7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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 | 96% |
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
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
If you have kids in your local public school system, and if that public school system is anything like the one in Portland, Oregon, you are probably reeling from budgetary issues which have done everything from cut manifold teaching positions to significantly increasing class size. It’s somewhat maddening to a person like myself, someone who makes his living both from writing and music, that the first classes cut always seem to be the Arts. That’s certainly the case in many schools here, where old standbys like Band have become extracurricular activities and ones which require a hefty fee to be paid to even have your child participate in them. This kind of short sighted perspective which seems to think that a well rounded education needn’t include the “finer” things like music or painting may come back to haunt us someday, and if for no other reason than that is celebrates the joy and camaraderie of making music, the weird little anime series K-On! gets my vote for “best subliminal message” ever in an anime. This sweet and sometimes bizarrely funny anime is being released in multiple volumes on single Blu-ray discs that each contain four episodes, as well as some relatively paltry supplemental material. Vol. 1 established the main characters, a gaggle of girls who want to reestablish their school’s “Light Music Club,” and took the girls through their first halting steps of learning various instruments and slowly getting to know each other. As was discussed in the review of that first volume, K-On! is not exactly the most complex anime ever released, but its very simplicity is extremely charming, and the series does very well within its limited scope. The best thing about K-On!, and something which repeatedly shows up in this second volume, is its odd but sometimes hilarious sense of humor, which spills out in both hyperbolic dialogue as well as some appealing visual approaches that give the entire series a somewhat surreal feeling at times. While nothing much ever happens in any given K-On! episode, and in fact over the course of the entire series so far, it’s still a largely enjoyable ride and it of course posits a world where learning and playing music is an important part of being a fulfilled human being, something which deserves special accolades in this world where Arts education is increasingly becoming something rare and deemed unnecessary.
I may have been a little unfair to the first volume of K-On!, or perhaps this second volume simply offered more colorful sequences, but while not really innovative or overly creative, this Blu-ray's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 looks really sharp and has nicely robust hues quite a bit of the time. The best elements are the "live performance" sequences, which almost look like they were culled from motion capture elements and which feature some bright colors and very sharp detail. There is still the tendency not to provide a wealth of facial detail at times and to sketch in backgrounds, but overall this is an appealing looking series that is well represented on this new Blu-ray.
As with the first volume of K-On! 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. While there's nothing really egregious to complain about in either of these tracks, and voice work is clear and consistent in both of them, as was mentioned in the review of the first volume of the series, a show emphasizing music the way this one does, the lack of a lossless track is fairly inexplicable. Both of these tracks are at the very least acceptable, but a lossless track would have certainly upped the musical elements at least, and every episode of K-On! has at least some musical elements. Mixes are virtually identical in both the English and Japanese dubs, and both feature very good to excellent voice work.
Maybe it just takes a little while to totally give in to K-On!'s inherent sweetness and goofiness, but I found myself quite a bit more captivated by this second volume than I was by the first volume of the series. The characters are enjoyable and distinctive, the humor is often quite winning, and the visual style, while fairly traditional, is colorful and nicely designed, albeit minimally at times. But best of all, this is a series about the joy of making music, and that element can't be underestimated. Anything that encourages kids (and dare I say parents and school administrators) to offer music education is a good thing, at least in my not so humble estimation. For that reason alone, K-On! is Recommended.
2009
2009
2009-2010
けいおん!
2009-2010
けいおん!!
2010
けいおん!!
2010-2011
(Still not reliable for this title)
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