7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It's Yui Hirasawa's first year in high school, and she's eagerly searching for a club to join. At the same time, Ritsu Tainaka, a drummer, and her friend Mio Akiyama, a bassist, are desperately trying to save the school's light music club, which is about to be disbanded due to lack of members. They manage to recruit Tsumugi Kotobuki to play the keyboard, meaning they only need one more member to get the club running again. Yui joins, thinking it will be an easy experience for her to play the castanets, the only instrument she knows. However, the other members think their new addition is actually a guitar prodigy...
Starring: Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hikasa, Satomi Sato, Minako Kotobuki, Ayana TaketatsuAnime | 100% |
Foreign | 97% |
Comedy | 23% |
Comic book | 22% |
Teen | 13% |
Music | 4% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Pop bands created expressly for television are certainly not a new commodity. The 1960s and 1970s saw two Top 40 hitmakers in The Monkees and The Partridge Family, both “manufactured” bands that were created with market share in mind and cross-promotional purposes in the grand scheme of things from the get-go. The Monkees famously rebelled against their handlers, leading to the rather quick demise of the group after two years straddling the top of the pop charts. The Partridge Family was more compliant, perhaps due to Shirley Jones’ long professional career, but even they (or at least Jones and stepson David Cassidy) seemed to bristle at least a little bit when it was suggested they weren’t really singing and/or playing on their big hits. In one of the supreme ironies of this sort of weird subunit of pop culture fame, The Monkees’ Swahili Don Kirshner evidently wanted that group to record “Sugar, Sugar,” which they resolutely refused to do, adding to the devolving relationship between Kirshner and the “Pre-fab Four”, a relationship which soon completely dissolved in acrimony. Kirshner decided he had already helped create a manufactured real life group, and it would be just as easy, if not easier, to manufacture an animated pop group, and so The Archies were born, taking “Sugar, Sugar” to multi-Platinum status and the bizarre distinction of being the only fictional band to ever score the best selling song of the year according to the Billboard charts. The Archies opened up a whole new subgenre of pop music, with a number of animated groups coming along, even if none of them ever had even the one-hit wonderment of The Archies. And following that now long tradition is the Japanese anime K-On!, a sweet if largely uneventful series that follows the adventures of four high school girls who join the “Light Music Club” and embark on a song filled journey as they get to know each other better. There’s not a heck of a lot to K-On!, but its generally sweet demeanor which skirts around the edges of traditional moe, keeps it light (no pun intended) and easily watchable, even if as in the case of a lot of pop music, you don’t remember much about it after it’s over.
K-On! is not the most incredibly detailed anime ever released (even within the confines of the Bandai universe), so its AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1, while fine by its own standards, probably won't overly excite "outsiders" to anime television series. This is a rather surprisingly uncolorful series, albeit flashes of deeply saturated hues come into play as the girls choose their instruments, and the episode featuring the girls working as waitresses has some nice diffuse light effects which help to give some visual variety. The image here is suitably sharp, but this is anime that has not been overly developed, so frequently whole faces go blank, features of various sets are left to the imagination, and there simply isn't a huge variety of detail within the drawings themselves that the Blu-ray can exploit.
Bandai only provides two lossy tracks on this Blu-ray, the original Japanese track, and an English dub, both in Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes. There's nothing hideous to complain about in either of these tracks, and voice work is clear and consistent in both of them, but for a series emphasizing music the way this one does, one has to wonder why at least a stereo LPCM uncompressed track wasn't provided in at least one of the languages. These are both completely serviceable tracks without having much of a "wow" factor. While the music elements sound fine, there's a lot of great power chord guitar playing going on here, and a lossless track would have emphasized the low end especially, upping the allure of this release considerably.
An Interview With Stephanie Sheh (1080i; 10:21) who voices Yui in the English language version, is kind of fun. It's absolutely amazing to hear how deep her real life voice is, considering how high and squeaky Yui's voice is in the series.
There's nothing very earth shattering about K-On!, but this is a series that should appeal to moe fans as well as young girls. The series is sweet and good natured, with just a dash of silly comedy highlighting the proceedings, and the stories move along swiftly and easily, if often with little to no consequence. This is a sort of middling show that isn't amazing but is so unassuming that it's hard to be overly critical of it. Some fans may balk at paying a premium price for a Blu-ray that only includes four episodes, but if you need some undemanding anime to while away an hour or two, K-On! could be just the ticket. Recommended.
2009
2009
2009-2010
けいおん!
2009-2010
けいおん!!
2010
けいおん!!
2010-2011
映画 けいおん!
2011
らき☆すた
2007-2008
Suzumiya Haruhi no shôshitsu / 涼宮ハルヒの消失
2010
2007-2008
Essentials / 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱
2006-2009
2013
Essentials / 日常
2011
2007
のんのんびより りぴーと
2015
2008-2009
2010
Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! | 中二病でも恋がしたい! | Collector's Edition
2012-2013
2012-2013
2008
Anime Classics
2008-2009
中二病でも恋がしたい! 戀 / Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren
2014
たまこまーけっと / Tamako Maketto
2013
Standard Edition
2011
2013
Classics
2006