“Come on, baby… Contrabass-chan, you’re mine from now on.”
Impression
So it turns out that Reina remembers Kumiko after all! It was fun while it lasted, and Kumiko made the cutest sounds when she was stuck in all those awkward situations. But the whole issue definitely resolved itself in an unexpected way – and that was thanks to Reina not actually seeing it as a problem at all, probably because she does understand that everyone has different aims and goals. In that sense, what Kumiko said was merely an expression of her take on things – even if Reina disagrees with that opinion, it’s not like it’s something she’s willing to hold a grudge against Kumiko for. I think it was made pretty clear that they were acquaintances and band-mates, but not friends – a neutral reaction and an acknowledgement of her existence made Kumiko happy enough, after all. It doesn’t make me happy, though. I don’t want this to be it! I want them to be friends! And then more than just friends – they’re supposed to be tied together by the red string of fate, with Hazuki and Sapphire being their wingmen! I was initially wary of whether to put on my yuri goggles from the very outset, but now that Asuka and Contrabass-chan have entered into a willing relationship of being in the same band section, I want to assume that yuri is a possibility.
Is their love the real thing, gao gao?
I’ve gotten slightly off-track. I think one of the main messages conveyed by the episode was commitment. It was introduced last week, but now in addition to herself and Reina, Kumiko has had the chance to talk to Aoi-chan, a childhood friend who would’ve butted heads with Reina much earlier than Kumiko if she had gotten to know her. I suspect that Aoi-chan represents a larger proportion of the band members than Kumiko realizes, in that her dedication to concert band as an activity is ambiguous. Of course, there is some level of commitment – these people joined it after all, so something must be there. But it might not be to the extent of wanting to go all the way to Nationals, especially with someone like Aoi-chan who has to juggle cram school on top of everything else. And people’s interests and priorities change. I’m not sure what she meant by ‘establishing an alibi’ in voicing her opposition to going for Nationals, but I suspect it might be something to do with her waning commitment in the future, and being able to justify it by saying that she was never in agreement with their goals in the first place. She did imply that there were others who shared her opinion, but decided to go with the crowd – after one hand went up, a lot more quickly followed. And it never feels nice to be the only person with their hand not up. Aoi-chan symbolically threw a flimsy leaf against the oncoming wind at the end of that scene, unsurprisingly to no avail – we’re dealing with some down-to-earth moe here. But I did understand why she said ‘three years pass in a flash’, having left school myself not too long ago.
In the end, there is no right or wrong answer. Each person has a choice as to how dedicated they would like to be, and this was exactly the choice that Taki-sensei democratically gave to the students- and the ones who decided to work hard and put their hands up have now locked themselves into a certain level of commitment. But it does suggest that the powerhouse schools (like the one Sapphire went to) only ended up as powerhouses because they happened to have a particularly dedicated group of members one year. This resulted in them doing well in that year’s competitions, which attracted more serious musicians the following year, and so on. It’s either that, or that a school introduced some sort of culling method or audition, which Kitauji are clearly not implementing by allowing complete beginners to join. It’s obvious that previous years never really had a serious view to winning, and Haruka herself said just as much to Taki-sensei. It really makes me wonder why Reina decided to join. Haruka turned out to be the name of Hayami Saori’s character, by the way. I’m glad they decided to expand the supporting character cast slightly – we all know that most of them will be background characters apart from Asuka, Haruka and Aoi-chan, but it was nice that they gave them a name and identity and stuff given that everyone plays an important part in an ensemble. Oh, and maybe Kumiko’s other childhood friend might do something as well. I’m not forgetting his name on purpose, honest! I’m just too lazy to go look it up.
As a musician, my initial reaction to them implying they’ll explain each instrument was: ‘wow, we’re starting from there?’ I mean, I understand the logic behind doing that, but the danger was that it would quickly get formulaic. And I’m glad they quickly dispensed with that, because it ended up being my favourite scene of the episode. I still can’t get over how perfect Asuka is. Hazuki started off by specifically ruling out the tuba as her instrument of choice, but after Asuka was done with her it was like she had seen the light. Kumiko resisted… but it was futile in the end. And Sapphire was only all too happy to comply. I don’t want to decide which the better pairing is between Asuka/Sapphire and Asuka/Haruka! So much top banter awaits.
Also, this week’s scenery porn was wonderful as per usual. I especially like how KyoAni draws their benches.
