See Kumiko as a 3rd Year Student in New Sound! Euphonium Anime Project

The Sound! Euphonium franchise appears to be on a roll, what with new film projects since last year—we got Liz and the Blue Bird (Liz to Aoi Tori) in 2018, then we got another movie, Chikai no Finale (Oath’s Finale), which was released in Japan last April. Now, another new project for the musical franchise was just announced!

Kyoto Animation held a special event for the franchise entitled, Hibike! Euphonium 5-kaime da yo! Uji de Omatsuri Festival in the famous studio’s headquarters in Uji, Kyoto—which, by the way, is also the setting for the Sound! Euphonium anime. In this event, they announced the launch of a new “anime project” for the franchise, which will center on lead character Kumiko Oumae’s third year in high school. Check out the official announcement PV below:

The PV basically shows scenes from the 1st & 2nd season, as well as clips from the movie Chikai no Finale. For fans of the franchise, you will recognize the song being played in the first song of the clip as the “Crescent Moon Dance”, the piece the Kitauji High School Band played for the final competition in season 2 of the anime (and a personal favorite of this author as well).

The anime’s character designer, Shoko Ikeda, drew an all-new illustration to commemorate the announcement.

Sound! Euphonium was adapted from a series of light novels written by Ayano Takeda. With the next anime project centering on Kumiko’s third year, it is highly likely that the anime will follow Takeda’s novels for this—albeit loosely. The anime has somewhat deviated from the novel’s story, so we’ll have to wait and see if this is also the direction the anime will take.

For those who are curious, however, Takeda’s light novels at this point cover Kumiko as a third year and the band’s new president, with Shuichi (her ex-boyfriend in the novels—something which never happened in the series) as the vice president. The band still aims to win gold in the Nationals, and with this hope they welcome the new band members, including Maya Kuroe, a euphonium player from the highly-regarded Seira Girls School.

Source:Crunchyroll News