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K-ON!
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Moe, singing, schoolgirls.
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:CreationDate: 2012-09-23 19:39:10
:Id: anime/review/k-on
:tags: - anime
- review
:rating: 3.5
:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/k-on
The setup: the "Light Music Club" at the high school risk disbanding,
since there are only two members instead of the four required by the
school rules. Ritsu and Mio are therefore looking for anyone who'll
join. A third girl, Tsumugi, gets convinced to join, but they're still
short one member. The clueless and klutzy Yui needs to join a club,
any club. A match made in Heaven? Not exactly, since the only musical
"talent" Yui has is playing castanets.
The story: the four girls (five, later in the series) play songs,
write songs, and do generally cute things. Don't expect much character
development, or serious challenges. Do expect lots of moe :) In fact,
most of the episodes are not much about songs, they're more about
day-to-day events in the lives of the characters, and the overwhelming
cuteness of it all.
The work behind the series: Kyoto Animation (Fullmetal Panic, Haruhi
Suzumiya, Lucky Star, Clannad) does, as usual, a great job designing
and animating the characters; a bunch of musicians give us bubbly
girly songs. The English voices are a bit weird, to be honest: they
sound the wrong age… but then again, I find most English dubs
seriously lacking. To get the full moe effect, you really need to
listen to the original voice actresses.
The results: if you don't like moe, run away now. Seriously, there is
no other reason to watch this series. Yes, you do get a few musical
numbers, but not near enough to warrant watching the whole thing, you
could just pick the soundtrack discs. If you liked Ichigo Mashimaro,
you'll almost certainly like this: the characters are older, but the
cuteness is of the same calibre, and there's the same lack of real
plot. Not that this, of course, prevents the series from selling
well: this is another purely commercial product, aimed at a specific
market, and it works pretty well at that.
