Hirasawa Yui, Akiyama Mio, Tainaka Ritsuko, Kotobuki Tsumugi, Nakano Azusa
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「主役！」 (Shuyaku!)
“Leading Roles!”
It’s a play for the school festival from the seniors’ class, where majority voting lands Mio the leading role as Romeo. That’s not all that surprising given her fan club, but her manzai partner Ritsu is forced to play Juliet.
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「部室がない！」 (Bushitsu ga Nai!)
“No Clubroom!”
No clubroom evidently means an informal school tour for us, as the K-ON club tries to find another place to practice. On some level, it was more like they were looking for a new place to have a tea party while repairs were being made to a leaky water pipe.
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「先輩！」 (Senpai!)
“Senior!”
Yui’s whipping out stickers and plastering them all over the place, making her primed for a future career as an elementary school teacher. Musician? Pssh… If this episode hinted at anything, it’s what each of Houkago Tea Time’s band members will likely wind up as.
As some people are already aware, the K-ON live concert that took place at the end of last year at Yokohama Arena was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 30th. It was near the end of this live event that the surprise announcement for a second season was made. While that came as a pleasant surprise, the concert itself was what I dying to see at the time and here we are six months later. Most of Houkago Tea Time’s songs were performed to a karaoke backtrack with the seiyuu only pretending to play each of their characters’ instruments, but they did learn how to play a couple of songs themselves. The actual live music performances were saved until near the end of the concert, but things started off with a bang and an opening performance of “Cagayake! GIRLS” after a crowd countdown.
Yokohama Arena’s max capacity is 17,000 for those wondering, and by the looks of it, it’s a sold-out crowd they performed in front of. One side of the arena was sectioned off for the stage area, but I’d wager that there are at least 15,000 attendees at this concert. When things are put into that perspective, it’s pretty easy to see why K-ON!! is airing on 28 different stations right now.
*Note: Lots of videos after the jump and not recommended for those without the bandwidth speed to handle it! I was pretty aggressive with encoding, but you’re still looking at 20-30MB per video.
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「マラソン大会！」 (Marason Taikai!)
“Marathon Rally!”
I can’t say it’s surprisingly to find out that a group of girls who sit around eating cake and sipping tea all day isn’t the most athletic bunch, but Yui takes it to a whole new level of struggling during a 4-5 kilometer marathon run.
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「夏期講習！」 (Kaki Koushuu!)
“Summer Course!”
We’re past the halfway point of this sequel’s run, which means we have new opening and ending themes! I don’t know what the deal is with getting Toyosaki Aki to sing high pitched songs this season, but “Utauyo!! MIRACLE” has a very similar sound to the first opening, “GO! GO! MANIAC”.
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「残暑見舞い！」 (Zansho Mimai!)
“Late-Summer Greeting Card!”
I never thought I’d describe an episode about our favorite light music band as “trippy”, but that’s exactly what this one revolving around Azusa felt like as she kept zoning in and out of daydreams.
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「夏フェス！」 (Natsu Fesu!)
“Summer Festival!”
For an episode centered entirely around attending a huge summer music festival where tens of thousands of people camp out on a mountain, things were surprisingly uneventful in K-ON land.
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「暑い！」 (Atsui!)
“Hot!”
This is the first time I recall K-ON feeling very gag-like, but I sure as hell could watch another three months of Mio with Azusa’s hairstyle, Ritsu taking slaps to the face, old rickety fans exploding, and Sawa-chan complaining about how selfish everyone is.
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「先生！」 (Sensei!)
“Teacher!”
It’s the return of Sawa-chan to her heavy metal days, but I couldn’t help but picture an entire nation of Mio lovers in complete shock after she stated she has no interest in boys. Say it ain’t so Mio!