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Liz and the Blue Bird is a 2018 anime film directed by the great Naoko Yamada at Kyoto Animation. The film derives its setting, universe, and characters from the equally great anime show and light novel Sound! Euphonium. Despite this connection, Liz works fantastically as a stand-alone film — showcasing the sometimes torturous relationship between god-level oboist Mizore Yoroizuka and her flutist bandmate Nozomi Kasaki.

The first time I watched this movie, I didn’t love it, to be honest, but there was something about its craft that stuck to me. I don’t watch much anime — the main thing that bothers me about the especially popular anime is their over-reliance on noise. Everything is always loud, exaggerated, honestly, pretty annoying. Liz though is different. Its protagonist, the ever-somber Mizore, manages to somehow raise this movie’s energy while maintaining her quiet demeanor. The directorial language mirrors that — sometimes lingering on a window sill or the shadows of birds passing by — and it gives you the chance to really think about the relationships between the characters. So by the third and even fourth viewing, I’ve become enamored with it as a work. At every level it succeeds — as a stand-alone film, as an in-universe expansion on two fascinating side-characters from the show, as a pure example of direction focused on a complex human relationship, Liz and the Blue Bird is a monumental accomplishment.

It made sense, then, for me to turn to the show that started it all, Sound! Euphonium. Based on some of the marketing material, I assumed the show would be closer to general anime schlock. Liz is a fantastic movie, but an anime show has to get you coming back weekly for an entire season or more! Who would want to come back to something as emotionally torturous as Liz for a few months! Well, ya know, I’m kind of a dumbass anime bigot. The Naoko Yamada things I’d seen before S!E are all pretty incredible: K-On!!, A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird — all things I LOVE, so why wouldn’t S!E be included in that? Well, now it is.

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Sound! Euphonium is one of the best, most intricate shows I’ve seen, hands down. You know, when I watched K-On!!, I honestly thought I was losing my goddamned mind based on how well I thought the characters were written. I mean, you want to talk about anime schlock — that show basically invented the loud anime genre. But the characters in K-On!! go hand-in-hand with the ones in Sound! Euphonium. They’re all driven individuals interested in music and friendship. They all have motivations outside of just ‘romance,’ as you’d expect in any other show. You want to talk about shows passing the Bechdel Test — is there anything more legitimately feminist in the world than S!E and K-On!!? Well, I mean, probably, but also the writings in these shows expect us to see the characters on-screen as legitimate people. That kind of writing, that kind of real character exploration — it’s all a gigantic breath of fresh air.

If you’re like me and you’re a fan of Liz and the Blue Bird but haven’t seen Sound! Euphonium, I’m here to say that the show is 100% worth watching. Not specifically for increasing your appreciation of this movie, but because if you enjoyed this movie, you’ll probably enjoy the show as well. The show and the film share a filmic language that makes transitioning between the two fairly easy. Liz’ understated and quiet nature is the thing that sets it apart and this is, I realize now, because our protagonist is Mizore Yoroizuka instead of Kumiko (more on that later).

The biggest thing that Sound! Euphonium added to the experience for me was recognizing and understanding the relationships between all of the side characters in Liz. My favorite thing about the show is how deep the characters are — so fantastically written and complex that they make watching the show a treat. Natsuki, for example, is a great friend to everyone, and seems to be the most caring person in the show — and we get a taste of that in Liz when she understands Mizore’s refusal to play basketball without any words being exchanged between the two. Natsuki frequently bumps heads with Yuko, the outspoken bow-wearing 2nd year who is the EXACT kind of person you’d want going to bat for you. Yuko has a heated exchange with Nozomi at one point and, because it’s a stand-alone movie, we don’t have the history between the two characters. What you don’t know from just the movie is that Yuko is someone who is constantly looking out for Mizore’s well-being, more so than any other character. Having that background enhances so many scenes in the movie, and I really appreciate having that history for additional Liz viewings.

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One thing that S!E really helped me see is that I really love Mizore as a character. In a show full of interesting characters, Mizore maintains a host of traits that make her the most interesting to examine.

First and foremost, for a character considered unflappable by her peers, who barely responds to people’s questions and comments, who always seems to keep her cool even when teachers are berating her robotic-sounding oboe, Mizore has ONE everlasting and predictable way to tilt her into oblivion — Nozomi. We get a strong sense of this from the movie- with side-characters lamenting that Mizore barely even talks to any of them. But it’s in the show where we actually see the residual trauma of Mizore’s experiences with Nozomi and how they’ve forged such a strong relationships as a result. Mizore’s dejection after Nozomi leaves band without telling her leaves Mizore unable to even listen to certain pieces of music because of their association with Nozomi. Hearing Nozomi’s flute at one point makes her sick to her stomach, barely able to walk through her music-induced sickness.

Second, despite being a shy and reserved person, Mizore is the much easier of the two to read. Nozomi, much like Asuka, interacts in a way that’s generally friendly to everyone. Finding their real feelings becomes a bit of a quest all on its own. Meanwhile Mizore can’t hide when she’s flustered (usually only by Nozomi), she can’t hide her physical tics and tells when she’s uncomfortably playing with her hair. Mizore, despite being constantly deep in thought and notoriously difficult to talk to, is a relatively straightforward person.

I think Nozomi almost gets shafted in the movie and in the show based on how we the audience feel about her lack of reciprocation for Mizore’s deep love. We know Nozomi cares for Mizore, they ARE friends, but moments in the movie when Mizore is pouring her heart out, Nozomi barely responds (I mean, how does one really respond to “I love your hair, I love the way you walk, I love the sound of your voice” with anything other than “I love your oboe”?). But she’s certainly not the bad guy here! She appears to be a great friend to nearly every character in the show and she recognizes the problems she’s caused as a result of her flakiness, but Mizore is putting some pretty heavy responsibility on Nozomi — she essentially wants Nozomi to be her everything. Mizore is the star of this movie to me, no doubt, but Nozomi herself is full of complexities, and I’d encourage anyone feeling iffy on her to consider the somewhat unfair position she’s being put in.

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An interesting aspect of reading Letterboxd reviews of this movie have been people claiming it’s an LGBT story, or the iconic ‘Lesbian gaze given startling form’ words that I’ve seen every time I check the page. I think BEFORE Sound! Euphonium, I didn’t really have an opinion on whether this is actually an LGBT story or not, but now that I’ve watched the show, I’d lead towards it not being one. The truth is, Mizore’s love for Nozomi is a borderline unhealthy obsession and it doesn’t seem to be romantic. She sees Nozomi as the person who gave her a chance, who helped bring her out of her shell and, even if it’s just in one small way, really made her feel seen. Her love is so deep that it almost feels like you’d be reducing its real impact by attaching romance to it. The depth of Mizore’s extremely complex reliance on Nozomi transcends the very simple, straightforward explanations that romance would provide. Not to mention, the show freely flirts with these kinds of relationships multiple times between other characters as well without committing to any of them. That said, I think if you’re out there and feel a resonance to the possibly LGBT aspects of this film, those are real feelings too, and the fact that this movie is making you feel them would be THE reason it could be considered an LGBT story.

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