There may be a lot of depressing news around what with COVID-19, but here we have some good celebratory news that could cheer us up some: today is April 8, and for anime and most especially Kyoto Animation fans, today is a memorable day! Five years ago on this exact same day was when the first episode of popular musical anime Sound! Euphonium aired in Japan.

To celebrate this happy event, series director Tatsuya Ishihara released a special illustration to commemorate the series’ 5th anniversary. Check out the cute illustration below!

The special illustration features all the characters of the series—the band members of Kitauji High, even the elusive gacha mascot Eupho-kun! Kyoto Animation has also made the illustration available for download on its website, if you want to use it as a mobile or desktop wallpaper. You can download it here.

Sound! Euphonium is a series of light novels written by Ayano Takeda and illustrated by Nikki Asada. In 2015, the light novels were adapted into an anime series by Kyoto Animation; a second season soon followed the next year. Two out of the three planned films for the franchise have already been released: Liz to Aoi Tori (Liz and the Blue Bird), which focused on characters Mizore and Nozomi, premiered in April 2018. Sound! Euphonium The Movie: Oath’s Finale, on the other hand, was released last April 2019.

Anime News Network describes the series as such:

“Kumiko Oumae is looking for a new beginning at Kitauji High School, distant from most of her middle school peers. She befriends Hazuki Katou and Saphire “Midori” Kawashima and joins the Music Club with them, a past-time from her junior high days. There she continues to play euphonium and encounters Reina Kousaka, a figure from her past she didn’t expect to meet again. As the club works tirelessly to achieve it’s goals, the two girls awkwardly dance around each other, each wanting to know the other more.”

Source: Crunchyroll News