Hibike! Euphonium Ensemble Contest available:

As always it can be found at nyaa.si.  The subtitles could have been better, but it doesn't matter, the ova itself was perfect.  57 minutes of beautiful, well-animated Kyoto Animation, the way I remember the company being before the awful fire.

The dialogue felt down to Earth and lifelike, but still touching.  I love subtle drama like this, where people aren't screaming or crying but their emotions still matter.  Hibike! Euphonium is revolutionary in so many ways.  One of them is creating a character design, a genuine unique design, for some 100 different band students all going to the same school.  That's incredible right there.  But another revolutionary aspect to the story is it really is about school band activities and nothing else.  Nothing else is necessary.  Somehow that's already a gripping tale.

Meanwhile, I flipped five more songs from 4-star to 5-star -- 'Hope' from One Piece, 'Marrakesh Night Market' by Loreena McKennitt, 'Ichizuke Sky' from BanG Dream, 'Share the Light' from Assassin's Pride and 'Shoujo S' from Bleach, five vocal pieces, replace five instrumental pieces from Chrono Cross, 'Dimension Breach', 'Chronopolis,' 'Dragon Knight,' 'Voyage - Home World' and 'Snake Remains Chamber.'

Previously I tried to demote two other Chrono Cross songs, 'Dragons Wish' and 'Reminiscence - Thoughts,' but both times I repented my decision and quickly promoted them back to 5-star again.  This time ought to be different.  The Cross songs targeted here are either too laid back -- 'Dimension Breach' and 'Chronopolis,' or too boisterous, 'Dragon Knight,' 'Voyage - Home World,' and 'Snake Remains Chamber.'  They actually have weaknesses.  I'm not just firing from my hip.

Furthermore, their replacements have that *it* factor I describe as 'moving and memorable,' it could otherwise be called 'arresting,' where your attention is grabbed and never let go so long as the song is playing.  I can't see myself taking back any of these substitutions.  As predicted Ichizuke Sky didn't stay 4-star for long, I just needed to find a weak song in my 5-star tier to make room first.

There are so many good Chrono Cross songs it's easy for bad ones to hide in their midst.  This is why the best strategy to find demotable 5-star songs is to look at the best albums, counterintuitively.  Lots of songs like to hang on the coattails of otherwise good albums and get more recognition than they deserve.  The promoted songs are from five different albums -- they all had to make it on their own merits.

I also promoted a bunch of 3-star vocal songs to 4-star, demoting a bunch of instrumental Naruto themes to make room, using the same strategy.  Naruto is a highly respected musical franchise, so every Naruto song gets a favorable review, even though only some of the songs actually earned that respect.  By isolating and destroying the flunkies, the sychophants, more meritorious songs can rise to the top.

P.S.:  Okay I've found two worse instrumental songs than 'Dragon Knight' and 'Chronopolis' to demote, so those two can go back up.  Now 'Cliff Town Gato' and 'Zertinan Caverns' can suffer instead.