Asuka Tanaka

Asuka Tanaka is the recurring character of Sound! Euphonium series. Asuka is the daughter of Masakazu Shindou and Asumi Tanaka. She is a third-year student of Kitauji High School, the school band's vice president and bass section leader. Asuka plays an euphonium alongside Kumiko Oumae. Asuka is a teenage girl of above-average height with straight and lush shoulder-length black hair, and light-blue eyes; she wears thin red circular glasses, which are seen as her trademark. According to many other characters (including Hazuki Katou), she is regarded as beautiful. Outwardly, Asuka has a highly playful personality who is also very friendly and caring that her constant high energy often comes off as extremely childish to the other band members. However, her humor and lighthearted appearance is merely a cover for a range of deeper emotions that Asuka struggles with and has repressed over many years, some of which stem from her mother's extreme parenting, and from having all contact with her father cut off by her mother. Her bright outer self is also a facade her for true personality, which is much more sly, calculating, and coldly logical. When necessary, Asuka can be extremely manipulative. Asuka demonstrates the ability to handle a large amount of responsibility and was actually favored by many band members to be the band's president. She, however, declined. Asuka has shown a marked disinterest in the social dynamics of the band over the years that she has participated in it, and even an indifferent attitude to the skill level of the group as a whole. This is because her main goal in participation is to create time to advance herself as a musician, and most importantly, as a euphonium player. She considers handling ensemble drama issues to be a waste of her time because it deviates from her main objective of personal musical improvement. Asides from practicing technical skills, Asuka also spends a large amount of her free time researching music theory, the history of her own instrument, and the background of the pieces that the band is playing. She demonstrates awareness of composer intentions through her passionate monologues and expressive playing. On top of all this, she manages to maintain excellent grades in school. Asuka does not care about the competitive glory of the band, nor whether or not the band around her sounds good or bad. As long as she continues to have a space in which she can practice, and have an allotted amount of time each day to play her euphonium, she will be content with where she is.