pettiest animation humanity has ever witnessed, which is a very important achievement for the arts.

Episode #03 immediately picks up on the dangers that the last scene in the previous one had vaguely alluded to. Which is to say, a sizable group of first-year students are already burned out by Reina’s spartan training. Had Eupho been a lesser series without as strong of a grasp on group dynamics, this would have been an overt revolt by all the newcomers. Instead, we get a more interesting and coherent scenario, where those factions are divided. It’s natural that some newcomers are put off by the club’s harsh ways, but Kitauji has spent the last couple of years making a name for themselves by achieving impressive—if disappointing for the likes of Reina—results in grand stages. They have become a destination for ambitious people as well, and that mismatch is the actual crux of the situation. Kumiko does indeed recognize patterns of previous crises at the club, but she can’t simply retrace steps to apply the same solutions because the current issues are inherent to the state of the band right now.

Amid that awkward situation we find Sally, a sweetheart of a clarinet player who is torn by guilt after convincing fellow newcomers to stick to Kitauji’s harsh grind. While she’s very talented and experienced herself, Sally is watching the beginners she convinced not to immediately quit grow more and more distressed over this situation; she promised them joy playing music and achieving results, but for now, their tears are all she can see. Even Reina herself has picked up on this situation and is self-conscious about it, but within Kitauji’s current philosophy of moving as one and aiming for the top, she is doing the right thing. Kumiko is aware of all this and can’t offer an easy solution, but her comforting words hit Sally at the right time to appear like the most dazzling, reliable leader on Earth in her eyes.

In the end, Kumiko’s words aren’t completely empty. Sally did delay a tragedy for long enough to have Reina’s harsh training bear results, leading to those frustrated beginners feeling accomplished now. That climactic scene is, however, a clearly subjective portrayal that contrasts with the club dynamics framed in a very objective manner; this time around, the storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. is full of overhead shots that give a matter-of-the-fact look at the state of the club. Between that modulation of the subjectivity, of the tone within the animation itself, the very readable compositions, and particularly on-point acting, we’ve got an episode that is in no way lesser to the 1-2 punch of the series directors at the start of the show. The person in charge of it was Mei Isai, and this was her first storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. ever. Her arrival is worth a bit of an interlude, not just because that was quite the achievement, but also because it sort of was her departure as well. Let’s talk about this show’s production schedule, shall we.

When assessing KyoAni’s output in recent times, schedules have been an inescapable topic. Fortunately, this is not because they’ve adopted the ruthless grind that is the norm in the anime industry, but rather because they’ve gone to the polar opposite end in amusing yet meaningful ways. Our coverage of the previous iteration of Eupho, the theatrical OVA Ensemble Contest that was released in August 2023, already delved at length into how their relationship with production schedules has changed. We’re talking about a studio that always kept a low output given their size and capacity, and that ever since the arson tragically struck them, have decided to play it safe rather than sorry. The truth is that KyoAni never had a secret formula nor exceptionally lengthy production cycles; they tended to complete most but not the entirety of their shows before the broadcast, taking around 3 months to produce each episode in alternating rotations of staff. Their approach wasn’t fundamentally different, but they did achieve fundamentally different results by being able to stick to their initial plans thanks to a highly trained, focused workforce. If anything, they simply operated closer to classic productions.

That spirit hasn’t changed nowadays, but they have grown understandably cautious. Their position of success and good relationships with the companies they work with have allowed them to place very generous deadlines on all their projects, just in case extra time is needed. And yet, by also lowering that output rather severely, they’ve put themselves in a situation where they most likely won’t need that additional time. As a consequence, the studio has been consistently finishing all their works somewhere around 6 months to a full year before they really ought to—and, most amusingly, they’ve been hiding that from viewers by talking about their current works as if they’re being made right now. After months of well-documented misdirections, it’s only recently that people at the studio have openly started talking about the production of the show itself as something that has wrapped up; a funny contrast to all VAs who have been happily talking about having dubbed the full series with finished footage, and of subtler staff members using the studio’s blog to allude to future productions that are already well underway.

So, why is this relevant? As previously mentioned, those loftier schedules do let them tweak around details that go further than animation production usually does, like the relationship between visuals and sound. And, when it comes to the team behind it, it means that we see a KyoAni of the near past rather than the present. Young animators appear publicly through illustrations for magazines—drawn in a much more current manner—as key animators before their names ever pop up in the credits as in-betweeners, because they were still trainees back when the show was made. Multiple young directors had been promoted by the time the broadcast started, and yet the show will only show part of that, because its production is more 2022 than it is 2024.

Isai was known to have left before April 2023; likely closer to the end of the previous year, because she stopped being credited as an employee and tasks that were headed her way had to be rerouted to other staff members. Despite having been long gone, she still had time not just to finish this third episode, but also to storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. episode #08 as well. Given that Noriyuki Kitanohara wrote about the final stages of a storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. that in retrospect could only be Eupho S3 #06 back in October 2022, the timeline does track for Isai departing at the end of that year. As a side note, following his next posts it’s easy to tell that Kitanohara is now multiple episodes into their next project. Accounting for the staff rotations, that would mean that an unannounced anime has about half of its episodes already animated. Since Eisaku Kawanami has been suspiciously missing over the studio’s last two shows while remaining at the company, perhaps he’ll be the one to lead that. But I digress, let’s return to Eupho S3.

Speaking of KyoAni’s recent TV shows, episode #04 was directed and storyboarded by Takuya Yamamura of Tsurune fame. Sulky contrabassist Motomu’s family issues are directly reminiscent of scenarios in its second season, not just in their nature but in how Yamamura depicts them. We’re not granted much time with his late sister, but the storyboards are enough to succinctly tell a story about someone who fell in love with music as a vehicle to connect with her precious family, then lost that treasure due to external presences embodied by the increasingly larger number of chairs surrounding her. As a director who has explored the idea of love for lost family members leaving not just an emotional imprint but a physical one in our lives, this episode basically served its imagery in a silver platter for Yamamura.

All things considered, this might be the most satisfying episode of Eupho S3 thus far, and that’s no coincidence. Yamamura’s effective direction plays a factor in that, of course, but it has a lot to do with how the season as a whole has been designed. Though Kumiko’s advice to Motomu is framed similarly to her dazzling moment with Sally, this time around it doesn’t serve as the climax—that honor goes to his peaceful playing with Sapphire, who embodies the positive outlook of music that his sister once had. There is no Eupho without playing instruments and this season is no exception, but within a story that is designed to gradually build up uncomfortable feelings, there is a clear intent to deprive the audience of the music performances that have always been tied to positive, cathartic resolutions.

Mind you, that choice is not entirely the anime’s doing. Later episodes feel like they may have skipped a couple of performances for the sake of production economy or to save time, but in truth, those were unceremoniously ignored in the source material as well; neither Takeda nor the anime staff will give the viewers the satisfaction of an ensemble performance when the group clearly isn’t on the same page, when its leader is growing more uncomfortable by the day. If there’s one major change in that regard, it’s actually in this episode. Motomu’s incident was originally resolved one whole novel later, but the anime smartly decided to keep things thematically tighter—and in the process, offer a bit of a treat through two players who momentarily have that harmony that is the goal of the show.

Without giving the audience much time to wallow in that pleasant atmosphere, the next episode thrusts Kumiko back into the increasingly awkward situation at the club. Episode #05 marks the comeback of Taichi Ishidate to the role of episode director after nearly 6 years; partly because he was busy as the leader of Violet Evergarden, and partly because he enjoys animation the most and will gladly grab any chance to focus on that. Not that he ever abandons the role even as a director—the stunning, notoriously dense highlight of the episode was likely his own uncredited work as an animator, a custom he inherited from his master Yoshiji Kigami.

Though the sheer impact of his artwork stands out, his pointed imagery isn’t any lesser. The theme of the episode is inclusion and exclusion, while also continuing the overarching thread of choices for the future; the time has come, after all. By this point in the show, it’s already obvious that Mayu yearns for the personal connections that people like Kumiko have, while also having internalized herself as a permanent outsider who could never have them. She idolizes them, hence the camera to capture such moments for others, but refuses to be the subject of those photos.

As a kid who also moved to a new environment, and happens to play the same instrument, she feels immediately attracted to Kumiko. Unfortunately, her arrival feels inherently invasive to Kumiko; even if she doesn’t really want to think about the implications of a talented third-year student in her position joining the club, that alone is enough to make alarms ring inside the protagonist’s head. In her clumsy attempts to grow closer to Kumiko, Mayu ends up physically intruding into her space, which only furthers a feeling of rejection that Kumiko isn’t proud of but that she can’t stop. When talking about the efficient methods of storytelling that KyoAni has accumulated over 9 years of producing Eupho, you don’t just have to account for character-specific mannerisms, but for the meaning that the locations themselves have gained. To Mayu, Kumiko was just practicing in a random spot. But to her, and to the audience as well, that’s a place of important memories that a scary outsider is barging into.

The next episode, directed and storyboarded by the aforementioned Kitanohara, doubles down on this idea. Mayu intrudes on Kumiko’s practice spot yet again, animated in a barrier-crossing way that makes the most mundane action make you physically recoil; and that it achieves within the show too, because if you pay attention, you’ll notice that Kumiko actually pulls away when she approaches. This time, it’s not just her treasured space that she’s intruding, but specific memories of her most beloved senior. Walking in while Kumiko is playing a song linked to Asuka turns out to be dreadful timing from Mayu, who notices she’s being rejected rather bluntly—despite neither of them actually speaking their mind—and flees with some more trauma in her luggage.

It’s not all doom and gloom in episode #06, however; its ups and downs are far crueler than that. Kumiko keeps receiving advice on how to face the future, framed in a similar fashion as before, but with a bit of a brighter outlook. There’s unadulterated joy in some of the results for the first of many auditions this year… and yet those are inextricably linked to the bitterness of those who lost, much as they try to hide it. Even in the cutest moment of respite in the whole episode, a threatening aura hangs over Reina’s words—what if Kumiko isn’t able to play with her? The flavor of this season changes so gradually that you can’t pinpoint the moment its sweet mundanity becomes predominantly bitter, but at this stage, it’s certainly closer to that latter end.

Some much-needed clarity starts arriving by the next episode, directed and storyboarded by Yamamura yet again. In this regard, it’s worth noting that the mystique around Mayu was seen as a crucial aspect. One of Ogawa’s main goals in co-directing this series was to humanize Mayu, a deliberately foreign entity who remains relatively cryptic in the novels; those are much more strongly rooted in Kumiko’s worldview through her narration, so while they do allow you to puzzle together her character, you see her through the eyes of someone who never quite got this newcomer. In the less Kumiko-centric view offered by the anime, Mayu’s conflicted thoughts come through more clearly—and yet, they couldn’t be too hasty about that, as figuring her out is one of the appeals of this season. As her voice actress Haruka Tomatsu revealed to Febri, she was the one person among the cast who was given the full scripts of the series off the bat, while other VAs were a bit in the dark about Mayu’s nature.

In the following entry of those Febri interviews, Tomato shared a fascinating tidbit about what it’s like to dub a character like her. After praising KyoAni yet again for subverting the norms and allowing them to voice over fully finished footage, she noted that the studio’s intricately detailed animation made it so that there wasn’t a whole lot that she had to add on her part. Instead, she found herself figuring out how much to subtract when necessary so that things weren’t spelled out too clearly before their due time. Though she noted that they do leave moments for the voice acting to lead the charge—Mayu rather harshly asking who would be happy to see her succeed in episode #05 being a good example—this point of view is important in understanding how a character like Mayu is put together.

After all that secrecy, Kumiko’s prodding makes Mayu open up more than before. Moving constantly at a young age didn’t simply prevent her from building lasting relationships, it also stunted her sense of self at the period in your life where you develop it the most. This has created a feedback loop: a situation that doesn’t allow her to make lasting friends as normal has made her feel hollow, incapable of choice, to the point of convincing herself she couldn’t build those relationships in the first place. In those circumstances, she found someone who had a somewhat similar feeling to her… and that person has strongly rejected her approaches as of late. She may be willing to talk to Kumiko about some of these issues, but she has already built a taller wall around her by now, and simply can’t conceive that she’d be approached about anything but band-related purposes.

The feelings aren’t any less murky from Kumiko’s side. She sees the parallels between them just as clearly if not more, as someone who’s also struggling over her inability to choose. However, it’s only just now that it has clicked for her that she sees her younger self in Mayu—a persona she has come to dislike, which explains her instinctive reactions, and that is elegantly delivered by Yamamura through a match cut that swaps her position. She genuinely feels bad about not only having failed to help a companion, but clearly contributed to her pain. And yet, with Mayu refusing to see their relationship as anything but band-related right now, Kumiko’s encouragement only further fuels a rival for the euph soli position.

And so, the inevitable happens. The audience knows. Kumiko’s friends know, as their warnings across episode #08 grow more and more direct; she might lose the audition, and so she does. Being a sweet girl at heart, Mayu hesitates one final time about giving her all in this audition. She has seen Kumiko’s fingers instinctively play alongside Reina, and knows how much it means for both of them to play together. As someone who has spent years acting as her surroundings expect her to, since she feels like she lacks an inner drive, Mayu is one of the most perceptive characters in the whole show. That allows her to grasp the hypocrisy within Kumiko—the president of a club whose meritocratic system she has embraced for years, but at the same time, an individual with a strong desire to play alongside her partner regardless of which euph has the technical edge.

Unfortunately, Mayu’s attempt to confront her about this doesn’t lead to a happy resolution. Though she does have a point, Kumiko is just as justified in lashing out about Mayu’s constant proposals to drop out; after all, the implication of her arguments is that it’s a given that Kumiko would lose against her in an audition. With that tension still reverberating, the episode reaches its climax with perhaps the most sadistic knife-twisting in Eupho history. Kumiko’s instincts kick in and she immediately nods upon the announcement of the euph player entrusted with the soli. A second later, it hits her—that wasn’t her name. Whispers immediately spread out. The camera is reminiscent of the depiction of Reina winning her audition over people with much more experience in the club, back in the first season. Rather than a grand surprise, though, this is a much more controlled dread. A foreshadowed outcome with objectively low stakes should never hit you the way this scene does, but Eupho wields unimaginable power.

The way the episode reaches that beautifully twisted ending is worth just as much attention. Though it’s a constant across the show, this is one of the episodes that makes the best use of that accumulation of character-specific gestures. In a way, that specificity ends up becoming more important than any specific, utilitarian intent that those gestures may have from a storytelling standpoint. When Kanade attempts to warn Kumiko of the danger of being stung by Mayu back in episode #03, she pokes her as if to exemplify that. 5 episodes later, Kumiko is already used to that quirk, so she blocks it and causes her to pout about it off-screen; not the first time she has frustrated one of her pals by expecting such an attack. It’s not that the gestures themselves means nothing, as the metaphor here is very direct, but it’s that behavior that has become recognizable for characters and audiences alike that is so effective. Back when talking about Ensemble Contest, Ishihara explained that some of her funniest gestures weren’t really part of the writing process—some weren’t even in his own storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue.. And yet, the sudden and inexplicable realization that Kanapii would walk funny here was enough to record himself goofing around and send that to the animator in charge.

Eupho’s characters aren’t well-written because they have a consistent set of mannerisms across nearly a decade of anime; they have naturally built up those gestures of their own because they are well-written, and because the anime is created by a team that envisions these aspects as a fundamental part of that writing process. Mayu fiddling with her hair when anxious, in a distinct way than Sally does, is a direct way to signal her feelings. What about her tendency to sidestep when fleeing, which you can see in this episode as well as when she left Kumiko’s spot as it was clear she wasn’t welcome? They may hold a similar meaning, but even if they don’t, this character-specific consistency adds a lot to the experience.

In this context of Eupho’s accumulation of imagery, the staffing choices for episode #08 are quite interesting. As previously mentioned, its storyboarder was Isai, while the episode director was even more of a newbie: Ryo Miyagi, acting in this role for the first time in his career. Given that this is the episode leaning the most on motifs from previous seasons, relying on young staff may look like a questionable choice, but it does make sense given the desire to subvert that imagery. Kumiko finds herself in a situation that is technically similar to people who have struggled in the past, hence the returning motifs, but the different ways to deploy them end up furthering the conclusion that her current issues are inherently tied to the now of the club. The most extensive mirroring flips her memories with Asuka to match her current issues with Mayu—and thus, turning an inspirational moment for her into a more bitter strengthening of the newcomer’s resolve.

But, besides bringing a fresh take on these old motifs, do these young directors offer anything of their own? Seeing as this was his debut, what about Miyagi in particular? Though it’s too early to get a proper grasp on his style, especially since he’s not storyboarding his episodes yet, Miyagi’s animation-centric mentality appears to have been a factor in how densely acted the entire training camp was. Mind you, I wouldn’t pigeonhole him since he already showed a wide understanding of animation; he’s known for mixing elements that are unusual in commercial art like crayons into his illustrations, and sometimes trying to carry that stylization over into anime cuts. That said, he has gravitated toward the likes of Ishidate during his stay at the studio, so expressing feelings through motion should be one of his preferred tactics.

Back in 2020, his first post in the staff blog explained an anecdote with Ishidate during the production of the Violet Evergarden movie. Miyagi had called dibs on a scene he wanted to draw, and after much effort, research, and advice from seniors, he delivered something he was fairly proud of. Ishidate acknowledged its quality, but immediately pointed out an alternate idea—if Miyagi was willing to draw something even more challenging, that is. By fluctuating the wind to match the emotional shifts of the scene, the characters’ feelings would resonate even stronger; an idea Ishidate didn’t originally have, but that popped into his mind when looking at Miyagi’s animation.

The young animator immediately grasped what he was going for, and enthusiastically redrew it to include those new ideas. He came to treasure that moment as an example of animation being a necessarily communal effort, though he doubted that he’d be able to have ideas like that himself. A few years later, Miyagi finished his training in Eupho S3 #05, acting precisely as Ishidate’s assistant. His proper debut came in episode #08, one week before his mentor returns to lead another episode of the show. By the looks of it, he’s ready to stand on the same ground now.

What’s next for Eupho S3 then, not just in this upcoming Ishidate episode, but further down the line? I don’t intend to spoil anyone, nor do I think that anyone outside the studio could do a good job at that; given the transformative approach they have taken to the adaptation, I’m genuinely not sure how the final episodes will play out. What I can say, however, is that the anime has done an admirable job of hinting at the general thematic direction. In this same way this current conflict was perfectly foreshadowed, questions about the remaining events have been ringing for weeks.

It’s no secret that the way the club operates has changed rather dramatically, even under the same pretense of meritocracy; the choice of a crowd-pleaser like Mayu certainly feels off from a conductor like Taki who never quite liked playing alongside the expectations of judges and audiences. Knowing that younger students are already somewhat wary about him, and seeing how this has hit the beloved president, it’s already obvious that this won’t be a smooth ride. And what about his most fervent supporter? Reina’s inability to be sincere with Kumiko has been played as a cute joke ever since Ensemble Contest, hence her inability to directly invite her to the same group and university, but what happens with that when they clash over a more serious issue? Guess we’ll have to tune in and find out.

And if that’s not enough Eupho for you, well, that’s understandable. Kumiko’s Final Movement is definitely wrapping up with this season, but I don’t believe for a single second that the studio will be dropping their favorite child with a story set in their beloved backyard—especially not a year away from its 10th anniversary. Given that all the preceding seasons have received enhanced theatrical recaps, perhaps that will be what connects to an all-new story. One about a different Eupho senior perhaps, that can make us feel anxious in new and exciting ways.

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