So K-On! is our journey into Sakura High, where the "Light Music Club" is in need of a guitarist. Yui, who wasn't expecting any of this from the club, suddenly finds herself in a band and cranking out tunes on her lovely Gibson Les Paul.
The story arc is there, unlike some SoL comedies, so that was a big plus for this one. It does a great job of balancing out the main story with happenings and little side stories that add to character development. It's also a fairly good pace since everything being about band struggles would make the story go stale kind of quick (been there, done that). Some of the tropes used in all animes are there, but the show is masterful at how/why they find themselves in these locales. A rehearsal space that's at a beach house is much better than just "Lets go to the beach because...reasons!!" as an excuse to see the girls in bikinis. It has the common elements, but with enough of a twist to make them more believable.
Art was pretty good, but seeing more of the girls playing along with the music would have been nice. It was cool when it did happen, but on a few scenes you felt kinda slided when they would skip the performance. It's not a super big gripe, but I felt it detracted enough from the show to mention it. The instruments all look great and the music videos are so cheesy that they are just freakin awesome....but I'll save that for another section.
Sound...the acting and of all things the FREAKIN MUSIC is AWESOME in this anime! Yeah, the OP is a little poppy, but a lot of the songs have a kick to them and are well-composed. I would argue that the ending theme "Don't Say Lazy" is perhaps one of the coolest songs from an anime I've ever heard (even better than "Between You and Me" from Kuragehime, my previous favorite). To get off that for a moment, the voice acting seemed pretty good in the sub (which I opted to watch instead of the dub). The girls personality and cadence shines through despite the language barrier for me, so it makes the sub pretty enjoyable to watch. I'd highly recommend skipping the dub on this one, not sure how they handled the songs they performed, but that may be interesting to watch (I'm guessing they just did them in Japanese). The song titles are hysterical as well (My Love is a Stapler!!), but I can't talk enough about how much I like "Don't Say Lazy", just do yourself a favor and jam out to it when you get a chance.
Characters were neat and enjoyable, though the mix on some of their personalities seemed to be strange choices (Mio is a scaredy cat?). I really thought the dynamic was fine from the get-go with all the girls, but later on Azusa seemed to be a pretty useless addition IMO. She's kind of mousy and quiet like Mio, but without as much focus on success or artistic brooding. They tried to take Mio and mix her with some Yui moe elements, but it feels like she gets in the way all the time. Why mess with something that already works? It's like making Pinky and the Brain and Larry...all you are adding is more characters for a couple of moe jokes that just felt useless. Every time I look for merchandise, I always want it with just the original 4 girls. Azusa aside, all the other side characters seemed to fit and felt natural. I'm a bassist so I think Mio is cool, but I really do like all the girls (except Azusa).
This show totally deserves a perfect score on enjoyment from me. The music is great, the stories and jokes are enjoyable too. The band elements and musical jokes/references make it all the more entertaining for me since I play bass and guitar as well. I'm sure the story arc has been done before, but it felt more unique than many of the SoL comedies I've seen before so it was a welcome change of pace. You get excited to watch the show and it makes me want to pick up my bass or guitar afterwards and jam!! Definitely puts me in a good mood.
All in all it's a great show, definitely worth watching if you are into SoL comedies and a MUST see if you are a musician in any capacity. Get ready for the songs to be stuck in your head for days on end, but the thing is you enjoy having them in there! I'd say the only negatives are the performances they skip in the show and the addition to Azusa which I felt was the big blow to this anime. Without Azusa being in there, I would have given this show a 10 overall, which I don't give out lightly. She'd make a better side character or perhaps a fill-in or sub for Yui in an episode or two, but making her a main character just felt like dead weight. It's a shame, I really wanted to give this show a 10. Don't let that keep you from watching it though, I loved it so much that I bought a t-shirt!!
