Mizore Yoroizuka

Mizore Yoroizuka (鎧塚 みぞれ) is the recurring character of Sound! Euphonium series, and the main character of Liz and the Blue Bird film.

She is a second-year student (a third-year student in Liz and the Blue Bird and Sound! Euphonium: The Movie - Our Promise: A Brand New Day) who plays the oboe in Kitauji High School Concert Band.

Appearance
Mizore is a fair-skinned girl with straight medium-length blue hair that has strands framing her face, with bangs cut evenly. She has cherry-red eyes.

She is usually seen with a standard Kitauji High School uniform for girls.

Personality
Mizore is a very silent girl, and despite seeming to be distant towards others, she has a close friendship with Natsuki Nakagawa, Yuuko Yoshikawa and Nozomi Kasaki. She likes practicing the oboe alone outside the classroom, and frequently arrives early to school, hours before the start of her classes, to practice. Mizore is the only student to arrive at school even earlier than Reina Kousaka.

Chronology
As a minor character in season one of the anime, Mizore had a very small role with no speaking lines. She was present as a cameo in several episodes, occasionally seen quietly playing her oboe.

In the theater version, there is an additional scene where Mizore speaks with Yuuko, which takes place before Yuuko asks Reina to purposely lose in the audition.

In season two, Mizore is revealed to have had a fallen friendship with former band member Nozomi Kasaki after the schism of the previous year. Nozomi now wishes to rejoin the band because of the new attitude of the ensemble under Noboru Taki's direction. Because of Mizore's extremely high value to the ensemble, due to her soloistic playing being a huge contributor to the band's overall success, Asuka Tanaka refuses to allow Nozomi to rejoin the band out of concern that Mizore will be emotionally compromised. However, due to an unexpected move by Nozomi to talk to Mizore causing her to run off, the latter managed to talk things out with Nozomi and restore their friendship. It is also revealed that Mizore played the oboe for the sole reason that it was the only thing that connected her with Nozomi.

In Liz and the Blue Bird, Mizore and Nozomi's friendship develops further. Mizore becomes less dependent on Nozomi and decides to go to a music school after graduating, while Nozomi decides to go to a regular university.

In ''Sound! Euphonium: The Movie - Our Promise: A Brand New Day'', Mizore and Nozomi perform the flute and oboe duet in Liz and the Blue Bird.

Etymology

 * "Mizore" may be a partial anagram of Nozomi Kasaki's name, with two of the three kana syllables matching: "Mi-zo-" — "-zo-mi".
 * Mizore's surname Yoroizuka means "armor" (鎧) (yoroi) and "mound" (塚) (tsuka/zuka).

Trivia

 * According to the official Sound! Euphonium novel website:
 * Her favorite colors are blue, navy blue, and ash.
 * Her hobby is hanging out with her cat at home.
 * Her special skill is playing rhythm games, and she is strong at playing strategy games.
 * Mizore marched with pom-poms during SunFes, as oboes are not marching instruments.
 * Mizore doesn't speak at all in the first season of the anime.
 * According to the interview in the theater pamphlet, they said they didn't want to make her speak because the second season wasn't confirmed at that time.
 * Despite Mizore's lack of meaningful role in the first season, she appears in many official artworks and brief movie frames as some sort of hint for season 2.
 * Mizore, Nozomi Kasaki, Natsuki Nakagawa and Yuuko Yoshikawa graduated from Minami Junior High School.
 * There is an additional scene in the theater version where Mizore talks with Yuuko, but her VA is uncredited (which is now revealed to be Atsumi Tanezaki).
 * Based on the scrape patterns on her reed in the first episode of the second season, it can be seen that Mizore plays on the short-scrape style reeds common to European players.
 * Mizore's oboe playing has been praised by Noboru Taki as always being perfectly in tune, but Masahiro Hashimoto has commented that it lacks emotion, yet he notices how her musical expression changes when Nozomi returns.
 * Additionally, Mizore can play a little bit of piano as shown in Liz and the Blue Bird.
 * According to the second light novel, she had to learn how to play the piano for her exam.
 * Mizore likes soda-flavored sweets and carbonated juice, while she dislikes places with poor radio signals.