YMMV / Sound! Euphonium

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Taki-sensei's teaching methods have two prominent interpretations among the fans: either he subtly manipulated the club to choose nationals so he could pursue his own ambitions and justify his instruction methods by saying it was their choice, or he's really just doing what he was told to do while balancing politeness and honest harshness to actually get the club to work properly. Similarly, there's a lot of debate on whether or not his methods are effective, plain Jerkassery, or an odd combination of both. And then episode 9 reveals that Taki-sensei is apparently well-known among the musically-inclined in Kumiko's hometown. Even Kumiko's older sister mentions that she predicts an upsurge in band-interested students enrolling in Kitauji simply because Taki-sensei is there. This sheds a whole new light to his teaching methods.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Kumiko is frequently interpreted as somewhere on the autism spectrum by the fanbase due to her behavior; she's unintentionally dismissive, far more empathetic than her actions imply, and rather poor at demonstrating appropriate emotional responses to situations.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Given the increased focus on Kumiko and Reina's friendship in the anime, especially the romantic side, it should be no surprise that Shuichi, whose romantic interest in Kumiko is reciprocated in the books, has become quite the hated character.
  • Taki-sensei gets this a bit too but because Reina's interest in him is dropped as soon as it was brought up^note At least in Season 1; it becomes more prominent in the second season. Fan hatred seems more oriented to how he was used just to prove Reina isn't gay than toward Taki himself.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Vice President Asuka is getting a lot of support from the fans, thanks to her cheerful personality and her seiyuu. To the point that she is arguably the most popular person of the show. Tellingly, she's pretty much the Deuteragonist of Season 2, her subplots, Hidden Depths, and dynamic with Kumiko receiving even more focus than in the books.
  • As the anime's season advanced, the other major third-year students also gained a lot of popularity.
  • Natsuki was fairly forgettable at first, but following her not passing her audition and getting closer with other characters like Kumiko and Yuko, she now has quite a fanbase.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Ribbon for Yuko Yoshikawa.
  • Taco-sensei for Taki-sensei.
  • Shoe Itchy for Shuichi. Or Shu1^note "one" in Japanese is "ichi".
  • Trumpet-senpai for Kaori.
  • Buchou for Haruka.
  • "Hibigay" for the series as a whole, thanks to the high amount of Homoerotic Subtext. The series also gets named "Hibikek" on image forums.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: While Reina canonically has (albeit unrequited) feelings for Taki and Kumiko hooks up with Shuichi in the book, fans greatly prefer the Kumiko/Reina ship over either pair, feeling they have the greater chemistry overall. It helps that the two have plenty of Les Yay and Homoerotic Subtext between them. Especially in the anime, which ramps up the subtext by tenfold (to the point that it has been accused of baiting).
• Fanon: You'll be hard pressed to find a fanwork that doesn't depict Kumiko as a lesbian. Even many fans consider her book incarnation to be gay, or at least bisexual with a heavy lean towards girls, due to the fact she's so oblivious to her feelings for Shuichi that she needs others to tell her of them. The fact that she gets together with Shuichi at the end of the book tends to get brushed aside.
• Fountain of Memes: Kumiko. Pretty much anything she does, up to and including the small nuanced noises she makes in every episode ever, the very expressive faces she makes every now and then, or just some of her awkward weirdness in general, is turned into a meme by the fandom.
• He Really Can Act: Many people have praised Tomoyo Kurosawa's acting for Kumiko's complex character. Things from the nervous stuttering to the nuances in how she says single-word lines have been commended.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The Kumiko x Reina shipping started before the anime began and is already popular on its own. However, it got so much support before the anime ended when the US Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage to be legalized in all 50 states. Some sites like Crunchyroll would go on to support the fan-favorite pairing.
• Les Yay: Enough to get its own page.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Kumiko noises ^Explanation Thanks to Tomoyo Kurosawa's performance of Kumiko's awkward character, the obscure noises Kumiko makes with her mouth in every episode ever has become a hit among the fandom, to the point where there are several YouTube videos dedicated to it, calling it "God's work".
  • It's youth! ^ExplanationAn interview with author Ayano Takeda and some Kyo Ani staff during the 1st season airing have them respond to this, when asked about the blatant sexual tension between Reina and Kumiko. Full Death of the Author seems to be in effect, as Miss Takeda seemed genuinely surprised that fans would interpret Kumiko and Reina's interactions to be Les Yay, as she personally saw it instead as a playful friendship between two girls.
• Moe: Almost every single one of the girls can account for this in some way or shape. You can just pick your favorite out of the cast.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: The way the relationship between Reina and Kumiko is handled in the anime caused a lot of viewers to expect a romantic payoff. The novels fare a bit better, even though a lot of fans think that Kumiko's decision to date Shuichi doesn't make much sense either, considering the utter lack of chemistry between them.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: After Reina retains her solo position for the performance, Yuko got better with the fans thanks to her amusing interactions with Natsuki, to the point where many fans would go on to ship them together. The second season onward portrayed her more sympathetically compared to before, further improving her standing.
• Sophomore Slump: The general reaction of the Hibike anime's second season is decent to mediocre. They note that some of the drama (particularly when Kumiko and Shuichi are concerned) seems forced, the first halves of the episodes often don't match up in tone with the second halves, and the arc with Asuka is a little spotty. Overall, it doesn't match the quality the first season brought to the table.
• The Scrappy:
  • Some fans find Yuko in Season 1 to be annoying for being a Clingy Jealous Girl and an Unintentionally Unsympathetic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Her asking Reina to throw the trumpet solo audition because she felt she needed Kaori to play the solo for her last year at school was the last straw for many.
  • Shuichi gets this label from some anime watchers. Because his role was reduced to a minor supporting character, thus leaving out any opportunity for significant character development, his cruel rebuttal of Kumiko's offer to spend Graduation Night with her family has earned him some fans' loathing. It doesn't help that he barely shows remorse for having done this.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • The majority Kumiko/Reina fans versus the minority Kumiko/Shuichi fans.
  • The final episode of the second season caused this due to Kumiko's ambiguous confession to Asuka. Kumiko/Reina versus Kumiko/Asuka is in full effect. Prior to the ending, the latter ship was rarely even taken seriously.
• Spoiled by the Format: In Chikai no Finale, it's pretty easy to predict that the band doesn't make it to nationals just by virtue of the fact that by the time they are competing in the Kansai Contest, there's only 15 minutes left of the movie, and the fact that the entire performance is shown, thus leaving nothing new for them to show for a potential nationals performance. Just the fact that the Kansai Contest is shown despite the first regional contest being entirely off-screened already is a pretty good hint that that's as far as they'll go.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Since the anime's Shuichi is largely Demoted to Extra, the Love Triangle plot becomes this due to the elimination of much of its buildup and foreshadowing.
  • Kumiko confessing to Asuka in the finale. Sure, their dynamic was highlighted far more than in the books, but it still feels almost comically abrupt, with her quite literally interrupting what was being set up as Shuichi's resolution. Even Asuka seems mildly confused before brushing it off in her usual wishy-washy manner.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Season 2's big scene at Nationals isn't shown at all in Episode 12. The audience never gets to learn of the fruits of all their hard work this turn around.
• Values Dissonance:
  • While Reina's need to stand out and go her own way resonates with many Western watchers (who normally come from cultures that value individuality and personal initiative), her attitude is actually considered disruptive in-story as well as among Japanese viewers, due to the communal and hierarchial nature of Japanese society.
  • The social hierarchy among the students is key to a great deal of the club politics and drama. Clubs around the world all have their politics (and Japan is hardly unique in expecting younger students to defer to the older ones), but as The Incident that took place last year is based around the slacker third-years bullying and harassing the younger members who wanted to play properly, you might expect that they would be disciplined for it or told to leave the club. Instead, nothing is done, most second years quit out of frustration and, rather than being angry at the bullies, the remaining then-second (now third) years seem to blame themselves for not shutting up and tolerating it until the bullies graduated. Upon hearing the story, Kumiko is more scandalized that Natsuki openly challenged them and called her seniors a bunch of divas than that the older students ganged up against the younger ones. Apparently, no teacher saw fit to step in and protect the younger students, even when they ended up with a pile of resignations from the club. The seniority system is also the reason there's so much debate over who gets solos and who gets into the competition team — some members assumed that third years would get automatic entry, then the second years, and the first years would be picked last, if there were any spaces left. When their new teacher holds auditions, many second and third year students are shocked.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Amazon lists the show under Kids and Family for this reason. While it is about cute girls in a band, it was actually made for otaku.

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