[Week 3] Liz and the Blue Bird

For the film club I do with friends, I'm picking a series of works by Japanese animator Naoko Yamada, whose new film The Colors Within released in the US recently. I've previously done a series on Mobile Suit Gundam, and because my friends are not well versed in the cultural context around Japanese animation, I preceded each selection with a short essay introducing the work and explaining some relevant cultural context. I'm doing that again with Yamada's works, and like with the Gundam series, I figured I could adapt these for my blog as well.

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This week, we return to the world of the high school wind ensemble with Liz and the Blue Bird (2018). This film spins off of Sound! Euphonium (2015), shifting it's focus from the show's ensemble cast to the relationship between Nozomi and Mizore, a pair of graduating seniors who did not feature in the episodes we watched a few weeks ago.

Sound! Again!

Sound! Euphonium initially ran for two seasons, adapting the first three novels in Ayano Takeda's series. Both seasons were co-directed by Yamada and her mentor Tatsuya Ishihara. When planning the adaptation of the fourth novel, following Kumiko and pals into their second year in the Kitauji High School wind ensemble, the studio decided that, rather than another season of the show, they would produce a film continuation: Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day (2019).

However, because of the film's shorter running time, they would need to gloss over an extended subplot about Mizore and Nozomi, two supporting characters introduced in the second novel. Because of Yamada's fondness for these two, she was determined to depict their story. So KyoAni decided to spin it off into its own project, splitting the adaptation in two. Like Dune/Wicked but with fewer sandworms/flying monkeys. Yamada would direct Liz and the Blue Bird, depicting Mizore and Nozomi's evolving relationship as they struggle to perfect a duet. Meanwhile, Ishihara would direct Our Promise, following the band's quest for the coveted gold rank at Nationals and Kumiko's challenges mentoring a new first year euphoniumist.

While Ishihara's film is very much a continuation of the series, both in story and in style, Liz and the Blue Bird establishes itself as a standalone work with a different aesthetic "vibe": a more muted color palette, introspective tone, and understated score. This is in part because a number of staff members who had worked on Sound! Euphonium returned for Ishihara's film, but did not work on this one. Broadly speaking, Yamada staffed her film with her collaborators from A Silent Voice instead. For example, the Sound! Euphonium screenwriter, Jukki Hanada, returned to work on Ishihara's film, but Yamada instead worked with her frequent collaborator Reiko Yoshida. Sound! Euphonium composer Akito Matsuda scored Ishihara's film, and his music is still heard dietetically in Liz and the Blue Bird's performances and in the film's parallel "storybook" sequences, but the bulk of the score was written by A Silent Voice's Kensuke Ushio. Likewise, the character designer of A Silent Voice, Futoshi Nishiya, substantially reworked the designs Shoko Ikeda had created for the show: in contrast to the more cutesy, moe-forward designs by Ikeda, Nishiya's designs are softer and more understated. Compare Ikeda's designs for Mizore and Nozomi with Nishiya's redesigns of the same characters.

Although Liz and the Blue Bird centers on Mizore and Nozomi's duet, we don't actually get to see the concert performance of that duet. Instead, it plays out in Ishihara's Our Promise. I recommend you follow up this film by watching and listening to that scene here:

The Arson Attack and its aftermath

Liz and the Blue Bird premiered in April 2018, with Our Promise following one year later in April 2019. Just two months after that, a man named Shinji Aoba walked through the unlocked doors of Kyoto Animation's Studio 1 building with 11 gallons of gasoline and a lighter. After dousing the floor and several employees, Aoba attempted to light them on fire, but unintentionally ignited gasoline fumes in the air and caused a massive explosion, burning himself badly in the process. Aoba fled from the building and survived, but killed 36 employees of Kyoto Animation and injured 34 others.

Aoba, who was 41 years old at the time, had a history of violent criminal behavior for which he had previously been incarcerated. He had become particularly enamored with the studio after the 2006 airing of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, their breakthrough moe hit. His obsession had turned sour after he baselessly concluded that KyoAni had plagiarized two of his submissions to their annual writing contest. In the year leading up to the attack, Aoba sent dozens or perhaps hundreds of death threats to the studio, which were reported to the Kyoto police. In the days immediately before the incident, Aoba was seen scouting out locations in Kyoto that had been featured in episodes of Sound! Euphonium. Following the attack, Aoba spent months in recovery for his burns before being taken into police custody. He showed little remorse and, after a trial in 2023, was sentenced to death.

The victims who died in the incident included some of the studio's most respected veteran animators, as well some of its most junior members. The youngest, Megumi Ohno (21), was a recent graduate of KyoAni's renowned animation school. The oldest, Yoshiji Kigami (61), was a teacher in that program, best known for his key animation work on Akira and Grave of the Fireflies. He also directed "Festival Time", one of the Sound! Euphonium episodes we watched a couple weeks ago. Yasuhiro Takemoto (47) had co-directed the acclaimed Haruhi Suzumiya, as well as the first season of the beloved fantasy comedy Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. He was working on pre-production of the second season at the time. It eventually aired in 2021, with Ishihara at the reins and Takemoto posthumously credited as co-director.

Several staff members who worked on Liz and the Blue Bird were among the victims. Among these were both of the aforementioned character designers, Shoko Ikeda (44) and Futoshi Nishiya (37); key animator Ami Kuriki (30); color designer Naomi Ishida (49); and mechanical designer Hiroyuki Takahashi (48), who led the animation of the musical instruments for the TV series and for this film.

The incident drew support from around the world. Fans and businesses raised over $32 million in donations to support the studio and the victims, and a special measure was passed by the Japanese legislature to allow for these donations to be considered tax-exempt. The attack has also reportedly made police in Japan more attentive to death threats received by anime studios, manga publishers, and video game developers, which is probably a good thing given that this isn't the first highly publicized incident of violence related to otaku culture (refer back to my Gundam write-ups for more on that).

Despite the setbacks from this attack, and then from the COVID-19 pandemic, KyoAni was able to finish their current project at the time, Violet Evergarden: The Movie (2020), less than a year behind schedule. Yamada is credited with a supporting role on that project, but Liz and the Blue Bird marks her final major work with Kyoto Animation. Although Yamada has never commented about the attack or about her reasons for leaving the studio, it's difficult not to speculate about the impact of those events on her decision.

Incidentally, the final season of Sound! Euphonium aired in 2024, directed by Ishihara without Yamada's involvement. It's very good, but lacks the Yamada touch.

This Week

Liz and the Blue Bird (2018) runs 90 minutes. It's included in Amazon Prime and is otherwise widely available to stream or rent online. There's an English dub, which I think I'll give a try.

As I mentioned before, you may also want to watch this 9 minute scene from the companion movie, Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day, which features Nozomi and Mizore's duet in context.

Movie club's response was generally favorable. Despite the film's attempt to tell a standalone story, those of us who hadn't seen the second season of the TV show (i.e., everyone but me), felt a little confused by the vague references to unseen events. We were all generally impressed with Kensuke Ushio's score, particularly the opening and closing sequences which matched character motion to the music. I read somewhere that Ushio and Yamada toured the real Kyoto high school on which Sound! Euphonium's school was based, and made ambient field recordings which were incorporated into the soundtrack, which I found very neat!