General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Liz and the Blue Bird (リズと青い鳥)

Liz and the Blue Bird (リズと青い鳥, Rizu to Aoi Tori) is a 2018 Japanese animated drama film directed by Naoko Yamada and produced by Kyoto Animation, adapting characters from Ayano Takeda's Sound! Euphonium novels into a self-contained story about two third-year high school musicians whose friendship is tested in their final competition.¹^•² It opened in Japan on April 21, 2018, ran 91 minutes, and was distributed by Shochiku.¹

Key fact	Detail
Japanese release / length	April 21, 2018; 91 minutes¹
Director / studio	Naoko Yamada; Kyoto Animation; her fourth theatrical feature, following A Silent Voice (2016)¹
Source material	Ayano Takeda's novel Sound! Euphonium: Kita Uji High School Concert Band, Tumultuous Second Movement (Takarajima Publishing); screenplay by Reiko Yoshida¹^•²
Music	Kensuke Ushio; theme song by the band Homecomings¹^•³
Lead cast	Atsumi Tanezaki as Mizore Yoroizuka (oboe); Nao Toyama as Nozomi Kasaki (flute); Miyu Honda as Liz/Girl²
Awards	Ofuji Noburo Award at the 73rd Mainichi Film Competition (announced January 2019); selected at the 2018 Annecy International Animation Film Festival⁴
Critical scores	Metacritic metascore 67 from 5 critics, user score 7.9; Rotten Tomatoes 83% Tomatometer (12 reviews), 76% audience score⁵^•⁶
North American release	November 9, 2018, in limited release, in Japanese with English subtitles and an English dub in selected theaters⁷

Spoilers

Story and relationship to Sound! Euphonium

The film follows Mizore Yoroizuka, a third-year oboist, and Nozomi Kasaki, a third-year flautist in the Kitauji High School Concert Band. Mizore cherishes the days she spends with Nozomi, who returned to the band after dropping out; ever since Nozomi reached out to the lonely Mizore in junior high school, Nozomi has been Mizore's entire world, and Mizore cannot erase the worry that Nozomi will one day leave her again.² In the final musical competition of their third year, the two are entrusted with the oboe-flute duet in the free-choice piece "Liz and the Blue Bird," and an argument over the song drives a wedge into their friendship.⁸

The piece they must perform is based on a fairy tale of the same name, the story of the love that grows between a lonely girl, Liz, and a little blue bird she rescued, which takes human form as a girl.² As the film progresses, the fairy tale overlaps with the two students' lives more and more, with Mizore as Liz and Nozomi as the blue bird.² Nozomi's carefree remark that "stories ought to have happy endings" strikes fear in Mizore, who feels sure the two of them will someday have to say goodbye.²

Although it uses characters and a setting from the Sound! Euphonium franchise, the film is a spin-off rather than a sequel. It is set a year after the end of the anime's second season, and critics describe it as a side story built around two characters who were minor in the main series.⁹^•¹⁰ Director Naoko Yamada, who also directed Tamako Love Story and A Silent Voice at Kyoto Animation, has said that in this film she worked with minor characters from Sound! Euphonium placed at the center of their own story.¹⁰

Production and direction

The film reunited the production team of Kyoto Animation's previous theatrical feature A Silent Voice (2016): screenwriter Reiko Yoshida, character designer Futoshi Nishiya, and composer Kensuke Ushio.¹¹^•² The staff also included art director Mutsuo Shinohara, color coordinator Naomi Ishida, and sound director Yota Tsuruoka.²

Music and animation were developed together. Composer Kensuke Ushio described the process: Yamada first creates the storyboard, the team animates the sequence frame by frame, and Ushio then obtains sound effects and writes music fitted to that footage. During this process the timings of small actions, such as eyes closing, walking, or closing a shoe locker, are changed to fit the music, the animation team recalculates the movement and provides feedback, and the arrangement continues. Ushio summarized the collaboration by saying that as a result, "I created the timings of the animation, and that director Yamada composed the music."¹² For Ushio, whose previous score was A Silent Voice, the core theme of the film's sound was a story about two girls who are together at first but slowly drift apart; ambient sound plays a special role, from footsteps used as percussion to the noise of classroom objects folded into the background music.¹³ Yamada chose the band Homecomings to provide the theme song, saying that if she could get the things she liked about their sound into Mizore and Nozomi's story, it would become an incredible teen film.³

Visually, the film is restrained and subtle, making extensive use of light and space.¹⁴ The Los Angeles Times' review noted Yamada's repeated shots of the characters walking, often showing them only from the knees down, and the fairy-tale sequences are rendered in a watercolor style.⁷ Reviewers also noted recurring shots of both girls in their classrooms looking out through the windows, an image tied to the question of whether either of them wants to fly away.¹⁴

Reception

Critical response was generally favorable with a wide spread. On Metacritic the film holds a metascore of 67 based on 5 critic reviews, with 60% positive and 40% mixed, and a user score of 7.9 from 10 ratings; on Rotten Tomatoes it holds 83% from 12 critics and 76% from audiences.⁵^•⁶ IGN scored it 90, calling it "one of the most structurally complex films about the necessity of communication for healthy relationships."⁵ The Austin Chronicle gave it 3.5 out of 5, praising Yamada for giving "delicate life to a wafer-thin story of two friends drifting apart" with shots composed in microscopic detail.⁶ Anime News Network's Nick Creamer described the film as Yamada's "greatest masterpiece yet, and one of the best films I've witnessed in years."¹⁵

More mixed notices came from the Los Angeles Times, where Charles Solomon wrote that even the handsome watercolor fairy-tale scenes feel too slow and deliberate to enliven the film, and that many recent Japanese features have dealt with teen friendships and angst in more interesting ways.⁷ Film Threat scored it 60, finding the school-bound story low-stakes, and The Hollywood Reporter gave it 70 while noting Yamada's keen eye for depicting adolescent malaise.⁵

In Japan the film received the Ofuji Noburo Award at the 73rd Mainichi Film Competition, announced on January 23, 2019, and was selected for screening at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in April 2018.⁴ Metacritic's awards listing records one win and one nomination at the IGN Summer Movie Awards, one nomination at the Satellite Awards, and one nomination at the Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival.⁵

Home video and later screenings

The Blu-ray and DVD were released in Japan on December 5, 2018, in a limited edition bundled with the screenplay (8,800 yen plus tax), a standard Blu-ray (7,800 yen plus tax), and a standard DVD (6,800 yen plus tax), published by Kyoto Animation and the Hibike! Production Committee and sold by Pony Canyon. Extras included a director interview, a Homecomings interview, making-of footage, music and promotional videos, and cast commentary.⁴ An official score publication for the concert band piece was announced in May 2018, and a replica Blu-ray and the official film pamphlet returned as made-to-order reprints in December 2020.⁴ The film has continued to circulate through special event screenings, including the CINECITTA' LIVE ZOUND "Sound Revolution 2018" presentation with live-sound equipment in December 2018 and a broadcast on BS12 Twelv in June 2021.⁴

In North America the film opened in limited release on November 9, 2018, in Japanese with English subtitles and an English dub in selected theaters.⁷ It is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max, with rental and purchase options on Amazon Video and Fandango At Home.¹⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026