K-on got a second season. And a spin off. And a sequel. And to put a cherry on top of the sundae, it got this movie!
And because I'm masochist, I decided to watch it.
The plot [if you can call it that]: The girls have completed their university entrance exams and want to celebrate and so organize a trip to England. In most anime, the class trip would be covered in one or two episodes. K-on decides it wants to gut it's fans for every cent and make it into this 2 hour long pile of shit. Now, don't get me wrong, I like slice of life. I understand there are limits to the plot and drama that goes on. However, in the case of K-on there is no plot at all. There's no conflict, there's no character changes during the movie. I can think of a thousand things we can do with this movie. Maybe some of them are nervous about going to college. Maybe they're worried their friendship won't extend outside of high school. Perhaps even they have disagreements about where the band should go -- oh wait they ALMOST do that. Instead that ends up being a 30 second scene where they disagree on what music to play. During PRACTICE. The most 'conflict' that goes on is them trying to get a present for their kohai that their leaving behind.
Art/sound: As much as I would like to say everything about this movie was awful, I'll admit the animation is very fluid and solid. Kyoani, no matter what, your music scenes are always simply amazing. Oh, but where my bitching comes in is for the music. You'd think an anime about a girls in a light music club would have a lot of music scenes right? them playing their instruments showing off their skills. But no. Out of two hours, and I timed this, the amount of time we see them on screen, playing instruments, is 11 minutes, 11 minutes exactly. 11 MINUTES OUT OF A 2 HOUR MOVIE. I understand those scenes probably cost a lot of time and effort, but that doesn't excuse that I'm watching an anime about girls in a band who don't play their fucking instruments. Oh but if you wanna see them eating snacks or drinking tea, don't worry! that takes up 13 MINUTES 25 SECONDS. I timed it, They snack LONGER than they play their music instruments. K-on is not k-on. It's cake and tea club. And the fact that they point it out DOESN'T MAKE IT OKAY.
Characters: You know, in a show like this, there's a lot of potential for characters to evolve and change. You have a group of girls, coming of age, in a tight knit 'band'. There's so much potential for character arcs, personality changes, and so on. Yeah. Too bad we don't get a single moment of that! They stay exactly the same. Don't even try to argue this. From season 1, all the way to this movie, all the characters stay the same, ditsy/airheaded girls that they are. Not to mention how interchangeable and 1 dimensional their personalities are from the start. You'd barely notice of Mugi started acting like Yui. All of them have the IQ of a duck, want to drink tea and eat cake, and make stupid mistakes. I don't get the waifu wars over these girls when they're all pretty much cardboard cut outs. And you know what? This, this is where my problem with K-on lies. It's fine if a slice of life has little plot, it's even okay if they don't play their instruments that often. But, when your characters are created solely because that's how japanese boys want them, cutesy, ditsy, and airheaded, doing nothing but drinking tea and eating cake, that is where it goes wrong. They aren't characters. They're fanservice girls. They exist on the same level as shounen females with large chests.
Overall: This movie is awful and represents very much every issue I have with K-on in one ass-numbing long movie that didn't deserve to be made. They don't play their instruments, the characters are vapid and 1 dimensional, and nothing happens.
