K-ON!!

Title:K-ON!!
K On! 2
K-On! 2
けいおん!2
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables:
The four (+1) girls of the K-On light music club are now seniors in high school as their story continues for another season.
1:30min English TV Opening 1 - YouTube Video
1:30min English TV Ending 1 - YouTube Video
1:30min English TV Opening 2 - YouTube Video
1:30min English TV Ending 2 - YouTube Video

[edit] The ↗K-On franchise:

First season:
  • (2009) K-ON! (1st season, 12 TV episodes)
  • (2009) K-On! TV Special (1st season "episode 13", 1 TV special)
  • (2010) K-ON! OVA (1st season "episode 14", 1 OVA episode)
  • (2009) Ura-On! (4-koma scenes, 7 short DVD special episodes)
Second season: Movie:
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 8 8 8 7 7 9 Devil Doll [series:2301#752]
[Score: 77% = "Rent"; similar girls-only high school friends story: Azumanga Daioh (TV)]
Azusa is the star of this season, and her dealing with the four senpai graduating is the core of this story. Having four times as many episodes for just one school year inevitably results in more school-related stories and fillers while rarely focusing on the band's development. But these deficits are compensated by giving the super moe kouhai Azusa and Ui more airtime and even several feature episodes, letting Ritsu mature significantly, and making the School Fest a double highlight.
Art and Animation are much like the first season (with the animation being used only rarely for actually showing musicians playing this time); Music is not as good (the OP a trash metal piece with Yui's kiddie voice which I'm fast-forwarding since episode 5, the ED a decent song with Mio's more mature vocals and as such still a highlight of some weaker episodes, sigh). Story is different from the first season, with more fillers but more development of bonds between the band members as well. Characters are maturing now, most notably Ritsu, and even Yui has some serious scenes (such as writing "U & I") while Mio and Mugi are getting less important; the occasional focus on the three kouhai results in the episodes with the least degree of embarrassment and slapstick, and as such the most interesting ones for me.

What's probably unique about this series is how much it deals with the high school days of the four senpai coming to an end (even at the expense of skipping several months of time during the last year while showing assorted final days in full length). Thus strongly emphasizing the "soon everything will be over" feeling over several episodes in a row makes the second half of the series very emotional.

Third year in high school:
  • Episode 1: (0) Entrance ceremony, recruiting new members. Not much happening, and getting only a few seconds of the concert was disappointing.
  • Episode 2: (-) Cleaning up the club room, and several stupid decisions. Ugh, this season begins really bad.
  • Episode 3: (+) Drummer/Drama, and the first good episode this season, putting both the band and their musicians back into the focus. (Just wondering: Why doesn't Ritsu have a solo part in any song so far?)
  • Episode 4: (0) School trip to Kyoto. Lots of ruckus but Mio becoming a bit more relaxed was nice.
  • Episode 5: (+) The three kouhai. Very moe and even interesting, and with some music. More of this please!
  • Episode 6: (0) Rainy day. Slice of life filler but at least with some focus on being musicians.
  • Episode 7: (--) Tea Party. Embarrassing personality cult.
  • Episode 8: (-) Career Plan. Embarrassing childhood memories.
  • Episode 9: (0) Finals. It hurts to watch Yui but Azu-nyan kept this one from being another failure.
  • Episode 10: (+) Teacher. Decent story plus music, that's what I want this series to be.
  • Episode 11: (--) So Hot! Something's not right with this episode when I'm just longing for the ED section to run.
  • Episode 12: (+) Summer Festival. Lots of details and nice jokes without embarrassing scenes, just a little rushed. This episode's content would have been worth a double feature, and in fact I watched it twice in a row.
  • Episode 13: (0) Late Summer Greeting Card. Pure slice of life, including many weird summer dreams of Azu-nyan some of whose origins are explained later during the episode.
  • Episode 13.5: (-) Overseas trip planning, see K-On!! OVA.
  • Episode 14: (+) Summer Training. One of the better episodes, featuring a surprisingly weird Mugi and providing more character relation than slapstick.
  • Episode 15: (-) Marathon. Another Yui episode full of nonsense.
  • Episode 16: (0) Senpai! Frustrating, kind of a summary for the whole series. Being an Azu-nyan episode saved it from getting a "-".
  • Episode 17: (0) No Clubroom. The 15 weakest minutes of this series, followed by a surprisingly strong turnaround by the character you'd expect that the least.
  • Episode 18: (0) Lead Role. Mostly unfocused but does have its moments, with Ritsu growing more than Mio this season.
  • Episode 19: (+) RomeJuli. School Festival Part One. Good job, everyone.
  • Episode 20: (++) School Fest Once Again. The final HTT concert with two new songs; the highlight of this season.
  • Episode 21: (-) Yearbook. Filler episode about Yui's hairdo.
  • Episode 21.5: (-) Club recruitment video, see K-On!! TV Special 1.
  • Episode 22: (+) Admission Exams. A Valentine's episode without boys. Very emotional.
  • Episode 22.5: (0) Visiting Sawa-chan at home, see K-On!! TV Special 2.
  • Episode 23: (+) After School! The final day at school, a long farewell that worked surprisingly well.
  • Episode 24: (++) Graduation Ceremony! More tears, and several well-earned memorable presents. What a great ending for this story!
While I was hoping for more music this series made up for this by focusing on the friendship theme, thus providing a Azumanga Daioh (TV) variant without any annoying character. The final episodes are filled with girly tears but I like it this way.

Last updated Tuesday, July 09 2013. Created Tuesday, April 05 2011.
Unevaluated 8 8 9 8 8 8 Dreamer [series:2301#2279]
More K-On goodness! Yeah!! So, I got a bit excited when I picked this one up. Somehow, I loved the first series and getting this one was a no-brainer.

Art, Animation & Character Designs
Love the artwork again. It seemed the background artwork had slightly improved. At least it seemed more rich in color, detail and depth. Animation was definitely slightly improved.... smoother. As for our characters, all of our girls were still super kawaii and charming as hell.

Music
The OP again wasn't of my tastes but it wasn't bad overall. A bit too cute for my tastes. The soundtrack elsewhere was more or less similar to the first series. The ED was actually pretty cool. It was a rock-ish piece with female vocals similar to the ED found on the first series. Not bad at all and ok enough for me to sit through a few times listening to it.... which is rare for me.

Series and Episode Story
Our girls are back for another installment of fun. Again, these were all episodic with no plot to speak of. But, that's ok, because the episodes themselves stood on their own. They were all fun to watch with plenty of kawaii moments and silly antics.

Overall, is was more or less similar to the first season.... just new episodes. If you enjoyed the first series, you'll enjoy this one for sure.

Last updated Thursday, November 11 2010. Created Thursday, November 11 2010.
Unevaluated Silence [series:2301#2939]
Same old antics. Same old fun. More later

Last updated Thursday, April 15 2010. Created Thursday, April 15 2010.
Watch Stretch [series:2301#628]
(Watch+)

(All episodes watched):

'Looks like pretty much the same as before--which is good news and a relief for me. I settled back into viewing mode for this show without the slightest friction or hesitation, except perhaps for having a slightly hard time accepting new OP and ED songs for this music-oriented show. Yui has improved her skills tremendously, I also noticed. The goofy girls realize that with Azu being the only non-senior, the club will cease to exist unless new members are found this year; so far no luck. I have no complaints and will gladly watch this.

This seems like an all-about-nothing show, that is, a slice-of-life series with little or no longterm plot and no major crises to be dealt with. Just the goofy antics of the girls. That's largely OK, though it does get a little tiresome now and then. Episode three got a little tedious but episode four, about a school field trip to Kyoto, was great fun as the girls goof around in unfamiliar surroundings. Some episodes take off running and keep me thoroughly amused, while others barely cause me to crack a smile. During the good ones, I get the feeling that the quality of K-ON in regards to comedy and writing is definitely a level or two above what is normal in anime. During the less good ones, I feel as if three-fourths of the effort was concentrated into half of the episodes, and the remainders had to make do with whatever was left.

Anyway, episode 26 did a good job of finishing the series off. Something must have been done right, because at the end I felt sad to see the girls go. I don't know if I'll ever rewatch all 52 (or whatever) episodes, but I don't regret doing it once. Perhaps this was an example of the finished product being greater tham the sum of the parts.

Last updated Friday, October 15 2010. Created Friday, April 09 2010.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org