It's the final year before Yui Hirasawa and company will graduate, leaving behind a single kouhai to carry forward the Light Music Club. Tea & cakes included! We follow 5 normal highschool girls as they make music, study, worry about their futures, individually and as a whole, deepen their friendships and live their life.
Kyoto Animation's K-On!, whose popularity took many people by surprise, has received a second season, distinguished by the extra exclamation mark. I'll be presenting an unbiased review of K-on!!, followed by a 'personal' view on the anime. This may contain slight spoilers!
Story (7) - K-on!! is a slice-of-life anime about
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highschool girls who form a band. Which means that it is trying to depict what would happen in the normal, everyday lives of 5 random girls who decide to form a band. There is no grand scheme, no overarching plot, and no dramatic finalé. Most people state the K-On!! has no plot development, which is both true and false depending on how you look at it. First of all, there is no major plot to be considered in the first place. Does your everyday life have a grand overarching plot? Mine doesn't. I get up from bed, work, eat, relax and go back to sleep again. So why on earth would you want a slice-of-life show to have a plot?
Secondly, for an anime that's supposed to be light-hearted, there are a few time during the final episodes where one might get very emotional. One such scene for me is the scene where all the girls are gathered in the music room after giving their last highschool performance together. The interactions between the characters and their individual breakdowns in this scene has been so meticulously animated and brought to life, that one 'feels' the characters emotions. It is probably the most important scene in the whole season, as it is the culmination of all their years in school, and the final days of their carefree highschool life. For what it promises, it delivers. It doesn't promise to be a drama-heavy, dialogue oriented anime, so I don't expect that. It promises to be a slice-of-life anime and that, it delivers perfectly.
It is unusual for people to cry during an anime that's supposed to be relaxing and light-hearted, but K-On!! achieves just that. I think when an anime makes you feel deeply for the characters, feel 'involved' with them, it truly is a fine piece of work.
Art (9) - With the second season, Kyoto Animation (or KyoAni as fans like to say) seems to have pulled out all the stops in animation. The details are painfully crisp & neat, and the motions are fluid. Each of the side characters and supporting cast has a unique face and a unique character design. But the sheer detail can only be picked apart with a re-watch and a fine toothpick.The facial expressions are nicely done, but I think the part most people will agree on is the attention to detail paid on the instruments themselves and the finger actions of the girls. The fingers of the girls gliding over their frets and keys or thumping the drums are meticulously animated, and the instruments are as 'real-life' as they get, which makes it a delight to watch.
Sound (7) - The OPs and EDs this time are a tad bit more mature than last season's. That only becomes apparent when you read the lyrics though. But being a music oriented anime, they've belted out an impressive collection of songs, with topics ranging from caramel sauce & strawberry parfaits to rebelling against yourself and showing your deepest feelings for someone you took for granted. And as usual, they are catchy, sometimes even head-banging material.
The OST music is good, but sometimes, they fail to set the mood for the current scene, which is what OSTs are for. Individually, they are nice little pieces of music, but their implementation in the anime sometimes goes off the mark. Of-course, there are also time where the OST is bang on with the scene, which makes it even better.
Character (6) - There is no massive streak of ingenuity visible here. You have the quiet rich girl; the hyper tomboyish girl; the air-headed ditzy girl; the mature girl, and the cat-ears girl. All are pretty generic in the slice of life genre, but what KyoAni does is just add a subtle nuance to each of their traits in the this season which makes it certainly refreshing. The air-headed girl who supposedly should be at the receiving end of pity from the others gets a generous helping of raw talent, which garners her respect; the mature one gets a shy and scared personality, which is a shift from the supposed authority and aura a mature person projects; the tomboyish one shows signs throughout various scenes in this season of considering a more feminine side of her and one who is insecure about her friendships, whilst usually, this personality is depicted as somewhat insensitive; the quiet rich girl, who usually remains a wall-flower, shows us that she has inhibitions, doubts, fears, hopes and dreams like any of us, the nekomimi who usually does generic fanservice, matures into a dependable kouhai, who breaks down at the thought of her seniors leaving and managing the Club all by herself.
Enjoyment (10) - It's a slice-of-life anime about highschool girls, their interactions, their school life and their band. It's about friendship, growing up, leaving behind and having fun while you can. Chances are, if you like any of those above, you're gonna enjoy K-On!!. It is not just a 'moe blob' or 'cute girls doing cute things' all of the time. You have to look just a little deeper to find out that there is much more than that.
Overall (7) - I did the average of Story, Art, Sound, Character & Enjoyment, which came out to be 7.8, but for the critique in me, I've rounded it down to 7. In this culmination, K-On!! doesn't sweep the viewer of their feet, it gently takes your hand and shows you a little side to highschool friendships, memories and youth, and then gently puts you down to reminisce about it. It isn't a story about the music or the band, it's a story about the characters themselves. It's about seishun, as the japanese say, and about how the little things in life come together to make it that much sweeter.
My Personal Opinion - Alright, we're done. You've successfully read through my wall of text and hopefully it wasn't biased. And, I've hopefully haven't blatantly stated why everyone should love or hate this anime, but given you the tools to decide for yourself. After all, I don't believe in reviews unless I've seen the series myself. A review should provide you with more information than the synopsis, and the tools for helping you decide about watching this anime or not. It should not make the decision for you.
As a personal score, I would give K-On!! 10/10. Maybe the fact that I am a highschooler could have influenced this fact too, but there have been very few animes which have affected and influenced me as deeply as K-On!! My first impression was of a feel-good, light hearted, slice-of-life show, which then gave me a big dose of waterworks at the end which was unexpected. There is a sea of emotions beneath the seemingly normal exterior. And normal doesn't always mean boring, does it? Most of us are normal. And our daily lives are sometimes boring too, right? But if you notice, the story in K-On!! could be possible anytime, anywhere. There could be a group of friends in their music room somewhere in this world right now, having tea and chit-chatting about the cultural festival or how tough the math paper was. It's so obvious and common, that many people can't wrap their minds around the simplicity, yet power of K-On!!.
K-On!! also scores points for realism. We don't have fighting robots, werewolves, kids with superpowers or a dialogue-heavy, dramatic and gripping plot in our daily life, do we? So why have things like these in an anime that's supposed to be a slice-of-life? It's meant to be taken with a light mind and soul, that ends up soothing out your mind and refreshing it, leaving you to reminisce, and maybe smile a little at your own highschool life.
~Until next time....
May 18, 2013
It's the final year before Yui Hirasawa and company will graduate, leaving behind a single kouhai to carry forward the Light Music Club. Tea & cakes included! We follow 5 normal highschool girls as they make music, study, worry about their futures, individually and as a whole, deepen their friendships and live their life.
Kyoto Animation's K-On!, whose popularity took many people by surprise, has received a second season, distinguished by the extra exclamation mark. I'll be presenting an unbiased review of K-on!!, followed by a 'personal' view on the anime. This may contain slight spoilers! Story (7) - K-on!! is a slice-of-life anime about ... |
