First Impressions / K-ON!

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Summary
Wait, this again? Oh well, no complaints. It’s time for the second annual training camp, except this time they’ve got their spry new recruit with them. The episode starts off with a little cordial meeting between Ui and Azusa – they meet up at the wacdonalds and proceed to do what girls do best – talk shit about their friends – until Ritsu shows up and starts dominating the disucssion. Then, they head over to Ui’s house. Which makes me wonder, what were they planning on doing if Ritsu hadn’t shown up? Neither Ui nor Azusa seem like the frivolous shopper type, and two girls together don’t usually go watch a movie (at least not in anime), and while they could’ve gone to karaoke, they don’t seem like the kind of girls to just let loose and blare it out. I could see a quick trip to the batting cages, with Ui clapping on while Azusa gets all serious about hitting a 40mph fastball.

At any rate, they pack up and head to the beach, this time to a newer, larger location – but still not the large place Mugi was talking about last time. No marble beef this time, but some nice beach chairs and a freakin’ yacht were sent over, which got Mugi even more riled up than the first time. Ok, another pause here – Mugi has no problem talking about how crappy her gigantic summer villa is, but then goes crazy when there’s marble beef in the fridge, or a yacht in the bay? I don’t get it. Maybe she’s not old enough to understand real estate yet. They spend the rest of the afternoon doing what anime girls do at the beach – splashing around in the water while mindlessly tossing a beach ball around, making sand boobs, and otherwise showing off their extremely well planned and well designed swimwear and hairstyles. As usual, it’s very generic fare, but as usual, no complaints from me.

For some reason, they stop frolocking and go back inside to practice. While using one of her fancy schmancy tuners, Azusa discovers that Yui has perfect pitch, which continues to build the Yui mystique. Maybe she’d be even better with an LSD-soaked bandana.

Practice goes well, but then Ritsu gets hungry, so they head off to make some food. Mmmm food. Gonna go get a volcano burrito after this.

After dinner is some dinky fireworks, and then that damn kimo dameshi (test of courage) that happens in every anime. Except there’s no guys to rape raep reap the benefits here. Some shadowy, not all that scary figure emerges from the bushes… it’s Sawachan-sensei. Probably should’ve gone with the girls in the first place, cuz they we might’ve been able to see part 2 of that Lucky Star Initial D race. Afterwards, bath scene with too much fog, and a sensei with itchy fingers.

And finally, a late-night practice session between Yui and Azusa. More hugging opportunities!
 
Preview

Up next on K-ON!: Told you not to sleep with the guitar…
 
Thoughts
This was just about the most generic episode possible, which is probably a good sign of things to come. Well, we’ve yet to see a “visit Mugi’s house” episode, but we’ve seen two summer villa episodes, so maybe it won’t happen. Here’s to hoping Mori-san is the head maid. At any rate, with all the generic stuff out of the way, there should be nothing left but straight up musical performances, right? Right??!

Repeating an episode doesn’t really happen all that much in anime, does it? I mean, we’ve seen this exact episode before, except this time with a new character. But the stuff they do is like exactly the same. I mean, the episode was enjoyable, but I hope this doesn’t set a prescendent.

Some other things:
– Mugi is quickly becoming the dark horse to be the best girl here. Mio’s been played out, Yui is too one-dimensional and her guitar talent seems unnaturally tacked-on to her character, we don’t see enough of Ui, and we see too much of Azusa. From her hilarious scene last week to her clear costume superiority during their first live, I gotta say, Mugi’s come on strong! Her hairstyle this week was <3
– Fetish flashes: I kinda noticed this in the earlier episodes, but by now I’m convinced – the director is some kind of master at pleasing everybody. I’ve already mentioned the amount of delicate hands and fingers we seen in this show, and now it’s clear that there’s at least a few feet and ankle shots every episode. Having Azusa be the only one with the super tan and not anybody else, even though Ritsu and Yui arguably spent the same, and perhaps more time in the sun shows that they’re trying to play the tanned loli girl card (previously seen in Love Hina, Ai Yori Aoshi, etc). I’m sure there’s plenty more I haven’t caught on to yet.
– Yui continues to impress with her seemingly natural ability to own at guitar. I’m not sure what to think of this – I guess I was expecting her to practice real hard (which she might have, we just haven’t seen it until this episode), but that wouldn’t really fit with her character, so it’s kinda convenient to make her some kind of Japanese schoolgirl Yngwee Malmsteen. I wouldn’t know what perfect pitch is unless it hit me in the face at 100mph, but supposedly she’s got it, so that’s cool.
– I hate cutting onions. I have really sensitive eyes, so I really hate it.
– Their kebabs are poorly made. Assuming they eat it from top to bottom with no removal of pieces, having a piece of corn in there would just screw up the whole continuation, wouldn’t it? Corn takes so much longer to eat than the rest of it, so by the time you finish with the corn, the things under it are cold. BBQology 101, take it.
– I ask again, what the hell is the point of the test of courage without guys around? There wasn’t any sexual tension or anything. I mean, I realize the whole point was to scare Mio, and to that extent it was a rousing success, but damn, so much unrealized potential here.
– Not enough sensei. Or at least, it felt very tacked-on. It’s not the first time it’s happened (she showed up late to the Christmas party and totally messed with the flow then too), so I guess it’s intentional, but it still doesn’t feel right. Which wouldn’t be a big deal in most other anime, but this is a KyoAni production. It’s all about feel with them…

3 episodes to go, and uh… I wonder what kind of crazy shit Amae Koromo is gonna pull! Can’t wait can’t wait

51 Comments

  11. The thing is that they’ve been following the manga the entire time.
    KyoAni is so faithful to the manga that the faults everyone is finding is basically the faults of the manga. Even most of the jokes are the same.

    Alphonse
    Reply

  15. at last it came, haha

    well this show is about club music right?

    but t why do they skip the music scenes..

    anyway it was hilarious when the red arrow was pointing at mio when running scared…

    Kimnu04
    Reply

  19. Eh, I don’t like Azusa’s tan. There’s a pretty looking tan, then there’s the “you look like you got barbecued” tan. It looked like the later, though it might have been because they gave a little shade of red to the brown but that’s just me.

    And if anything, this episode establishes how awesome Yui is. Heck Yui is number 1 on the latest K-ON rankings (Mio is only second). Go Yui!

    fragbet
    Reply

  32. Jaalin, Sawa-chan gatecrashing in both the Christmas party and the beach outing was taken directly from the manga, so you wanna blame someone for breaking the flow, blame it on Kakifly, the mangaka.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  40. Anyone know the intended ep count for this series?
    I always expected it to be 13 and have been enjoying it with that in mind, but with eps like this it makes me fear they’re going for 26 eps, which would be overkill for a series like this.

    blinx01
    Reply

  41. Jaalin,
    taking it as an opinion, i see, good.

    Taking it as an advice is… this would only apply for comparison with similar series… it’s new… new is good. The good thing about being new in the business (i consider KyoAni to be new on the business) gives you the advantage to experiment with new things… and who knows, it might actually result good. Up until now, everything looks great.

    Xanathos
    Reply

  43. Perfect pitch is the ability to be able to recognize and even generate pitches (or notes) on the spot without any kind of a reference.

    Someone with a bit of musical training and perfect pitch would be able to tell you (without any reference) the note you played on a piano, and would be able to tell you whether it’s out of tune or not (a bit flat? a bit sharp? etc).

    I think statistically, one in ten thousand people are gifted with perfect pitch.

    They can tune their own instruments without tuners and have a natural ear for music.

    PH
    Reply

  44. I don’t think there is enough material yet for 26 episodes. They’ve currently done 20 chapters of the manga. There are a total of 15 more chapters and specials (short extra chapters) out up to June of this year. With that they could do maybe 8 more episodes including whatever is published in July for a total of 18 episodes. As it stands now, I don’t see them animating more than 8 more chapters so they’ll be at the end of Volume 2. Since they’ve managed to make most of the episodes worth two to three chapters each, getting though 8 more chapters will take three or four more episodes…so a total of 13 or 14 epidose for the season, and enough lead time for the manga to generate enough material for an additional 13 episodes…at the most…unless the plot starts to follow the girls after graduation, or focuses on Ui and Azusa’s last year of high school.

    ithekro
    Reply

  45. >>3 episodes to go, and uh… I wonder what kind of crazy shit Amae Koromo is gonna pull! Can’t wait can’t wait

    Jaalin, blog Saki! Also, before Amae, it’s the president’s turn to use her glowing blue hand and destroy everyone at her table.

    kage
    Reply

  48. it’s too late to blog saki, and i have no idea how to play mahjong. all i know is that its extremely moe when saki says ‘rinshian tsumo dora dora’

    Rejoice, for Koromo’s l33t ability doesn’t require you to know mahjong.

    Peanutbutter003
    Reply

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