First Impressions / K-ON!

「お留守番！」 (Orusuban!)
“Staying Behind!”

Azu-nyan says, “Live long and prosper!” Actually, no she doesn’t, but I can always pretend that she did when she taught some guitar finger stretching exercises to the first-years in Jun’s Jazz Research Society club. Anyway, as some people already suspected, this episode entailed what went on concurrently during Yui and the others’ time away from school. It wasn’t a terribly funny showing since Yui and Ritsu weren’t around, but it did focus entirely on Ui and Azusa with Jun bringing a few of their temperaments. Seeing as stupidity and humor tend to go hand-in-hand, this includes Jun struggling with the aforementioned stretching exercises, sampling every doughnut in the “Super All-Star Pack” she brought over, falling asleep wherever, and giving Azusa a good kick in the face on the morning of their sleepover.

In the first case, I thought it was cute how Ui was rocking it with ease because she practices with Yui. Other than a prank left being by Ritsu in Mio’s desk, a lot of the extra comedy actually came from the photos and text messages Azusa received from Yui via e-mail while she was in Kyoto with everyone else. The best ones out of the lot were undoubtedly Mugi’s pillow fight, which left me wondering when Yui had a chance to take such an awesome action shot, and the random out of the blue message “sharekoube” (skull). The latter of course is because we know it was when everyone was trying to freak out Mio in the middle of the night. Aside from that, the actual phone call that Yui made to Azusa when they were lost was shown here as well. In particular, it showed just how fast she hung up on Azusa as soon as Mio asked how the hell calling her would help, so I got a good chuckle out of that.

On the cuter side of things, Azusa was absolutely adorable when she felt left out and wanted to go to the zoo, only to have rainy weather spoil those plans. Likewise, when she figured they’d forget about getting her a souvenir, as a tear rolled down her face in the background. It was just a thought in Azusa’s mind as she talked things over with Ui, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for her there. As for Jun, her impulsive nature of reading a baseball manga and then suddenly deciding to go to a batting center because they can’t find the sixth volume in Yui’s room turned out to be a Ui highlight, as she picked it up just as quickly as Jun and Azusa gave up. It was also kind of cool seeing a different band composition when Azusa remembered to check up on Ton-chan, even though they didn’t really rock it up K-ON club style.

Finally, I thought it was rather befitting that Azusa’s souvenir ended up being the character “bu” in the cell phone straps/keychains that spell out “ke-i-o-n-bu”, simply because she usually gets the “buta” (pig) costume. Next week looks like an exception though, as Ritsu’s in it as the rainy season continues. The bigger thing of course is that Yui’s in a maid outfit. I doubt she’ll match up to Misaki, but she’s more than welcome to try.

 

Preview

64 Comments

      1. I didn’t it that way but the way I saw it she was shocked by the weirdness of the 4 which made her hesitant to join.

        On a side note I’m curious of whether that was the same organ used for the ED.

        megalith
        Reply

      2. did we even see her enough to claim she was fake? she was barely a side character until now.

        seemed to me other than she decided the Keion-bu wasn’t for her, she was always just unseen in the background hanging out with Azusa and Ui.

        smith1
        Reply

    1. Pw3age: “Jun seems kinda annoying to me.”

      Not as annoying as Ritsu IMO. I like Jun better because she’s not the moe-blob material (though the show was trying to make her moe). I like her messy hair & the tone of her voice. And she also seems a little bit…fat (to me, of course) Her ‘ugliness’ is the real beauty to me. 😀 Looking forward to see her more in the next episode. (I can’t stand Ritsu. I really want to strangle her)

      Darn it! I can’t do the ‘finger stretching exercises’ thing D: It’s hard to relax my ring finger while doing it. It always got stiffed up. ):

      Name
      Reply

  8. “Azu-nyan says, “Live long and prosper!” Actually, no she doesn’t, but I can always pretend that she did…”

    LOL!! The entire episode I was waiting for the phone call Yui made just to get a kick see what their reaction is. XD

    megalith
    Reply

  12. That kick the can joke in the beginning was pretty funny. An exaggeration, but I daresay a (small?) one, when all they tend to do is sit around and have snacks! 😛

    Sentinel
    Reply

  13. FLCL eyebrows?!? I know how the juniors felt when trying to find something to do on a rainy day. I wonder if Ui and Jun are gonna replace Mio and Mugi later on when the seniors graduate.

    fall3nbs
    Reply

  19. Would have been interesting to watch this and the previous episode in reverse order, leaving the viewers all confused about that “sharekoube” message and at the same time serving as a preview for the field trip.

    NecoDelero
    Reply

  22. It was weird to see Ui questioning her ability to be able to play music with Jun and Azu-nyan when she was better with the guitar than Yui in the previous season 😛 Pretty cute episode, but I really missed the seniors, even though Yui was still around to provide us some funny moments with her messages and that phone call in the end ^^

    Jurkasz
    Reply

  23. It was fine for me until mid episode. For some reason the pacing got me overly anxious. Wanted to see Ui, Azu and Jun playing music together so much that got me desperate. They could do it in the jazz club (no), in Yui room (no), when they got out and ended batting argh. Finally remembering カメ (Kame) save the day and finally palyed together at the keion club !!!! Too bad it was so short *sniff oh well….

    Island Esper
    Reply

  25. I see Kyo-Ani is setting Jun up as a regular character, seeing how she’s also in next episode’s preview. I think she’ll fill in Ritsu’s dumb-ass comic relief role during her absence just fine.

    Animation this episode, while still good, has gone done a bit for Kyo-Ani’s standards – the background characters hardly moved while our girls were talking with each other in an early scene.

    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2005.jpg

    Such is Kyo-Ani’s usual attention to detail that we’ve now taken moving background characters – which I understand is no simple task itself – for granted in their shows. It probably has more to do with the allocation of budget resources than animators slacking off.

    When Ui realizes she won’t be with her sister for the night, for a while I thought she might go all yandere and demand her onee-chan back. I must stop confusing fanon for canon. lol
    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2008.jpg

    It’s been ages since I last played the guitar out of fun, but I’m amazed I can still do my Vulcan saluting finger exercises quite well. XD

    Ui again is a dead ringer for her sister in this bedroom scene.
    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2021.jpg

    Already I envision a K-ON spin-off – Yakyuu Musume Ui (Baseball Girl Ui). 🙂
    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2029.jpg

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  29. What’s most amazing to me about the anime is how well it’s doing when not based on source material. Very little of the field trip is in the manga. The train ride there, talking with Sawa chan at night (no pillow fight) and the left-handed instrument joke for Mio is basically all that was in the manga. And this episode wasn’t shown at all in the manga. But both episodes were very enjoyable. Maybe I’m just too used to shounen filler being terrible, but they had to add a lot into these episodes and I couldn’t tell that it was “filler”.

    Eaglestrike
    Reply

  35. “People always say I look like an anime figurine, so I hate [my hair].” -Azusa

    That had me lol’ing, considering the popularity of Azusa figures (and all K-ON! figures in general). Azusa with her hair down is so cute. For some reason, it reminds me of Konata from Lucky Star. Must be the hair length and her bangs.

    Kevin
    Reply

      1. This tune is originally from famous thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s opera “The Village Soothsayer”. The Japanese made lyrics for it about 50 years ago and made it a play song.

        DC/AC
        Reply

  39. “The bigger thing of course is that Yui’s in a maid outfit. I doubt she’ll match up to Misaki, but she’s more than welcome to try.”

    Misaki is the Tiger tank (tough as nails personality-wise but has her precision moe moments) to Yui’s M4 Sherman (average-looking at first but she can overwhelm with a flood of moe).
    (Pardon the WWII/Company of Heroes-style analogy.)

    Azu-nyan with her Rapunzel hair down and showing her cat girl side again (Nya!) = DO WANT!

    https://randomc.net/image/K-ON/K-ON!!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2007.jpg
    Is the drawn face a Detroit Metal City reference?

    Incognito
    Reply

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