First Impressions / K-ON!

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Summary
Yui is finally practicing! It’s not going too well though… her fingering is a bit carpal. Actually, it’s so bad, my arthritis started to act up. Mio busts in with unstoppable conviction and declares that since summer vacation is coming up, they need to go on a training camp to prepare for the all-important school festival.

Ooooh school festival…. where the sell a lot of food…

Ritsu wants to do a maid cafe. Wait, really? Ritsu’s stock just shot up in my book, now putting her somewhere between Ayano Minegishi and AIG. Yui yaps about something, but I’m too busy thinking about Mio in a maid costume to care. Mugi shows up on cue to quell the tension and eventually offer her summer villa (of course her family owns one). Did you know they’ve been together for three months now? Three months?! How long did it take Haruhi, like thirty minutes?

But whatever, cuz it’s bikini time. They hop on the train, and spy on Mugi talking in her sleep. Aghhh cuteness overload.

Turns out the villa is huge. Mugi, being the stuck up ojousama that she is, makes a passing mention that it was supposed to be a larger one, but they only let her have the smallest one. Clearly the manga was done before the economic crisis, because feats of lavishness like this one were the first to go. Makes me wonder what her real house looks like – we’ll most likely find out after the onsen ep and the temple visit ep.

The house is pretty stacked, it comes with fresh fruit and crazy marble beef in the fridge. And a practice room! Turns out the reason Mio is so amped to practice was cuz she heard the tape of the previous K-ON club, and they’re much better… Mio hates to lose! It’s just kinda hard when there’s a private beach right outside…

Naturally, Mio’s boobs are amazing, or at the very least, she has boobs, which is more than one can say about Yui or Ritsu… plus she’s wearing that awesome two piece. Chidori’s suit in Fumoffu was probably better, but this is pretty hot too.

Oh, right, they’re supposed to practice. Well, after dinner. And after you have a whole day at the beach and eat a fatty dinner, one is definitely in the mood to practice. After sleeping…

Mio and Mugi do their best to convince the two slackers to practice, but it’s not happening. I should point out that Mio is just wearing some normal t-shirt, but it’s just hanging loosely off her shoulders and it looks really hot. Along the say we also get some preview of Mio in a maid outfit. Does our resident gif maker want a stab at this one?

Cue a montage of Yui going buckwild on her guitar with fireworks going on behind her. Apparently these girls are more concerned with the appearance of a cool band rather than actually playing music. Which isn’t far from the truth given the stuff that Avex is constantly cramming down the hungry mob’s throats.

And then Yui busts out with some actual guitar techniques… Sugeeeeeee
 
Preview

Up next on K-ON!: ಠ_ಠ
 
Thoughts
We all knew the beach ep was coming, but to see it done well was quite nice. The mood of eps 3 and 4 seems to have changed slightly from what we saw in the first two, opting to be more pleasant and low-key rather than the craziness of before. I reckon it’s due to the character that the particular ep focuses on – while the first two seemed to be more on Yui, this week seemed to be more about Mugi and Mio.

It’s a little weird to me how much Mio pimping is going on – I mean, I appreciate it – but it’s like, what if Tsuruya-san got way more screen time? Would she still be so popular, or does by showing her so much take away from what we can imagine her to be? Maybe it’s more like what To aru Majutsu no Index, where Index couldn’t even get screen time in a show named after her. Sorry Yui, you’re great, but Mio is just in a different league.

Yui’s sudden ascention into music genius was slightly odd too, as I expected more of a gradual transition – but then again, superpowers gained in anime are rarely a result of hard work, but rather a effort-inspired passion-filled blaze of luck. Which is probably why this one was weird – Yui just kinda started owning, after sucking for the whole time. Oh well, I’ll probably forget about it by the next ep when she is playing Malmstein.
 
Some more details about my current circumstances: I dropped Haruhi-chan and Nyoron, and will probably be at least a day late on this show from now on because I literally have no free time any more – my new job has me at work six days a week from about 8 in the morning to 9 at night. I’m still blogging K-ON! because it’s a full-length show that’s too awesome to not talk about, and I’m typing right now between water breaks, “I’m prepping for my next session”, and whenever I have time for lunch. So to everybody – I’m sorry, but paying the bills always takes prescedent. I enjoy my job very much, but it’s forced me to cut back on many things, such as blogging. I’ll still try to post K-ON! as soon as possible, but apologies if it’s late!

63 Comments

  4. Don’t worry man, you’re doing fine. Thanks for taking your time for us and for you.

    By the way, I don’t think Yui’s sudden ability came from nowhere. When Mio played the tape, Yui recognized the song, or at least, just like Nodame, the cords (after too much reading and playing them). So, I guess episode 3 did its purpose to Yui.

    Just as kurogane said “KyoAni are mio-fans themselves”

    Syaoran Li
    Reply

  13. Yui could be called a genious for her talent, but I want to believe that the past three months, like Mio said, helped in her skills. Sure, she “forgot everything” after the test, but she already knew the cords and sounds, so… that’s not far from reality.

    Syaoran Li
    Reply

  20. I SOO need a Mio in my life. Someone I can pick on and who can boss me around. Sighs~

    I liked the “awkward” scene. It’s like foreshadowing, except a little more obvious. And I don’t really mind Yui suddenly getting better, because she did recognize the chords (like how you forget thing at the moment but with a reminder everything comes back). It adds to her character: airheaded but has those shining moments of amazing.

    Charlo
    Reply

  22. god I love how they are foreshadowing the maid outfit for Mio(it will show up soon)

    Yui playing well so fast is kind of awkward but the manga shows her practicing alot more then the anime does.

    Raso
    Reply

  30. If anyone didn’t like Mio before watching this……… my God. 😀 😀 😀 I think her tendency to be easily-scared is a bit extreme- it appears as if the creators simply tried to fit in as many mounds of awesome as possible into one character- but this episode really made me appreciate her more. Yui suddenly getting better out of nowhere IS awkward, but eh- I wonder how long they’ve been living in that villa!!

    I’m glad you took the extra time to write a full statement for why you dropped Haruhi-chan… even if it is basically what I predicted. With the DVDs coming out, I predict it’s nearing its end anyway.

    starss
    Reply

  34. Yeah KyoAni is jumping on the Mio bandwagon…. and is anyone suprised, look what happened in lucky star after Konata and Kagami got popular (especially Kagami), their screen time went up, Miyuki and Tsukasa’s went down; some folks fear a repeat of the same thing (But with Yui as the 2nd place and ‘partner’; as seen in this episode there’s minor hints that sent some folks into a panic)

    Though despite how much Mio’s figure is uplayed there isn’t too much of a dramatic gap between her and Tsumugi (Noticable gap between Miyuki and Kagami though)

    And I think the Jaalin’d know well since he covered LS In the past (I’m looking over the past posts to look up some stuff) And to answer Jaalin’s old question of why Miyuki started getting less screen time…. simple KyoAni was too busy as you now put it, pimping Kagami and Konata.

    Also there’s the overlooked fact that it’s 3 months since ep 1-2 in their world, so progress has been made (though Yui does have some talent backing her up)

    Duran
    Reply

  35. Hey, just for your info, I’m a guitarist myself and played for nearly 3 years. But wow, the little solo she played during this episode was insane for the amount of time she played for. You need at least a year to two years (depending on how fast you learn) to play that. Hammer-ons, pull-offs, fast alternate picking bits and sweeps… but she doesn’t know vibrato!? Haha. Well its anime and I love K-ON so its fine.

    I was rather hoping a smooth trend of progression though, the jump in skill shocked me. But doesn’t anyone notice how she wasn’t shown while she was playing the song? Maybe a plot-twist next episode or something?

    I’m currently in the process of tabbing this song, I can pretty much play the first section, now tabbing the sweeps and the ending section.

    Ed
    Reply

  41. Yeah~ Mio Mio Kyun~~~

    For those who haven’t read the manga

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Lalala
    Reply

  44. Aren’t dirty smelly okatu the only people who use the word “moe”? This whole episode makes me think that Ritsu is turned into the ‘girl okatu can relate to’ character i.e. Konata.

    Wererat42
    Reply

  45. Haruhi used moe as well…

    Tomtom; well that’s the way things go, if not Kagami fans going on and on about her it’s Mio fans. And I’ll tell you something funny: I will defend Mio herself; but I will take every pot shot I can at her fanboys.

    Duran
    Reply

  47. To be fair to Yui, I recently started playing guitar a month and a half ago and I can play stairway to heaven, two metallica songs and countless others from start to finish already.

    All it takes is time and dedication and you can accomplish anything. She does seem to be fully into guitaring.

    Bass
    Reply

  48. “Yeah KyoAni is jumping on the Mio bandwagon…” Good stuff. And as a Japanese resident, I swear I saw that train somewhere… I think it was in Tohoku, near Sendai? 2channers, where art thou!?

    shimathekat
    Reply

  55. @fuzzysnowpuffs

    Well it’s been Mio fandom composes of a some true fans, some who seems to like only her archetype and ‘more traditionally japanese or such’ appearence, and some who jump on the bandwagon due to her popularity

    I like them all equally; but if i must choose a favorite; Tsumugi.

    Duran
    Reply

  56. The part where Yui can suddenly play well actually isn’t all that weird…I mean it’s exaggerated for sure, but still.

    Basically, she just had an excellent (but latent) ear. There are many people who learn much better by ear than with sheet music or tabs. The thing they exaggerated on the most was her mechanical ability and technique on the guitar, but that’s forgivable as she definitely seemed to have been practicing quite often on it. So Yui can basically be said to have learned a decent amount of technique, but can’t seem to learn anything because she can’t remember anything she reads or anything someone shows her…but by ear, it’s a whole ‘nother thing altogether.

    So…it’s not quite like a super power suddenly awoke.

    PH
    Reply

  60. Regarding that lick that Yui played that everyone is talking about… it was the same lick that was played in the recording they listened to, so it’s likely that she has a really fantastic ear and pitch/rhythm memory. This is a skill that doesn’t require knowledge of how to read music (or play X and Y chords rofl). So yeah. It’s still really impressive given how long she’s played guitar. But it’s completely feasible given that she has a great natural ear.

    Eclipse
    Reply

  63. Hi. Things are only impossible until they’re not.
    I am from Eritrea and also now teach English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “The bite of a single flea can cause hours and days of.”

    Thank you very much ;-). Keiki.

    Keiki
    Reply

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