Series Review: K-ON!
I’ve been watching K-On! since episode one started airing. Been following it every week, and I have to say, it has been one of the more enjoyable anime of this season!
K-On! follows four high school girls who get together and form the “Light Music Club”, which isn’t light music at all, it’s actually a full band. Overall it’s almost like a “Slice of Life” anime, as it just follows their daily adventures, but throughout the school year they have a goal: to be able to perform live on stage at Budoukan.
The series starts with Yui Hirasawa (Yui) as she first enters high school. She’s never participated in a club before, and she really wants to join one. After searching around, she sets her heart on the Light Music Club, but in her mind she believes the Light Music Club plays “Light Music”. She doesn’t know how to play any instruments!
She checks out the club, and there she meets Ritsu Tainaka (Ritsu), Mio Akiyama (Mio) and Tsumugi Kotobuki (Mugi). Ritsu and Mio have been friends all through school, and Mugi just joined the club as well.
Ritsu plays the drunks, Mio plays bass, and Mugi plays the keyboard.
Yui, having not played in a band before, doesn’t know how to play any instruments, nor does she have any of her own. She ends up choosing to play guitar, so their first challenge is to go out and buy her one.
They all decide to work part-time jobs to try to raise some money to help Yui buy her guitar.
Overall, the rest of the anime plays out the same, covering their daily lives and random mishaps and adventures they go on. Twice during the series they go out to a villa owned by Mugi’s family to practice, but spend the entire time playing at the beach or just having fun.
About half way through the series, they’re at the end of their first year in high school and they play their first live performance on stage at the school festival! It goes very well, except for one little mishap at the very end ;)
The next episode, they are in their second year of high school, and they’re taking new recruits to the Light Music Club! One person joins them, Azusa Nakano (Azusa) who also plays guitar and joins their band as a fifth member.
The series continues in its usual genre covering random adventures they take and their daily lives right up until episode 12, where they are at the end of another year of high school, and they play their second live performance at the school festival!
Overall, I enjoyed the series very much, it was extremely fun to watch and had many moments that were really funny. I would watch it again :)
The first opening to anime is good. It changes on episode 9, when they start their second year of high school and Azusa joins them. The song doesn’t change, the animation changes to add Azusa into the existing opening. I like how they did that!
The ending, however, is by far my favorite ending of this anime season! “Don’t say lazy”, it’s a very catchy tune that will stay stuck in your head forever! And the animation of the ending is really good, the clothing they wear and the way it plays out, it looks almost exactly like a music video!
Hey, theres still one episode to go, you know.
It’s just a “for the lulz” episode, it doesn’t have anything to do with the story, AFAIK. In any case, I don’t think it’s going to be so earth-shattering that it’ll ruin his review, lol.