K-On!

A fresh high school year always means much to come, and one of those things is joining a club. Being in a dilemma about which club to join, Yui Hirasawa stumbles upon and applies for the Light Music Club, which she misinterprets to be about playing simple instruments, such as castanets. Unable to play an instrument, she decides to visit to apologize and quit.

Meanwhile, the Light Music Club faces disbandment due to a lack of members. This causes the club members to offer anything, from food to slacking off during club time, in order to convince Yui to join. Despite their efforts, Yui insists on leaving due to her lack of musical experience. As a last resort, they play a piece for Yui, which sparks her fiery passion and finally convinces her to join the club.

From then onward, it is just plain messing around with bits and pieces of practice. The members of the Light Music Club are ready to make their time together a delightful one!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The series received a Best TV Animation Award at the 2010 Tokyo International Anime Fair.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	K-On!
Side story:	K-On!: Live House!, K-On!: Ura-On!
Sequel:	K-On!!

Itou, Mika
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Hatta, Youko

Producer

Nakamura, Shinichi

Producer

Sgroi, Victor

Assistant Producer

Yamada, Naoko

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

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Opening Theme

"Cagayake! GIRLS" by Sakurakou Keion-bu (Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hisaka, Satomi Satou, Minako Kotobuki)

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Ending Theme

"Don't say 'lazy'" by Sakurakou Keion-bu (Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hisaka, Satomi Satou, Minako Kotobuki)

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Reviews

Aug 22, 2013

UnknownUser-

Recommended

Mod Edit: Minor Spoilers mentioned.

I'm just going to say this straight away: These kind of animes bring out the silly little girl in me. And as I'm a 19-year old guy, it's kind of an unexpected thing, even for me. And I mean this in the most positive way possible.

"K-On!" follows the story of Hirasawa Yui, a girl who lives a life similar to your average person on the net, except for the internet part. It's difficult to explain without using the words "carefree" and "lazy". In a way, she probably reflects a majority of people I know, including myself, except for the fact she ... doesn't really have any real life issues other than school. This changes however when she decides to join the Light Music Club, where she now has to learn and play guitar. We also got 3 other characters that will be focused on: Ritsu (drummer), Mio (bass), Tsumugi (keyboard), followed by another one half-way through the first season, namely Azusa (guitar). Inbetween their "goal" to reach fame, they have a few concerts and a lot of fun. Quite lovely.

The story itself is memorable, but unoriginal and consisting mostly of filler to build character. However, I myself don't consider this to be a bad thing at all. With animes like this one, filler is what pretty much drives it, and I love every single minute of it. Each episode being just as silly, and if not even sillier than the other. Although it doesn't beat Lucky Star, but if you've seen that, you know that's a difficult thing to do.

The music itself is great and quite catchy, but I'm not a big fan of Yui's singing. I know this might piss some people off, but hey, it's my opinion, and I prefer Mio on the mic anytime. The first ED is in this case also my favorite song in the anime, "Don't Say Lazy". The instrumentals are great, although not that original, but still enjoyable.

The art is cute and silly, and like I said before, combined with cute voices I often find myself randomly squeeing simply because of how cute it is. If it didn't have that factor, I would be far less interested in this anime. There are animes for all kinds of people, be it sci-fi, action, romance, drama, adventure, etc. But for me, comedies are my thing because they distract me from how stupid life can be from time to time.

The characters in this anime are a lot of fun, and very different in personality. We got Yui who, as we know, is carefree and quite lazy, and tends to be awkward on the weirdest of times, but in a cute way. Then, we have Mio, who's pretty much the opposite of Yui, shy and easily scared. Ritsu is energetic and a bit of a devil when it comes to pranks, especially aimed at Mio as they are childhood friends. Tsumugi, who's not as energetic as Ritsu, but still enjoys the little things in life, and she's also the "rich kid" as you may call her, but thankfully you won't notice that in this anime. And later on we get Azusa, a very serious junior girl, but also easily distracted and really silly at times.
All the characters share one thing: They're happy high school students who like to play music. The bond they have is emphasized in the anime, as each episode tries not to leave anyone out. And once again, that's one of the things I love about it.

"K-ON!" is not for everyone, but if you like cute and silly characters with a cute and silly story, then I definitely recommend giving it a shot. Just don't expect any real seriousness, except for when they prepare for concerts. For me, it's a proper balance of a funny story, with funny characters and fun music. It's definitely not original, but as long as it's executed properly, it doesn't have to be, as long as it's fun. And yeah, like I said pretty much a million times... This anime sure is!

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Jan 4, 2010

thepapercut

Not Recommended

This review is going to be broken down into the 5 parts that MAL focuses on with each section getting critiqued.

Story:
As you know by the description on the anime's page, K-on is suppose to be about Yui Hirasawa and joining of saving of her high school's light music club, with the problem being that Yui has never read music or knows how to play a guitar. Slowly a few of these problems get cleared up but the main bulk of the plot goes no where whatsoever. You can come in at any episode and still get what's going. The anime is heavy on the theme ... "light and fluffy." to which when watching it you don't have to know anything nor necessarily be there the entire episode to know what is going to happen and that's the main problem, like every other "moe" anime it's generic and predictable in the events category.

Art:
This is probably the biggest problem with the show in my opinion, the art. Seriously I can guarantee you that the studio used a step by step handbook and stencil set to create yui, mio, ristu and mugi, it's what is seriously killing the industry today in my opinion...generic characters. There is nothing that makes any one character in K-on stand out. The backgrounds themselves are nothing to praise about either as they are the standard school, bustling street/shop and from time to time inside one of the girls home scenes. To sum it up the art lacks originality and there is no direction for it.

Sound:
This is probably the only place that K-on climbs up outta the rubbish category. The times that you hear music made by the club it's actually not that bad and can be catchy at times, and with it's suppose plot revolving around music you'd think to hear it a lot but it's quite the opposite, the girls spend more time sitting around being airheads then trying to do anything music related.

Character:
What can I say,all of the characters of K-on have traits that superficial. They all are generic and no one has anything that makes them unique or stand out.

Enjoyment:
After watching 13 episodes, I can say overall the enjoyment was just another thing including original art and characters that the show was missing...I mean it was boring and painful as well as predictable to watch.

Summary:
K-on is a light and fluffy fan service anime to which it hosts no original art and set of characters. If your looking for something to which you don't need to think or understand maybe you'd enjoy k-on but even then your going to have to endure lackluster scenes of boring pointless conversations to which watching windows screen saver can provide more enjoyment.

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Jun 19, 2009

Splitter

Mixed Feelings

Spoiler

If K-ON! is the future of slice-of-life moe anime, then the genre is dying. Now, I myself am personally a great fan of the niche genre and have delighted in viewing many anime falling under it, no matter how silly or inane. That's because I don't mind having to turn off my brain to enjoy anime, but I expect to be compensated for doing so, be it by making me laugh, warming my heart, or leaving me with something to remember. K-ON! splendidly failed in all three ways multiple times throughout, and came off as a shoddy effort all around.

Because a slice-of-life moe series is ... often devoid of any ongoing plot of significant importance, it must rely on the day-to-day circumstances of the characters, presenting them in new and inventive, yet somewhat familiar ways in order to keep attention. Surprisingly enough, K-ON! follows a linear, though loosely connected story, but does nothing of interest with the day-to-day circumstances. It's as if the staff decided that it was okay for the girls to be lazy and uneventful because it's slice-of-life, to which I must say "NO NO NO"... had to get that out of the way. I'll be serious now.

Likewise, the characters need to be interesting enough to actively engage in following their exploits. Harsh as it may be to say, it was a waste of time to follow around a main character like Yui. I could rant for hours on end about Yui, but to sum her up, she's a mentally challenged nutcase. Now, I can excuse character stupidity as long as the main character has qualities that redeem said stupidity, be it fierce independence, reliability, or if it's made clear she's meant to be the butt of everyone's joke. Yui has none of these qualities. She is an idiot, and no one ever discourages her from being an idiot. Minor spoiler alert, but it must be said... I am absolutely furious at the gall the staff had to have Yui comment in Ep. 12 about how much she has changed. In the entire series, she does not grow even a little. What a crock.

Enough about Yui though, there are other characters to focus on; all of who range from average to above-average. They're all likeable too, but far too simplistic. With no real inventiveness to the situations they end up in as previously stated, I had expected their personalities to be clever enough to make up for that lack. In this, the staff succeeds to a degree, but nothing comes from it. Everyone is essentially the same at the beginning as they are at the end and there is very little proof that any of them have grown as friends, regardless of what the series wants us to believe.

In the matter of technical aspects, K-ON!'s fluidity is remarkable but the style is such that it comes off incredibly choppy, and at some points downright ugly. It felt as though Kyoto Animation spent a ton on making it fluid and in doing so, took from the budget that allowed for the actual artwork itself, excusing the instruments which often look better than the girls themselves. While this tradeoff doesn't work entirely, it could be far worse. In addition, because this tradeoff comes from animation maestro Kyoto Animation, it is doubly worse.

Though this is a show about a music club, the BGM is boring. Thankfully, a killer OP/ED combo and some fantastic inserts make up for that. On the acting front,the amateur seiyuu all sound like younger versions of already successful seiyuu, like how Mio's seiyuu Yoko Hirasa sounds not-too-surprisingly like a younger Aya Hirano. This isn't to criticize their talents, though. The fact that these newcomers are so lively and fits their character perfectly from the start is a compliment, one of the few I have given the series.

From all of the above, K-ON! to me came off as a cheap way for Kyoto Animation and Pony Canyon to make money. There is little effort, the characters are rather flat and unchanging, and everything in the news about it from merchandise tie-ins to Oricon charts leads me to believe it's one giant marketing ploy rather than an honest effort of a series. For this, I cannot say I enjoyed all of it, though it was good sporadically. However, as I said in the beginning, if these shoddy attempts at slice-of-life moe are what we as anime viewers choose to support and demand more of, we are killing the genre as we speak.

Overall, I give K-ON! a 6 out of 10.

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Poll: K-ON! Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) DaBigD - May 21, 2009	238 replies	by UnknownGhost5 »» Today, 3:21 AM
Poll: K-ON! Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) game8910 - Jun 18, 2009	307 replies	by Szomszedo »» May 26, 1:08 AM
Poll: K-ON! Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) kawaiisakura05 - May 14, 2009	236 replies	by UnknownGhost5 »» May 25, 12:20 PM
Poll: K-ON! Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Sonja - May 7, 2009	361 replies	by UnknownGhost5 »» May 23, 11:35 AM
Poll: Do you think K-On! is a slice of life anime? MAL doesn't think so. fluffycow17 - Jul 3, 2022	38 replies	by Ionliosite2 »» May 22, 2:21 PM

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