K-ON!
| I started K-On! knowing what sort of fluffy show it was, I was prepared for plot-less episodic doses of moe. Coming in with those expectation, although I enjoyed the first half, the later portion still managed to disappoint me. I'm ok with 13eps of cute girls doing cute things. What irked me was the cute girls doing cute things while skipping music practice, justifying it, and glorifying it by saying "you need to have fun from time to time". I've played in bands, and I agree that you can't practice all the time, but stuff related to practice was way too scarce in K-On!. On top of that, the anime tried to portray tea parties and lazing around as something actually better than working on making music together. Some might say that since it's a "light music" club, taking things lightly is fine. But they still managed to give "wonderful" performances in school, which you simply cannot without practice. I seriously hope viewers didn't interpret this as "you can perform well even if you laze around". I pity Azusa, she was brain(cake)washed by the original four boneheads and actually ended up wasting a lot of her time instead of practicing. Some might argue that friends are more important that your hobbies, but I'll point out that Azusa already had good friends, and no matter how much she enjoyed being in the club, the other members who dissuaded her from practicing were actually a very bad influence on her. Basically, as a musician, K-On! was literally painful for me to watch, in ways that non-musicians probably won't understand. What do y'all think about it from the music perspective? |
cent1entNov 14, 2020 1:10 AM
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| K-On is literally "music anime". It's more on SOL and cute girls literally doing cute things, and less of serious music storytelling. Might as well watch something like Beck if you want those. Even so, I do fucking love the music K-On! produces like if you're gonna disagree with it don't do it in front of me. |
TheZilla said: K-On is literally "music anime". It's more on SOL and cute girls literally doing cute things, and less of serious music storytelling. SpaceLemurVG said: The music isn't the focus of the show, it's about the character development, slice of life atmosphere, and themes of growing up and going through high school. I've no problem with cgdct, I've no problem with music not being the focus of it. My problem is how they felt the need to bash on actual proper music playing for the sake of showing all that. TheZilla said: Even so, I do fucking love the music K-On! produces like if you're gonna disagree with it don't do it in front of me. I never mentioned any issues with the music itself. |
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| [quote=Excalibur1702 message=61138903] TheZilla said: K-On is literally "music anime". It's more on SOL and cute girls literally doing cute things, and less of serious music storytelling. [quote=SpaceLemurVG message=61138841]The music isn't the focus of the show, it's about the character development, slice of life atmosphere, and themes of growing [quote=Excalibur1702 message=61138903] TheZilla said: K-On is literally "music anime". It's more on SOL and cute girls literally doing cute things, and less of serious music storytelling. SpaceLemurVG said: The music isn't the focus of the show, it's about the character development, slice of life atmosphere, and themes of growing up and going through high school. I've no problem with cgdct, I've no problem with music not being the focus of it. My problem is how they felt the need to bash on actual proper music playing for the sake of showing all that. Well, it's just a few clowns in a high school club messing around, it was never meant for them to even take music seriously. IMO I find that to be the charm, the fact that they're not taking music to some national or regional level type of thing and just playing a fool of themselves. |
| [quote=TheZilla message=61138981][quote=Excalibur1702 message=61138903] TheZilla said: K-On is literally "music anime". It's more on SOL and cute girls literally doing cute things, and less of serious music storytelling. SpaceLemurVG said: The music isn't the focus of the show, it's about the character development, slice of life atmosphere, and themes of growing Excalibur1702 said: I've no problem with cgdct, I've no problem with music not being the focus of it. My problem is how they felt the need to bash on actual proper music playing for the sake of showing all that. Well, it's just a few clowns in a high school club messing around, it was never meant for them to even take music seriously. IMO I find that to be the charm, the fact that they're not taking music to some national or regional level type of thing and just playing a fool of themselves. I never said that taking it seriously meant taking it to national / competitional levels. The basic requirement is supposed to be a general fondness towards music and the willingness to engage in playing and improving at your instrument. I have no problem with them taking music lightly, but what I hate is how the author went of their way to portray in the second half that slacking off is better than playing music. Portrayal of something bad as a satire or a debate is acceptable, but certainly not as a glorification of it. I know that cgdct are not to be taken seriously, but a basic level of rationality is expected no matter what the work of fiction aims for. |
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| I don't want to watch a moe anime where they actually practise instead of doing fun things okay |
| well, it is only a few episodes covering a whole school year. I imagine those days inbetween episodes might have been spent practicing, with the episodes just highlighting the moe stuff and character development. I think most music anime are like this, I am a musician as well and definately would prefer to see more practice tho. |
_DarkYagami_ said: I don't want to watch a moe anime where they actually practise instead of doing fun things okay yaruka said: I imagine those days inbetween episodes might have been spent practicing, with the episodes just highlighting the moe stuff and character development. I have no issue with the fun things, like I said, I even sorta enjoyed the first half. What I hate is how the author felt the need to portray the "fun shit" as something superior to practising (the whole Azusa arc). |
cent1entNov 14, 2020 7:36 AM
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| Speaking like a physicist would enjoy Steins;Gate, a chemist would enjoy FMA, and a historian would enjoy Fate/stay night. |
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| Finally someone with sense. Just going to leave this here: BanG Dream -> K-ON |
  死神 ❝What do you think are the most important things in life? Money, dreams, sympathy towards others... Yes, they're all important things as well... But the most important thing is responsibility for your own actions.❞ - Yuichi |
hibiker said: I feel your pain @Excalibur1702. I'm a pro musician, and found this increasingly irritating and eventually unwatchable. I absolutely understand that people want to see the characters having fun. But the OP is right. Two of the characters are frustrated by the lack of practice, but they lose the fight and the lazy cake-eaters win. No practice is done. Mysteriously, the music they produce in their rare live performances is a tight, polished j-pop obviously played by extremely talented session musicians who will have done thousands of hours of practice. It is NOT hinted at that the girls have practiced extensively as a band off-camera. The flakey guitar-owning girl practices when she is supposed to be studying but that's it. The rest of the time she looks after her guitar by dressing it up and sleeping with it. It is possible, even usual, to imply that characters spent a lot of time practicing a skill without actually showing it - a sort of Rocky training sequence or something. Or just show them having fun after practicing. But they deliberately don't do this. Instead they show the two girls who have an interest in music becoming frustrated by the lack of practice, and being ground down by their pathetically unmotivated 'friends'. 情けない！ OP, if you haven't watched 'Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the slope)' or 'Hibike! Euphonium' you have a treat in store, they show what it is really like to have an interest in music. Without making the viewer see hours of practice footage. They also have actually 3 dimensional characters with feelings and motivations. I'd be grateful for any other decent musical anime suggestions - I had high hopes for K-On! and it is the worst thing I have watched since I started learning Japanese. Finally someone gets what I mean. Yes I've seen both Sakamichi and Hibike, they are great stories. I'd suggest you watch Kono Oto Tomare, it portrays learning an instrument very realistically. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso and Nodame Cantabile are awesome too, though they deal with different aspects of being a musician. |
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PizzaEater100 said: But if high schoolers not taking music 100% serious upsets you, that's a personal opinion. It does not upset me (100% is overkill anyway), and did not in this case. My issue, as I mentioned, is how the loafer gang made Azusa, someone who was taking music seriously enough, start to slack off from her musical pursuits, which is most definitely a wrong thing to do. PizzaEater100 said: I hate to break it to you, but that's what the majority of friend groups in high school bands do. Umm, no. I've been in a few and have talked to several, and the loafer school bands are definitely not a majority. I still do not have a problem with the many that do exist, like I said, I was ok with (and even enjoyed) the antics of the K-On! loafer gang until Azusa happened. PizzaEater100 said: Try to appreciate the fact that music is portrayed as the unifying passion for all the main characters, and that music is what ultimately gives the directionless and lazy Yui a purpose in life. We both know that the only "unifying passion" and "purpose in life", if any, in this anime was tea and cake. |
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| musician here, and as much as i understand that k-on doesn't do the best of jobs portraying a realistic curve of improvement on instruments, i think viewing the show on those merits alone does a pretty miserable job of seeing what makes it work and overall showcases a lack of understanding of azusa's character arc. yes, azusa does, at the beginning, seem out of place with the light music club and their goals (cakes vs practicing, which is completely fair), and she does blow up on them several times regarding it. some of the characters even have valid concerns (particularly mio) regarding it and want to make the band more serious. meanwhile, azusa goes so far as to try to find another band, one that works for her and has a legitimate practice regimen; she finds many which are better than htt, even. yet, there's something missing from those bands that htt had, even if they've practiced more than htt. that thing is implied to be their bond, one that came from all the screwing around they've done; it's not so much about "not practicing" than making sure that the members of the band enjoy each other's company. i'm sure a high school light music club would prefer to take things slowly and become close friends over becoming the best they could be at the expense of their friendships. this is what htt gives azusa: it lets her realize that there's more to music than just playing, and that enjoying the people that she plays with is just as important in being a part of a cohesive band. after all, the beatles broke up because they hated each other. so did creedence clearwater revival. and i'm sure that the bands you're in are with people you like playing with. also, there is a good amount of practicing that goes on in k-on offscreen; whenever there's wide shots of the school with band-like music in the background, it's practicing. the repetitive and grind-y nature of practicing is probably incredibly off-putting to most watchers, which is why they took it out. i do agree that they could have gone a bit deeper into showing their relationships as they practice, though. |
paleorobot said: yet, there's something missing from those bands that htt had, even if they've practiced more than htt. that thing is implied to be their bond, one that came from all the screwing around they've done; it's not so much about "not practicing" than making sure that the members of the band enjoy each other's company. i'm sure a high school light music club would prefer to take things slowly and become close friends over becoming the best they could be at the expense of their friendships. this is what htt gives azusa: it lets her realize that there's more to music than just playing, and that enjoying the people that she plays with is just as important in being a part of a cohesive band. Balance. That's what's necessary. Music at the expense of friendship, like you said, is definitely wrong. What happened here, though, was friendship at the expense of music, which is just as wrong. "Taking things slowly" is nothing wrong, but the HTT literally went at snail's pace, which was detrimental to Azusa's growth. They could've done a substantial amount of bonding and goofing around, while at the same time, devoted enough time for practicing. "There's more to music than just playing" is something you say when you actually do play, which is something the HTT didn't do enough of. No matter how good friends the former HTT were to her, since they were holding her back from her musical endeavours despite multiple pleas from her, they were a bad influence on her, regardless of how she feels about them. The fault lies with the author who tried to portray this as something actually good. |
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