Highlights
- Encounters in high school bands spark growth. Noboru Taki sets goals for band success, leading to personal and collective development.
- Both Sound! Euphonium and Blue Orchestra depict growth through music. Themes of motivation and hard work resonate in high school band settings.
- Sound of the Sky and Sound! Euphonium showcase women finding joy in music. One focuses on military aftermath, while the other on band competition.
The Sound! Euphonium story focuses on Kumiko Oumae, who joins her high school band a little reluctantly because she is still hurting from the failure of her middle school band. There, she meets Reina, a skilled trumpet player from her past. With this encounter, Reina’s love of music sparks Kumiko’s own again.
Noboru Taki, the band’s new, demanding instructor, helps them set a goal of reaching Nationals, which seemed unachievable before. Each practice and effort helps the band members grow individually and collectively, leading to challenges. As a story, Sound! Euphonium captures high school band highs and lows well communicating themes of motivation and hard work.
1 Blue Orchestra
Rediscovering Passion Through Musical Challenges
- Release Date: Apr 9, 2023
- Genre: Drama
- Studio: Nippon Animation
- Streaming Service: N/A
Life moves in different directions, and that is the case for Hajime who although he is dubbed as a violin prodigy. In his case, life moves in a direction he clearly did not envision, his father is involved in a scandal leading to harassment of his family. While entering high school, he needs to think of a new career path, which then leads him to meet Akine Ritsuko who reignites this prodigy’s passion for the violin.
Similar to Sound! Euphonium, Blue Orchestra features the pursuit of interpersonal development among individuals who develop character development through music. Additionally, with the central theme being high school bands, both shows depict great emotional depth and a realistic portrayal of music in modern society.
2 Your Lie In April
The Emotional And Physical Cost Of Musical Perfection
For Kousei, all he has known since birth is music. This talented pianist Arima Kousei has been trained by his mother all his life to become the best. All that changes, when she dies. Kousei immediately loses the ability to hear the sound of the piano, a psychological reaction to the loss he experienced. However, his silent life is turned around once he meets Kaori Miyazono, a similarly talented violinist.
What both Sound! Euphonium and Your Lie In April depict accurately is music as a catalyst for the growth of both Kousei and Kumiko. It serves as a way for both characters to face and surpass their limits through experiences in music.
3 Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds Of Life
Unity Through Diversity
- Release Date: Apr 7, 2019
- Genre: Drama
- Studio: Platinum Vision
- Streaming Service: Crunchyroll
The impact a loved one leaves behind when they die reverberates through the subsequent actions one takes in the aftermath of the death. Evidently, the Tokise High School Koto Club needs a member to meet registration requirements, or they face disbandment. The direction of the club changes the moment Chika Kudou, a notorious delinquent joins and as the plot progresses, realizing Chika has deep connections to the koto because of his late grandfather leads to different narratives.
Although Sound! Euphonium deals with a high school band and the focus here is on a koto club, both depict how their similar settings encourage interpersonal dynamics and a way of encouraging teamwork.
4 A Place Further Than The Universe
An Adventure For Self-Discovery And Closure
The A Place Further Than the Universe story begins with Mari Tamaki, a high school girl who feels she is wasting her youth. She meets Shirase Kobuchizawa, who is obsessed with finding her mother in Antarctica. The two plus Hinata, a high school dropout, and Yuzuki, a reluctant child actress, travel to the freezing Arctic. Their connection grows as they face physical and emotional hurdles, changing their lives.
Sound! Euphonium and A Place Further Than the Universe depict the ups and downs of high school girls pursuing personal objectives like going to Antarctica or learning an instrument.
5 K-On!
Joy In The Everyday
The K-On! series follows Yui Hirasawa who joins her high school’s Light Music Club without knowing how to play the guitar and has to learn since she has a newfound interest in it. She joins Mio, Ritsu, and Tsumugi, all students who want to save the club. The series follows their sloppy but sincere preparations for the school festival, combining regular life with their errors.
Both shows are about high school bands and how the members change over time. But Sound! Euphonium is more about the competitive side of music and how it can make relationships more intense. This is different from K-On!, which is more about the fun and friendship of being in a band.
6 Sound Of The Sky
Harmony Amidst A Discordant World
- Release Date: Jan 5, 2010
- Genre: Sci-Fi, Slice of Life
- Studio: A-1 Pictures
- Streaming Service: Crunchyroll, Prime Video
What this series does is skillfully blend the everyday interactions of its characters with frightening relics of past wars, revealing important world secrets. Kanata Sorami is a happy, eager young woman who joins the military to learn how to play the bugle. She slowly learns how to play it with the help of Rio Kazumiya, the group’s skilled bugler. In the aftermath of the war, the story details how she finds joy and peace in music.
Both Sound of the Sky and Sound! Euphonium are about young women who play music in the military and in school bands. Though the latter is about a high school band fighting for national fame, the former is about rebuilding and hope after the war. The two stories have different themes but similar emotional depth.
7 Haruchika: Haruta & Chika
Looking At Adolescence Through Music And Mystery
- Release Date: Jan 7, 2016
- Genre: Mystery, Romance
- Studio: P.A. Works
- Streaming Service: Prime Video
Haruchika: Haruta & Chika follows childhood friends Chika Homura and Haruta Kamijou as they begin their high school journey. Both join the school’s struggling wind instrument club in an effort to resuscitate and grow it. Chika, who is moving from a volleyball player to a musician, provides motivation, while Haruta discusses club dynamics and recruitment issues.
The protagonists in both anime—Chika and Haruta in Haruchika and Kumiko in Sound! Euphonium—grow as individuals through their musical activities. They use their love of music to find out more about themselves.
8 Nodame Cantabile
Consonance And Dissonance In Life And Music
Shinichi Chiaki and Megumi Noda (also known as Nodame) have linked lives. High-achieving music student Chiaki wants to be a world-class conductor, but his concerns hold him back. He meets Nodame, a brilliant pianist with unique methods and a chaotic lifestyle, in their music school halls. Despite their differences, they inspire each other to pursue classical music.
Nodame Cantabile explores the relationship between a pianist and an aspiring conductor, while Sound! Euphonium focuses on a school band’s journey to national fame. Despite these differences, the themes of artistic perfection and the love of music run throughout both series.
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