#hibike rw

[animebw]

And yet.

And yet, despite the agony.

Despite all they've lost.

Despite the knowledge that this is something they will never get back.

Despite this chapter of their lives closing forever.

Despite it all...

They still choose each other.

They will always choose each other.

If this is not love, then love itself does not exist.

[animebw]

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be the kind of person who sees Kumiko giving Reina this look and insists there must be a heterosexual explanation for it.

[animebw]

guys

did Natsuki and Yuuko start dating in college

guys

GUYS

[animebw]

I AM NEVER GOING TO SHUT UP ABOUT THIS

NEVER

THEY ARE CANON

THEY ARE ETERNAL

THEY WILL ALWAYS BE SPECIAL

[animebw]

But in an episode that destroyed me ten million ways, here's the cruelest thing they could have possibly done:

The iconic finger trace. Arguably the single most magical Kumirei moment of all. The first moment that cemented their relationship as something unlike anything we'd ever seen or would ever see again. Reina sinking her claws into Kumiko, pulling her into her world, sweeping her away with the determination to rise to Reina's level. A singular, spectacular expression of love.

And here, nine real world years later, it turns on its head. This time Kumiko's the one leaving her mark on Reina's lips. This time Kumiko's the one standing above her, guiding her from the front while she risks falling behind.

But instead of an invitation... it's a goodbye.

In 2015, Reina's finger lifted Kumiko out of her apathy and drew her into the world of music. In 2024, Kumiko's finger bids Reina farewell as she makes her departure from it. It's an acknowledgement that this wonderful world Reina brought her into is no longer the world she chooses to remain in. It's a thank-you for all the incredible things Reina's shown her along the way. It's closing the door that was opened to her all those years ago, a bookend to the most magical, meaningful time of her life and the people she shared it with.

Reina told Kumiko she wanted to be special all those years ago. She invited Kumiko to share that journey with her. And she did. For as long as she was able, Kumiko followed the same trail, first running behind, then marching side by side, and now, as last, she's gone so far ahead that she's the one beckoning Reina along. But in doing so, she's finally accepted that this is where her journey on this trail ends. She's outpaced the girl she loves at last, and all she can do is keep walking on this entirely new path, even as it takes her far, far away from where she started.

And what better way to convey all those tangled, messy, heartbreaking feelings than giving Reina the same intimate, undaunted touch that Reina once gave her?

[animebw]

...SO APPARENTLY THE HIBIKE NOVELS HAVE AN EXPLICIT GAY LOVE CONFESSION FROM KAORI TO ASUKA?!?!?!?

HAS THIS SERIES BEEN ACTUAL YURI ALL ALONG?!

BRO?!?!?!?!

[animebw]

Asuka I missed you so fucking much sdkjfhsdfkjhskdjfhsdkjf

[animebw]

This may be the most catastrophically down bad we've ever seen Reina, jesus christ.

[animebw]

It is 3 AM, I have work in the morning, and my brain is keeping me awake agonizing over how Reina's crush on Taki-sensei has been set up for the most brutal reality check imaginable in Hibike season 3 and how much it's going to hurt when it finally arrives.

Like, here's the thing about Reina: when she loves someone, she has absolute, unconditional faith in them. All throughout this season, she's said over and over that she thinks Kumiko's playing is second to none. And all throughout the series, she's been willing to shank anyone who so much as questions Taki-sensei's dental hygiene. When Reina Kousaka loves someone, that person can basically do no wrong in her eyes. In a way, it's an extension of her own sense of ego: "I believe I am special, so anyone I love must also be special." And she will suck you into her vortex and make you believe it right alongside her because her conviction is just that strong.

But now we've been set on a collision course. With all the foreshadowing around Mayu, it's basically inevitable that she's going to steal at least one of the soli auditions out from under Kumiko's nose. And because of Taki-sensei choosing an inexperienced freshman over a more consistent junior in episode 6, we've already been set up to wonder if his judgement is actually as infallible as we've so often assumed. Which means it's all but guaranteed that at some point- probably in the very next audition, I predict- Taki-sensei is not going to choose Kumiko to play the eupho part in the soli. And suddenly, Reina will be forced to confront a situation where one of these two people she loves is wrong. Either Kumiko isn't actually good enough a player to stand alongside her, or Taki-sensei made the wrong call.

And she's going to have to decide where her faith truly lies: with faraway dream she's been futilely chasing for years... or the girl who actually had the courage to answer her confession of love.

[animebw]

Kumirei and Conflict Avoidance

So, after that earth-shattering Eupho episode last weekend, I am, unsurprisingly, hyperfixating on Kumirei once again. I keep rolling this conflict over in my head, how we got to this point, how inevitable it was in hindsight, how it reveals new sides of Kumiko and Reina's relationship I hadn't really considered before. And you know me: when I have thoughts, I have to talk about them. SPOILERS BELOW FOR ALL OF HIBIKE EUPHONIUM UP TO THIS POINT.

The thing is, Kumiko and Reina are incredibly different people. But one way in which their differences make them very much the same is that they both suck at handling messy interpersonal conflict. When faced with a problem that has no clear answer and every solution will end with someone getting hurt, they both balk at the prospect of actually facing that conflict head-on and dealing with that ambiguity. The difference is that Kumiko tries to shy away from dealing with the situation at all and hopes everyone will somehow find a way to get along, whereas Reina doubles down on her perspective and refuses to hear any counter-arguments. Kumiko reacts to uncomfortable issues by saying "Well, maybe everyone's right, I guess?", while Reina reacts by saying "No, I'm the only one who's right, and if you're against me you're doing it wrong."

And in a lot of ways, that makes them perfect for each other! Reina's stubborn passion is what pushed Kumiko out of her comfort zone and gave her the spark to actually care about what she's doing. And on the flipside, Kumiko's willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt gives Reina someone she can rely on when her pride is pushing everyone else away. At their best, they balance each other out perfectly, Reina inspiring Kumiko to try her hardest and Kumiko giving Reina a safe place to let herself be vulnerable. It's what's made them such an incredible couple for over a decade now.

But when things go really south, those instincts can end up bringing out the worst in each other instead. Reina's stubbornness can be so overwhelming that Kumiko can't bring herself to actually confront her for fear of how angry she'll be. And that reluctance ends up enabling Reina further, pushing her toward greater arrogance secure in the knowledge that at least one person will always be on her side. Reina makes Kumiko shrink even further, Kumiko lets Reina's ego swell even bigger, and suddenly the same odd-couple magic that pushed them to such great heights becomes a vicious circle dragging them both down.

Because at heart, neither of these girls have yet figured out how to navigate a situation that demands asking uncomfortable questions and making imperfect choices. Neither of them are brave enough to handle a messy conflict with the level of maturity it demands. Keep in mind that as many ups and downs as they've had, Kumiko and Reina have never truly gotten in a massive argument with each other, an argument that would demand them making those hard choices. The closest we got was the infamous episode in season 2 where Reina's crush on Taki-sensei boils over and threatens to drive a rift between them- and there again, Kumiko deflects the conflict, telling Reina she's "rooting for her" rather than face the issue head-on and deal with the fact that the girl she loves is stuck on her feelings for an adult who will never return them. Which, as I've discussed before, is framed just about as tragically and depressingly as cinematic language can accomplish.

But now that Kumiko's band leader? She can't keep running from arguments anymore. She has to dive headfirst into the thick of all her bandmates' issues and actively choose how to best keep them together, even if that means making hard calls she isn't comfortable making. And Reina's in a position of power now where her hard-headedness doesn't just affect her, but trickles down to all the underclassmen she's trying to lead. Neither of them can afford to let their worst habits drive their decision-making anymore- because it won't just be them that suffer if they refuse to rise to the occasion.

Which brings us to the boiling point of Kuroe taking Kumiko's place in the audition. In the aftermath of this upset, we see both Kumiko and Reina's coping mechanisms pushed to their limits. Kumiko's trying to calm everyone's worries while her own heard is still a whirlwind, Reina's doubling down and refusing to even consider Taki-sensei made a wrong call, and it reaches a point where this state of affairs just isn't sustainable anymore. There's too much tension built up, there's too many people's dreams and hopes on the line. Something has to give, or everything's going to give.

And it's here, at last, that Kumiko finally does something she's never had the courage to do.

She stands up to Reina and tells her, point-blank: "No, Reina, YOU'RE wrong."

No wonder it feels so monumental. No wonder Reina's shaken enough to rip apart their relationship. After years of not being able to address the deepest, stickiest issues that lie between them, Kumiko shatters the cycle of enabling they've been falling into and tells Reina that she is wrong. She is wrong to put herself above everyone else and not listen to alternatives. She is wrong to blindly put faith in Taki-sensei at the expense of all her bandmates counting on her to have their best interests at heart. She is wrong to let her pride and stubbornness guide her. It's bad for the band, it's bad for her, and it's bad for her relationship with Kumiko. And if they're going to have any chance of moving forward, then she needs to be just as brave in facing this mess honestly as Kumiko is. She needs the courage to accept that she isn't always right, that her way or the highway is no way at all, that the uncompromising road she walks will one day separate her from everyone she once held close.

She needs to let go of her fear of emotional honesty and meet Kumiko on the level she's finally been able to reach.

And you know what sticks with me the most? After Reina lashes out at Kumiko and essentially tells her to get stuffed, we see the horror in Kumiko's eyes as she realizes the consequences of finally standing up to the girl she loves...

...only for her expression to settle back into the determination of a girl standing by what she said regardless.

After so many years, Kumiko is facing her closest companion's worst traits dead in the face. And in this moment, in this expression, she decides that doing the right thing is more important than clinging to their relationship through thick and thin.

It's a face that says, "If this is the choice you're making, then this is worth ending things over."

And I can't blame her one bit.

[animebw]

can I

can I just

can we

CAN WE JUST

CAN WE JUST

[animebw]

In retrospect, I really picked the perfect week to rewatch Liz and the Bluebird. Not just because of Mizore's cameo, or cute callbacks to stuff like the Love Hug, but because her return also brings us back to that movie's big question: what do you do when you and the person you love realize you're walking two separate paths in life?

Do you break off things before they can fade away naturally?

Do you accept it without a fight, or try to find a way to make it work?

Does the end of all things mean that love was never real?

Or is the fact that it's ending proof that it was real at all?

And can we ever truly say goodbye forever...

...when we are the ones who decide what forever means?

[animebw]

So, I've been getting almost all my hibike euphonium knowledge from osmosis from what you say. So I wanted to know how integral to the plot is that guy some people ship kumiko with (never learned his name), not only in this season, but in the previous ones too.

Because I don't think you mentioned him at all while talking about this season, other then kumiko being tired when people think they are dating, but I have seem some people say that they did end up together bc something something hair clip in the epilogue?

Also wanted to know if they dropped or dealt with the Reina crush on the teacher thing

You do seem to cherish this show a lot, so I do wanted to check it out myself, but these two things are the only things holding me back at this moment

So here's what actually happens: in the original novels, Kumiko and Shu get together at the end. Unambiguously. She confesses, he gives her the hairclip back, it's a whole big scene.

In the show, Shuichi has maybe twenty lines of dialogue across the entire final season, not a single of which has romantic implications or framing, he has a single line of dialogue in the entire final episode, and then we see Kumiko has the hairpin in the epilogue but it's not commented upon and Shuichi is never seen again.

Last week when episode 12 aired, the original author Ayano Takeda posted on Twitter that she was happy with the changes KyoAni made, and she encouraged fans to appreciate her novels and KyoAni's adaptation as equally valid interpretations of the same story. There was, however, a follow-up tweet where she further clarified that she had the final say on any changes the show made, and if Hanada or Ishihara or whoever proposed a change she wasn't fond of, it was ultimately her call whether to let it happen or not. So what this feels like to me? Is a compromise. A compromise between Takeda's original vision and KyoAni just very obviously not giving a single shit about Kumiko and Shuichi as a couple.

Now, KyoAni's been changing things in Eupho ever since the first season, and in fact, most of their shows diverge pretty heavily from the source material. And since I haven't read the original novels, I only have secondhand knowledge on what KyoAni added or took away. But what I have heard is that while all of Kumiko and Reina's subtext is still there in the novels, Shuichi has a far more visible role in Kumiko's life, with many more scenes dedicated to them as a romantic subplot. In fact, I've heard there were a few scenes in season one between Kumiko and Reina that were originally between Kumiko and Shuichi in the novels. I can't confirm if that's true or not, but frankly, it would not surprise me one bit.

Obviously, I don't know the reasoning behind the decisions KyoAni made. But looking at Hibike as a whole, it feels like they looked at this story with a pretty standard het relationship subplot and realized there was actually a far more compelling love story lurking just underneath the surface, one that Takeda herself didn't seem to realize was as special as it was. So when they turned it into an anime, they made the conscious choice to downplay Shuichi's role as much as possible and cash all their chips on centering her relationship with Reina as the real heart and soul of the story. And over the course of nine years, they supported that story as much as they could, finding every way possible to prioritize them in the narrative and frame them with the cinematic language they've deployed for so many straight couples in the past, while simultaneously refusing to give Kumiko even a single moment where she appears romantically interested in Shuichi.

And I want to stress that last point in particular: outside of that one scene in the Year 2 movie where Shuichi almost kisses her, every single interaction Kumiko's had with the idea of being in a relationship with Shuichi has been "Oh HELL no." She's constantly avoiding him in their first year, she can barely work up the effort to be civil to him while they're actually dating, and it's only after they break up that they're able to be on good terms with each other as friends. Even in this final season, there hasn't been a single moment where it's felt like either of them were considering getting back together. Shuichi's just been happy to support her, and Kumiko feels comfortable around him for the first time ever, and that's the extent of it. It's only the comments from the first years that suggest anything about a romantic subplot still ongoing between them, but none of that is reflected in any of their onscreen moments.

Like, even putting Kumirei aside, there is just no romantic tension between them anymore. Not even in a "Wow, where did that romantic moment come from? That was so forced out of nowhere!" sort of situation- the love story between them is completely nonexistent at this point. The only evidence in this entire fucking season that they start dating again is Kumiko having the hairpin in the epilogue (which, side note, hasn't been brought up all season either), which, frankly, is so open to interpretation that Bandai's shareholders are salivating in jealousy. Sure, maybe it does mean Shuichi asked her again and she accepted, but it could just as easily mean he gave it to her free of charge and accepted she didn't think of him that way. Or it could even mean he gave it to her and said something like "Once Reina finally gets turned down by Taki-sensei, make sure you give this to her, I think it'll be put to far better use that way." And frankly, that last interpretation is way more supported by the show I just watched than simply them getting back together.

The point is, KyoAni does not care about Kumiko and Shuichi getting together. It has never cared about Kumiko and Shuichi getting together. Honestly, my crack theory is the reason they sped through Kumiko's second year in a movie is to get through her Dating Shuichi arc as fast as humanly possibly. But Takeda clearly does care about them getting together, considering that's what happened in the novels. And I suspect that's one thing she decided not to budge on when they were in conversations discussing the changes KyoAni wanted to make. So to compromise, KyoAni put in the barest minimum effort to suggest things technically played out like they did in the novels- "Look, she's got his hairpin! That means they got back together!"- while refusing to spend a single solitary second on it beyond that and removing any explicit confirmation so everyone who doesn't care about them as a couple- KyoAni included- can interpret it otherwise and be fully justified in doing so.

Because from start to finish, through the entirety of this season, the love story that stood at the center of everything was Kumirei. Every last plot beat, every last thematic throughline, every last bit of swelling music and romantic framing and effort spent making you root for two people to stay together, it was always them and no one else. Even the big change they made in episode 12 where Kumiko loses the soli only further cements their story as the story of this show, with Reina's utter devastation at losing her only confirming just how special Kumiko was to her in a way not even Taki-sensei truly measures up to. I've said it in the past, but even moreso now than ever, it is impossible to look at the arc of Hibike Euphonium and not see a love story between these two girls, a story about just how fucking much they mean to each other and all the reasons their connection was something unlike anything else on this earth.

And if you choose to see it as a story of Kumiko and Shuichi getting together instead? Then you are actively fighting against what the show is communicating to you every second of every episode. You are, in fact, the delusional shipper inventing a romantic subplot where none exists. You are everything that yuri shippers are accused of being when they choose to actively engage with the text as it exists and not as you imagine it to be. Because as open-ended as the ending is, as straight as it pretends to be, it is far easier to imagine a future where Kumiko and Reina reunite as lovers than a future where she somehow falls for the guy she's never shown any interest in before. Frankly, if I was a Shuichi truther I'd feel pretty insulted by this ending! "What do you mean their entire subplot is cut out and it's only half-assedly implied in the epilogue that it totally happened offscreen? What is this bullshit?!"

This is why I chafe so strongly against the queerbaiting label. I watched three seasons of BBC Sherlock, I know full well what queerbaiting looks like. But a love story like this does not happen out of malice. It only happens because every single person involved, from animators to voice actors to directors and everyone in between, believes in it so strongly that they're willing to push as hard as they can to make it as real as physically possible within the limitations at their disposal. Kumirei is Hibike. Their story is Hibike. And if KyoAni can't convince Takeda to let them embrace it fully, well, they can at least wrestle her to a stalemate that allows that interpretation to still be possible- and, even, more plausible than the direction she initially took it down.

Adaptation is an art of making changes. It requires a text to stand on its own, fully apart from whatever source it sprang from. And KyoAni in particular has always embraced the philosophy of treating adaptation not as a one-to-one copy machine like so many of its contemporaries, but an opportunity to build something entirely new. All of its shows are, first and foremost, shows before they're translations of their source material, works of art designed to be taken as wholly complete experiences however much they resemble their inspirations or not. In Hibike! Euphonium the novel series, Kumiko and Shuichi are canon. In Hibike! Euphonium the TV show? It's flat out impossible to come to that same conclusion unless you're dead-set on believing what you want to believe, evidence be damned. And if you're so obsessed with this mid het ship that you choose to ignore the single greatest love story of all time to pretend it's more plausible, then you're simply an idiot who's opinions aren't worth engaging with.

[animebw]

Alright, here's my actual hot take: Kumirei is exactly as canon as Farcille from Dungeon Meshi. Never truly explicit in the text, always just plausibly deniable enough, but so obvious to anyone with a pair of working eyes, and so central to all the ideas it's exploring, that to deny its existence is to deny the story itself. And I don't see anyone out here trying to call Dungeon Meshi queerbait, so I expect that same energy for Hibike or I'm going to side-eye you

[animebw]

So I come back from vacation just in time to find this snippet from an interview with Kumiko and Reina's VAs talking about the upcoming Eupho Season 3, which some Discord friends have helpfully translated for me:

"--What do you think of Kumiko and Reina's relationship at the start of the 3rd season?

Kurosawa: Married couple.

Anzai: A pair that everyone agrees is married.

Kurosawa: Newlywed type."

Bros...

[animebw]

And hey, remember how I said during that hug analysis that Reina probably feels like she betrayed Kumiko by choosing the band over her in that argument?

IMAGINE HOW SHE MUST FUCKING FEEL NOW HUH.