I started watching this series as a result of the terrible arson attack on the Kyoto Animation studio. As someone who considers many of their works a favorite, the news cut me very deeply and made me the most upset I've been in a long time. However, I decided to keep my chin up under all the dark and stressful emotions I along with many others felt, and reminded myself that all the wonderful people working at Kyoto Animation had dedicated their lives towards entertaining their viewers and making them feel happiness through their works. K-On! Is my favorite piece of media I've ever consumed, not just anime, and rewatching it only made me love the series and Kyoto Animation even more. It's a gem I see myself rewatching many, many more times in the future, along with the other fantastic anime Kyoto Animation is responsible for. Hibike! Euphonium is one of the most recommended shows for those who enjoyed K-On!, and I had been meaning to watch this for some time now. I could see through its dedicated and appraising fanbase that I'd be in for a real treat with this anime, so I decided watching it would be the best way for me to pay tribute to those who very unfortunately lost their lives at the studio, as I simply don't have the funds to donate monetarily.

I don't have a ton of experience playing in an orchestra or band, so this anime did not evoke much nostalgia for me. I played the cello briefly in elementary school and never got enough experience to get past the ear-screeching and terrible phase that forced me to hoverhand my instrument during the end-of-year concert in my 4th or 5th grade. So the story of Hibike! Ephonium did not hit very close to home for me, but it was still very enjoyable on its own. I understand many people who played in their high school orchestra love this anime and get a wild nostalgia trip from it, a feeling I deeply wish I could experience with this show now.

The story of Hibike! Euphonium is nothing special, but nothing uninteresting either. This is sort of a sweet spot for me, as I generally dislike fantasy shows outside of the cutesy slice of life genre, as well as plain boring shows with heavily uninspired characters. Honestly, I dig into most anime with very little reading beforehand (and I encourage others to do the same!), and I sort of expected another K-On! I realized how wrong I was after the first couple of episodes, though this was not a bad thing. While there is some overlap, Hibike! Euphonium focuses on an entire orchestra's worth of students and what they aim to achieve together in the realm of music, and is often heavily dramatic, whereas K-On! focuses more on a small group of friends and how they interact with one another. Comedy and heartwarming wholesome moments have the spotlight instead of Hibike! Euphonium's drama and gripping story. While the story isn't high-octane "saving the world" gripping, the writing managed to make me cheer on certain characters and detest others.
I think the story in Hibike! Euphonium was handled very well. I haven't seen many anime in the "music" genre, so I'm not particularly qualified to speak on the subject, but Hibike! Euphonium feels like a unique story. I'm sure the story and characters mimic that of many other previous anime, but the effort put into this anime shows, and it doesn't come off as a copycat of anything else. It was a product of the heart, not of the wallet or time constraints.

The art is simply breathtaking. Kyoto Animation, as always, looks clean, uncluttered, and high quality. Sticks in the mud always complain about their use of filters, but these same people, to be fair, would also need to complain about every modern film, and the use of applications such as ReShade in video games. The linework and animation is already flawless, and I believe the tasteful usage of filters only take the artwork to the next level. The attention to detail put into the animation and drawing of every individual instrument in the orchestra alone puts Hibike! Euphonium above Koe no Katachi and Violet Evergarden in the artwork department, in my opinion.

The sound and music is beautiful. What would you expect from a musically-oriented anime from a highly respected studio? I honestly want to say as little as possible about the music and leave it for you to experience on your own. It's good. If it wasn't good, this music anime would not be nearly as popular as it is.

The characters of Hibike Euphonium are not the best, but together, they make for a pretty interesting group. High school students can only get so interesting, but their interactions between each other is where most of the entertainment from this anime comes from. Just like in reality, many students are unique emotional wrecks who sometimes get carried away with toxicity and are confused with what to do in some of the most stressful years of their life. Admittedly, this isn't a perfect 10/10 anime. Kyoto Animation attempted to squeeze some romance and romance-related drama into Hibike! Euphonium, but there just really wasn't enough time in one season to allow for this. The romance felt like it could've gone somewhere, but it falls short without even becoming a halfway important role to the story or its characters. I say all this as someone who has only watched the first season so far, so perhaps it'll come together nicely as I continue to watch the other seasons and films of this series. But for the review of the first season, the romance leaves much to be desired. However, many other aspects of characters excel for quite an entertaining story.

I only got into anime recently, and have only been a fan of Kyoto Animation's works for an even shorter period of time. However, less than a year's time was more than enough for me to fall in love with the dedicated and high quality work of this studio. May those who lost their lives at the tragic Kyoto Animation studio incident find ultimate peace wherever they are now. I wish for nothing less than a quick recovery and peace of mind for the rest of the employees who were injured in the incident. Your works will always hold a special place in my heart, and I genuinely hope to see many more works from such an amazing studio with fantastic people.

Konohana Kitan has the premise to be a decent slice of life, but falls pathetically short. I really wanted to stick with it longer, but this anime is just awful in so many aspects.

Konohana Kitan suffers from some of the worst pacing in anime I've ever seen. The writing feels like a high school student wrote the script for every episode in under a couple hours with a mandatory so-many-hundred word goal. From the very first episode, no effort is put towards building a halfway decent foundation for the rest of the show. The main character becomes attached to other characters absurdly fast, and just makes every interaction onward feel hollow and forced. There's also fanservice FOUR MINUTES INTO THE FIRST EPISODE, those four minutes include the opening theme. Fanservice is fine to an extent, but so soon in the FIRST episode??? Really???

The art is dreadful and lacks any soul. Oh my god, where to start? Backgrounds look like they are public domain art and do not have much detail to them, even if they are focused on heavily in a scene. The animation is literally THE worst I've witnessed in anime yet. So many corners were cut that it really makes this anime feel like it was made in a sweatshop with a strict time limit, and the employees were paid a few cents per frame without any supervisor to approve the frames beforehand. Walking animations are often nonexistent, replaced with torso shots of characters bobbing perfectly vertically up and down. Conversations between characters will sometimes be nothing but extremely zoomed in shots of character's faces, so zoomed in that you can't even see their hair or shoulders. Sometimes characters won't even have ANY animation, and will just be a JPEG sliding around. Sometimes there won't even be a character! You can only do the "hahaha simplified scribble girl" bit so many times every episode until it's obvious you just didn't have the budget to make an anime. Often this is done in the moments it would be most disorienting to the viewer. Eyes and heads rarely track movements, if you're lucky enough to be treated to a scene where a character would have something to track.

The sound is also pretty shit. Bland background music, overly-lengthy and uninteresting opening theme. Nothing really stood out to me besides the music being very lackluster. The audio effects themselves aside from music are just as bad. Moments where characters would obviously have audible footsteps have no footstep sounds whatsoever and it's very disorienting.

I think the creators were heavily restricted by budget and did not have any passion to create something besides "HAHA KAWAII FOX GIRLS AND THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME :)". This is the only anime that's legitimately angered me to watch, as I really expected it to be something halfway decent, but all I got was a waste of ~40 minutes plus the time it took to write this review. It does NOTHING remotely well, and I could never see myself watching this without considering it wasted time I could've spent watching something better.

Liz to Aoi Tori is a masterpiece of filmwork with an immense amount of effort dedicated to its creation and refinery.

The story is much deeper than what it appears as on the surface. I'm not one for "whoa dude this is soooo deep" sorts of media, but it doesn't feel anything like the creators of Liz to Aoi Tori were stretching themselves beyond their realistic capabilities as writers to seem "deep". I think watching this halfheartedly out of mere boredom lends oneself to really not appreciating what Liz to Aoi Tori has to offer in its entirety. The storyline is not captivating or entertaining in a traditional sense, instead, it is very human and emotional. Due to this, I really don't think a solid storyline is possible to attribute to this film. The focus for the entire film is the relationship between two friends that feels as fragile and unpredictable as a feather in a hurricane. Liz to Aoi Tori is an unrelenting torrent of many grittily realistic emotions that easily ensnares its viewers into feeling. The writers saw an untapped reserve of potential between two supporting characters in the Hibike! Euphonium series, and they squeezed every last drop out of that potential. The story of Liz to Aoi Tori and the overall relationship of Mizore and Nozomi transcends traditional storytelling to flourish as an admirable masterpiece of anime and film.

Of course, such a beautiful story could not go unsupported by equally beautiful art and sound design. Artistically, there's so much to be said about Liz to Aoi Tori that I'm simply just not qualified to talk about. Symbolism and artstyle were focused on to a pinpoint by the absolute masters working at Kyoto Animation. Certain aspects were modified from Hibike! Euphonium such as the linework to fit in line with the more mature and emotionally weighted themes of Liz to Aoi Tori. After recently viewing some very poorly animated anime, I truly appreciate the effort put into seemingly simple scenes on paper such as walking animations and the immense amount of effort and soul poured into animating realistic and emotional facial expressions, especially when the majority of the film relies solely on emotional expression. The setting for the film is split only between the Kitauji high school and the world within a watercolor storybook. The contrast in artstyle and setting between these two worlds is very deliberate and impactful to the mood of the film. One would think that such a limited setting for media of this length would be boring to a viewer, but the overall design, mood, and constant movement throughout the film always kept the scenery from appearing stale. Beyond these few topics I've covered, there is much more symbolism and impressive feats of artwork to be appreciated by those with more understanding of artwork and how much effort goes into the production of such a film.

Sound design is equally as lovingly crafted as the story itself and the impressive artwork that made the wonderful writing of Liz to Aoi Tori a reality. One thing that particularly stood out to me, and is present in both Liz to Aoi Tori and Hibike! Euphonium, is that most every sound and line of dialogue does not feel like it was recorded in a soundproof recording studio centimeters away from a ridiculously expensive ASMR microphone. If someone is talking on the opposite end of a large room, their voice echoes in such a manner that you would expect in real life from a similar room. The reason this is so, is because the absolutely dedicated individuals at Kyoto Animation often use 1:1 replicas of actual buildings in their work. This was the case with K-On!, as it is with Hibike! Euphonium. Many sounds ranging from footsteps, to dialogue, to orchestral music is all recorded in the actual real counterpart to the building in the animation. It adds so much depth and life to an otherwise unrealistic genre of media, and this amount of dedication to the product is truly impressive. Beyond that, all of the music is recorded with a live orchestra, resulting in every breath, every mechanical sound of a room full of instruments, and every minute flaw coming through into the final production. On top of the extremely detailed closeup animations of musical instruments being played, this amount of attention to detail truly makes the sound design of Liz to Aoi Tori and the Hibike! Euphonium series in general a masterpiece to be remembered. I highly recommend viewing some of the "making of" videos for Liz to Aoi Tori and Hibike! Euphonium. Seeing the painstakingly detailed recording and the unique production of original background music is very interesting and made me appreciate the effort so much more.

Character building is rather restricted when a film is only focusing on two characters and their relationship between one another, but Kyoto Animation uses this restriction to really focus themselves on making very emotionally interesting characters that constantly keeps viewers captivated for the entire duration of the film. The character development in Liz to Aoi Tori is quite satisfying, and significant progression is made by the end of the film for two characters that were otherwise lacking characters in the main series of Hibike! Euphonium that constantly felt like they could be so much more. This satisfying and plentiful character progression makes Liz to Aoi Tori a refreshing take on side stories, something that is so easily spoiled that many studios will just never attempt to make anything of the sort, outside of hollow, unsubstantial, and easy-to-make OVAs for their anime.

Liz to Aoi Tori, while not being the absolute most enjoying film or anime I've ever watched, has so much effort poured into its production that I would consider it an insult to the creators to NOT to call this film a masterpiece. The writing is certainly not half-assed, and yet so much precision and creativity was put into its creation, Liz to Aoi Tori still very much feels human and manages to closely touch our emotions.

Girl's Last Tour is an impeccable anime that I feel is the very definition of what makes something unique. Everything in this anime has never really been done before in the industry with this level of care for quality, and is the epitome of a new and fresh experience for viewers. The style is distinct and highly memorable. The story is original, even in the highly saturated apocalyptic genre. The cutesy cartoonish characters manage to feel very human, with their own passions and motives for surviving in a world that guarantees them nothing in life. The enjoyment of watching such a masterpiece is unique to Girls' Last Tour and Girls' Last Tour alone. This one of the very few anime I've enjoyed enough to want to read the manga it originated from (and it didn't disappoint! The anime was very faithfully reproduced, though the manga's story extends to have a more concrete, albeit depressing ending).

The story of Girls' Last Tour is a unique take on the concept of post-apocalyptic media. The original author of the manga is a wonderfully talented, likely depressed, individual who has an affinity for surreal designs and stories. In Girls' Last Tour there's no zombies, there's no disease, and there's no real action. It's just a completely unique and captivating story for reasons other than solely focusing on the post-society aspects. The anime finished prior to the ending of the manga releases, so if you liked the anime, the manga is a must-read in my opinion. Afterwards, "Shimeji Simulation" by the same author, is yet another amazing story that appears to somehow tie into the story of Girls' Last Tour.

The art style is unique to Tsukumizu, though it was slightly altered to fit the medium of anime better. The characters are cutesy and simplified, cartoonishly exaggerated at times, but are very expressive, unique, and simply lovable. The scenery is gritty, eerie, and realistic, feeling just as important as the characters themselves, in an industry where background scenery and setting is often a secondhand thought. Overall, this results in an extremely unique experience that can be found nowhere else. The art is honestly one of my favorite aspects of Girls' Last Tour, and I find myself consistently wanting more art in this style.

Sound is yet another category deserving of a perfect score. It's one of the few series' OSTs I found myself consistently listening to on a casual basis, even using the full ambient OST as driving music on long trips to more remote locations, especially in the rain. It's a wonderful mix of cheerful, depressing, eerie, and atmospheric music. A very original tone that I've yet to see another series match its level. I urge you to listen to the music as you watch the series, and come back to the OST after you finish the anime to enjoy in its isolated form.

Characters? You got two lovable sweet potatoes. Baked with extra sugar and love. These girls are some of the cutest motherfuckers you'll ever meet. Fantastically written, impeccable dialogue, incredibly both fitting with and contrasting against the story at the same time. There's a lot to be said here about the deeper aspects of their design, but I hate it when reviewers just simply spoil character traits within a review, as if it's something I come to read the review for. Just believe me when I say these characters are some of the best in anime. Tsukumizu is as much of a fantastically gifted writer as they are an artist.

Girls' Last Tour is just such a fantastic anime in general. It's a completely fresh experience you won't even find mimicked elsewhere. Everything about it is distinct, purposeful, and entertaining. I was growing up right around the time that everything and everything had to be set in a post-apocalyptic world, so believe me, I'm just as burnt out on the genre as anyone else. Despite that, Girls' Last Tour is the freshest breath of air you'll find in the genre, anime or otherwise, and this genuine masterpiece has rightfully landed a place in my #1 favorite anime of all time.