Suprise, suprise, not how this works. The show portrayed their original rift as a result of not just an unfortunate situation, but also how it was dealt with. Presenting a case straight out of something like Oregairu, Hibike showed us how Nozomi and Mizore were both bearing a burden, hurting themselves in order to not hurt the other. Kasaki was trying to be considerate of Yoroizuka and thus distanced herself from her so as not to drag her down with her own issues. Mizore was sure that this distance was a result of Nozomi hating her and had to live believing that the only person she cares about wants nothing to do with her. Key band members have no idea how either of them feels, but they don’t want to upset and potentially lose their only oboe player by bringing up the topic, while simultaneously reminding other members of the club’s dark past, so instead they perform complex machinations in order to hide the painful, uncomfortable truth. Kumiko is presented with a chance to break that arrangement and bring truth to light, see what happens and then deal with potential consequences. Similarly to Volunteer Club adventures, here too the reality is that the former method doesn’t really solve the issue as much as it sweeps it under the rug, helping only few people and leaving a lot of them hurt just because you’re afraid of dealing with harsh reality and choose to run away. That realization finally hits as the situation boils over and the machinators are no longer able to keep a lid on it, leading to the cleansing conversation and concluding that conundrum.
But just like in Oregairu, if you let some time pass and then revisit lives of the people you helped, you might find out that in reality nothing got fixed, or at least not as much as you hoped. Nozomi and Mizore cleared one misunderstanding - they realised neither of them hates the other and everyone was just trying to be considerate, but all made wrong assumptions. With that dealt with, Nozomi was able to re-join the band, Mizore got her only friend back and they were able to play music together again. You may wonder, what sort of issue could possibly remain?
This question is best answered by watching the opening minutes of “Liz and the Blue Bird”. It’s all in their posture, their eyes, their gestures. How Nozomi looks ahead with a smile. How Mizore follows her black-haired friend’s lead while burning a hole in the back of her head. The physical distance maintained between them. And if all of this wasn’t clear enough, Kasaki remembers a classmate hugging custom and offers one to Yoroizuka, but withdraws in the last moment playing it off as a joke, before Mizore is able to take the opportunity. Audience can see that Mizore actually really wanted it, but her hesitation caused her to miss the chance, and her shyness prevents her from just stating what she wants outright. Nozomi seemingly misunderstood her friend and assumed this would make her uncomfortable and thus retreated out of consideration… Or at least that’s how she acts on the surface - but what if she actually saw through Mizore, noticed her desire and that’s what made her decide to keep the distance on purpose?
No matter which is true, one thing is clear - it’s the same problem all over again. Mizore is unable to clearly convey her feelings to Nozomi, and the latter either doesn’t pick up on her attempts, or willfully chooses to ignore them. In either case, nothing changed from the situation from the previous year, Nozomi takes the reins of the relationship and whether she’s blind to Mizore’s affection or chooses to pretend not to see it, all the blue-haired girl can do is accept her fate and follow her friend wherever she chooses to take them. While Nozomi is busy socializing and practicing with her section of the band, Mizore spends her time in solitude, with eyes glued to her more outgoing friend, just one of many to her, but wishing she could be THE one.
Perhaps the most vital narrative tool used in early parts of the movie is actually neither dialogue, nor directing, but rather the movie’s aesthetics. From the choice of artstyle, with thin, soft lines and flaccid character silhouettes, pastel colors and camera-lens-like image distortions, it’s clear from the start that we’re dealing with a personal and intimate story. The sound department uses the original music that blends with ambient sounds and voice production to express the kind of fragility that is hard to put into words. You don’t need to understand what they’re saying to feel what these characters are feeling, it’s all in the magic of creating animated movies. As we’re looking at events more-or-less through Mizore’s eyes, all of her insecurities, shyness and distance are very much palpable.
I’m using “distance” as a personality trait here because I find this to be a very useful concept when talking about characters in Hibikeverse. In the past I’ve primarily used it to describe the series’ protagonist, Kumiko Oumae, a girl known for daydreaming, avoiding conflict and her ability to make unbiased observations, as if watching the situations she’s in from the outside. Willing to connect with others, yet comfortable in solitude as well. But Nozomi’s a different kind of beast, in that she almost feels detached from reality. Her robotic mannerisms and perceived lack of emotion make her seem like an alien in almost every setting. Everyone has difficulty understanding her - it’s hard to distinct between her saying a loose thought and something with conviction, a genuine question and an evasive one. Even as the viewer, getting a read on her feels almost impossible. She claims to dislike playing music and only do it for Nozomi’s sake, but she kept at it when her friend quit the club. She doesn’t half-ass practicing, but doesn’t seem to care about her craft either. It seems like her life is driven purely by inertia, like she was set on a track and continues drifting alongside it with no motivation to steer either way.
It’s adequate then that most of the movie’s runtime is focused on trying to figure out her complicated feelings about the “Liz and Blue Bird” story. It’s a riddle for the viewer as well - we’re given a rough rundown of the plot from the characters early in the movie, but we also get fragments of it sprinkled throughout the airing. Those little tidbits are drawn in a significantly different artstyle, emulating children book illustrations. Each one asks us to reevaluate this seemingly simple story and how exactly its metaphor works with the main duo. Some snippets really change the lense we view the main story through, shifting the initially one-sided understanding of the situation we have. In the beginning everything is presented mostly from Mizore’s perspective, it’s easy to empathise with her struggle to convey the feelings she has and achieve the relationship she wants. But at some point she’s less and less of a protagonist, and more of just another actor in the story. In one scene Yoroizuka indiscreetly stares at her friend, who in turn is surrounded by club colleagues and engrossed in a group conversation. It’s natural for the viewer to share perspective with the passive observer rather than the person busy interacting with others. But during a rewatch I’ve actually noticed that the two shots of them used in this scene are almost identical - similar framing, similar angle of their gaze towards the “camera”. It made me think that their situations weren’t quite so opposite, that Kasaki wasn’t as involved as I thought. Her sight felt emptier and her expression more absent-minded. This alone made me think of her in a much different light, which in turn had me consider whether Mizore is as good and objective of an observer as I originally assumed. Another scene I loved was when Mizore asked Nozomi a question signifying a change in her character, which made the latter shocked for just a second, but right then a person walked between them and in that brief moment Nozomi’s face returned to normal. The timing of the shot was really what sold it to me and as such it’s difficult to put into words just why it had such an impact, but that kind of slip of veil, seemingly unnoticed by the oboe player, gave me a ton more to think about their relationship.
While these two are definitely front and center, the film features many more characters from the TV show and novels. The main-main duo of Kumiko and Reina don’t play a big part, but they’re kinda used as a reflection for this story’s heroines, serving as an example of a healthy close relationship between two band members. There’s also musical advisors, one of them working closely with Mizore to help her figure out the solo, as well as the club president and vice president, both of them close to main characters. On one hand, they give the story another layer of depth, showing the relationships Nozomi and Mizore have with others, not just each other. On the other, they also ground the story, mostly through the plot thread of career plan surveys prompting them to consider plans for their futures, and some of the girls considering going to a music school. This casts light on a very interesting question - is it possible for someone to dedicate themselves to a craft as much as Mizore has solely to get closer to one person? This is a topic I found particularly relatable - when you join a social circle based around certain hobby, there’s an expectation that you’re at least somewhat into it. But people have all sorts of different reasons to join a group, and wanting to make friends isn’t exactly a rare one. As odd as it may seem that someone who practiced playing oboe as diligently as Mizore doesn’t care about the instrument a single bit, it does fit into the narrative of Kitauji students having a lot more complicated reasons for playing in the band than simply enjoying the activity. What’s important is watching Yoroizuka’s friends wonder how serious she is about her declarations that she only cares about doing what Nozomi does, and if she is, then figuring out how are they supposed to react to such dedication.
What makes it even more difficult is that Mizore doesn’t exactly let others close to her. In the beginning the story told us that she was a lonely girl who latched to the first person that extended their hand to her. But digging deeper we can see that she’s not reacting the same when people other than Nozomi try to connect with her - she’s either rejecting them, or simply not noticing their sympathy. That fact alone changed the way I viewed her character tremendously. Around this point I started attempting to put a grasp on the movie as a whole, and the clearest narrative that broke through the sea of thoughts and interpretations was that she started the movie as a sympathetic protagonist the audience roots for and ended as a kind-of selfish villain. But then something pulled me back from the world of simplifications and mental shortcuts, and that something was the final musical performance in the movie. It’s a great achievement of the music composer, sound production team and especially the performers - there are some pieces that get repeated throughout the movie, and it’s important that each time the performances are unique, conveying both the students’ abilities and their state of mind. You could tell the entire movie story solely through the music-playing scenes, they have their own premise, setup, turns and a big climax. It’s fittingly a big part of the movie centered around a brass ensemble, and staffed musicians completely nailed it, resulting in a very emotional and captivating moment during that final band practice. Afterwards we get a couple more scenes between the duet of heroines, some with a bit of role reversal, and “the more things change, the more they stay the same” tone in others. If you were to ask me to describe the relationship between girls and the end of the movie and speculate on their futures, I’d really struggle. What screening left me with were uncertainty and bittersweetness, which I think is very apt for what the movie’s like.
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