With only 10 days remaining before the first round of nationals, will Kumiko be able to perfect the part she has trouble with?
From the looks of it, it seems that Kumiko is inspired to become special after promising Reina that she wants to be by her side. The thing is, it seems that she has a problem with that one part since her performance is not good enough for the competition. I know that feeling can be really frustrating since one worked so hard yet he/she still has a hard time perfecting that part. Since everyone in the band wants to reach nationals, one noticeable mistake can cost them the nationals.
On the other hand, It seems that Taki not having her play the part in one of the practice sessions made her upset. While it’s a misunderstanding when she came back to school to retrieve her phone and talked to him, this made her upset like Reina did when they didn’t made it to nationals in middle school. To Kumiko, not being allowed to play the part is like being forced to give up. Of course, she didn’t want that which is why she wanted to improve no matter what.
In the end, it worked out in the end as Kumiko grows to love the euphonium after years of not wanting to play it and being forced to play it because nobody else wanted to. It’s a stark contrast to her older sister and Aoi who given up on concert band since they have no reason to continue. While Reina encouragement played a big role in convincing Kumiko to work harder and improve on the part she has trouble with, Taki’s backstory is pretty interesting. It seems that he was in a similar situation and didn’t want to become a band instructor, which he ended up doing In the end because he enjoyed it. In short, Kumiko finally realized that she enjoys playing the euphonium because she now has a goal to become better.
As a whole, I wonder how the last episode will end. Surely, they might leave it as a cliffhanger if they manage to pass. Even so, it’s quite noticeable that Suuichi is being marginalized for the fact that nobody (including myself) cares about him. Sure, he yelled that he wanted to improve after hearing Kumiko, but it seems that they are distant. Given that he is not popular to begin with, I won’t be surprised if Kyoto Animation changed the story from the original to steer it in the more popular opinion as evident with the last episode. Perhaps they find Reina more interesting than Suuichi. Heck, she called Kumiko about 6 times during the time while Kumiko accidentally left her phone behind. As expected, Reina is the first person Kumiko calls after retrieving the phone. Either way, I can’t wait to see how the show concludes next time.
The fact Shuiichi’s one and only subplot was essentially covered following Kumiko shows how pointless of a character he is. It literally feels like he’s in the show “because he was in the novel”. Whatever.
Anyway unlike many who are panicking I am still waiting to see how the writers will leave fans (hopefully) hopeful. Never know what can happen in one final episode.
Hopefully it will end well that everyone is happy.
Still, I do have a feeling that Natsuki might have a thing for Yuko with all that teasing. :p
Currently that ship feels too last minute for me to board it. Maybe they’ll do something in the season finale or OVA to justify the ship.
Not really a lot of Kumiko x Reina moments compared to the previous episode, except for the phone calls. Will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere in the last following episode… or not.
Not getting my hopes up, but you never know given that Kyoto Animation has changed a good amount of material from the actual novel.