Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Anime Quick Look: K-ON!


I was hoping that K-ON! would be Beck v2.0, or at least Beck Lite. K-ON!'s premise of four girls forming a band in high school had great potential of unfolding into something very interesting. But unfortunately, it's nowhere near the epic musical journey that Beck (the anime, not the artist mind you) was. You see the screen shot above? I wish it was more like that, and less like this:


I may sound a little harsh on the anime series that came out this past winter season (really, it isn't too bad), but it's only because I came in with a certain expectation that the anime would be about music. Instead, I found out that K-ON! is simply a wannabe Ichigo Mashimaro/Lucky Star mash-up with guitars thrown in occasionally. Heck, the main characters spend over half the show drinking tea and eating snacks.

If this was The Mild Adventures of Four Girls During Teatime, it would make sense. But I wouldn't watch it either.

Unfortunately, all of the good stuff in K-ON! is crowded out by all the moe-moe (translation: cutsy) stuff that were thrown in. Plus it doesn't help that 99% of the characters are about as two-dimensional as the art. What little plot or tension there is comes across as rather forced, or just absurd, which cements K-ON!'s status as Yet Another Generic Anime.

If there's one thing to see from K-ON!, it's the ED song and animation. K-ON! provides some safe fun and tons of moe for those who like it, but don't expect anything more.

[EDIT 1/8/10] - Ok, I was smoking something when I wrote this. Disregard most of what I said here. If you come in without any expectations, K-ON!'s a fun slice-of-life show that's really charming.

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