The setup is a high school concert band that wants to get to nationals…and there are maybe two pieces of music in the entire show? This was not good. The whole thing is focused around mysteries that the main characters get distracted by when they're supposed to be making music. They're not even *interesting* mysteries. Every one is the same: Stump the two self-appointed detectives until some *deus ex machina* reveal lets them solve it. Character development is mostly nonexistent. I'd award an extra point for having a queer MC, but the show never actually does anything with that fact after establishing a love polygon in episode 1 (which persists for the rest of the series, unmentioned except for a couple throwaway comic bits).

On P.A. Work's conquest of being a studio that puts out either good or awful shows, HaruChika joins the latter ones. It really comes off as a poor man's KyoAni work mixing together Sound Euphonium and Hyouka, along with the most boring mysteries ever.