But before I start diving into reasons why I love K-ON!, I give a brief synopsis of the show.
K-ON! is one of your typical high school, slice of life, band orientated anime. Based on a still running Manga and backed by Kyoto Animation (who were also behind hits such as Lucky Star).. The characters Yui (Guitar), Mio (Bass), Ritsu (Drums), Mugi (Keyboard) and Azusa (Guitar) make up the band HTT (Hokago Tea Time) or Afternoon Teatime.
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| HTT! |
K-ON! throughout the two seasons maintains a very good animation quality. The characters are animated extremely well and look like your typical moe characters you've seen in countless other anime. However what I feel that makes the quality of K-ON!s animation above the rest, is the way the musical performance scenes are portrayed. The care that is taken to the way the characters are playing instruments is very good. Particularly the drumming, which is done very very well with every tom tom and snare hit matching the actual song. Guitar and Bass see similar attention (mainly in Opening and closing scenes) with Mio's finger action on the neck mimicking the song (this can been seen in the first opening scene in Season 1)
Voice Acting:
The voice acting is astounding. Not only can the voice actors portray the characters well, they can sing very very well. One thing I always have with anime which features music of any sorts is that the characters normal voice does not match the singing voice one bit (I'm looking at you Angel Beats!). However in K-ON! this is not the case, Aki Toyosaki (Yui) should be given props for being able to maintains Yui's voice in song. What also might come as a surprise is that every voice actors on K-ON! can sing, even the minor characters. So in my book this is a superb voice acting cast
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| Yui |
Story:
Nothing new here, the story is your typical high school slice of life anime with a bit of musical jazz thrown in between. Although the show manages to maintain a light hearted feeling for most of the two seasons, there are times in which it dives into a more dramay tone. Sometimes this pulls off an example being when they have their last performance before graduating, this was very well done. However there are times in which the drama tone only made me cringe and couldn't take it seriously (although this only happened once or twice in the 30+ episodes.
The characters are also nothing special but I managed to get very attached to them after a few episodes, so they must be doing something right.
Soundtrack:
It's an anime about music. If the soundtrack is bad we are in very big trouble.
Overall Impression
Don't get my wrong, K-ON! is nothing new in terms of anime. But I can not think of an anime that I have enjoyed as much as I did watching K-ON! The show never failed to bring a smile to my face. Which was always good when I needed some cheering up. The show is also very nostalgic, it brought me back to the days when I was in a high school, which for me was very refreshing.Would I recommend?
Sure I would, but make sure if you do decide to watch it, make sure your not expecting something revolutionary.
The best way I can describe K-ON! is Lucky Star for people with an interest in music.
So if that intrigues you pick it up.
