Past news about Kyoto Animation always bordered on heartbreaking, but this time we’re giving you something uplifting: the brass band on which Sound! Euphonium’s Kitauji High School Band was based on recently won a gold medal at a national competition! The Higashi Uji Brass Band were recently reported to have won a gold medal at the annual Kyoto All-Prefecture High School Brass Band—similar to the competition that Kumiko and her bandmates joined.
In an interview, some members of the brass band even said that they were inspired to join their school’s band after having watched Sound! Euphonium. Kota Sekinishi, a 17-year old bassoonist on the band, said: ““I wanted to practice in the same place I saw in the anime. Through our performances, I want others to feel the same level of emotion I felt from the anime.”
Yuika Ito, leader of the band, also said that they dedicated their performance to the victims of the arson attack on KyoAni. “We put our thought for the victims of the arson attack into the music, in hope that they would reach the victims of the arson attack. I think we played better than we ever have before.”
Kyoto Animation’s ties to the Higashi Uji high school are very close: the setting of the fictional Kita Uji High School was largely based on Higashi Uji, with director Tatsuya Ishihara and his staff making numerous trips to the school. Several teachers recall Ishihara’s work with his staff, noting that the animators took long, detailed videos of the musicians’ fingering work. If you watched the anime, you’ll see that the studio indeed did not skimp on the detail: the fingerings were precise, the movement of the instruments accurate (I’ve seen many a Youtube video of real-life musicians marveling at the detail KyoAni put into animating the band sequences). Not only did the staff pattern the Kitauji Band on Higashi Uji’s, they even ended up replicating real-life details of the school into the anime, such as the fliers from the band room or even the placements of trash bins around the school.
Source: SoraNews24