My day started a little rough, so I thought that I more than deserved a moment to wallow in the pure fun of the K-ON! anime. Volume 4 was the perfect thing to put me in a good mood (although I think I’m a little tired of “Fuwa Fuwa Time” now…)

In Volume 4, the girls perform for the second time at the school festival, and we learn that Yui’s flakey-ness is a lifetime achievement. And we get two bonus episodes in which they spend some random winter days and perform their first show outside school.

I’ve said it before, if you don’t like K-ON!, there’s nothing I can say to change you to suddenly liking it. If you do like it, there’s nothing I can say that you haven’t already thought for yourself. “Gosh, Yui’s a flake,” “Azusa’s cute when she’s all blushy,” “Why has no one killed Ritsu yet?” “Why is Mugi not the Governor of Tokyo?”  I have no doubt that you’ve thought these things as well. Well…okay, maybe not the last thing. If you’ve thought anything about Mio and the word “waifu” you are not welcome over for lunch. Sorry, I have to draw the line somewhere, even on delusions. ^_^

Entertainment ought to be entertaining and this volume put me in a better mood than I had been in before I watched it. That’s a win in my book.

Oh, Yuri? Yui asks for a kiss when she’s reunited with Azusa, does that count? I don’t think so.

Ratings:

Art – Still  5
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 5

Overall – 8

Many, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsoring today’s review, and improving my mood significantly!

Although I already reviewed Volume 3 of the K-ON! anime, I finally had time to sit down and enjoy the supersonic movement of the year with the girls in K-ON!, Volume 2. From their first school festival, (and getting Sawako-sensei as their faculty advisor,) to a whole new school year and a new member, all in a few short episodes.

I love the gags about Sawako-sensei’s years in the Light Music Club. Something about the idea that she was once a heavy metal rocker cracks me up.

For fans of the series, the important point of this volume is the appearance of Azusa, her experience seeing the Light Music Club the very first time and being totally blown away. And, really, who wouldn’t be? They are ridiculously cute and their music is fun and goofy.

As for Yuri, other than the relationships fans have made up in their head…there is none. And that’s okay by me, honestly. This series works best when it’s about a bunch of friends in a band.

Ratings:

Art- 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 4

Overall – 8

The K-ON! Movie is debuting on December 3rd in Japan, so I expect we’ll be seeing more of the girls for some time to come. No complaints from me. I’m looking forward to some new songs, too. ^_^

Thanks once more to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for his kindness and generosity in sponsoring this review! To join the list of Okazu Heros and Superheros on the right-hand sidebar here, just purchase something from the Okazu Yuri Wishlist, and you too will enter the Hall of Heroes!

(I apparently never watched or reviewed Volume 2 of this series. Woops. I’ll do that asap.)

Summer has arrived for the girls in K-ON!, Volume 3 and, with the arrival of new recruit Azusa, they get to relive all the same moments of their first summer together over again!

And then there’s wacky old Yui, who still knows nothing at all about her guitar. Hee Hee. And let’s never stop mentioning Mio’s underwear, shall we?

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the band goofing off, not practicing, playing ball on the beach, etc,etc, but storywise, you have to admit, it does look a lot like the same episodes over again at this point. The big difference is this time they get a band name at the end of it.

Once again, I did not watching the dub, as I never do, nor did I listen to the interview with Ritsu’s dub actress. I did watch the English dub version of “My Love is A Stapler,” which my wife and I both thought sounded like a high school girl singing a song, so A for verisimilitude, but C on sounding good.

The thing is, the characters hit me in the right places and regardless of how utterly stupid, repetitive, superficial or banal this series is, I’m going to love it. There is no objectivity in me. ^_^

By now you either like the series, or not. If you’re waiting for me to convince you, I got nothing. This series is a feel-good piece of fluff and not a deep philosphical look at the meaning of life. Or, it’s a deep philosophical look at the meaning of life and I don’t care.

Of this series I said once that it is, like Mugi’s treats, refreshment not nutrition. I stand by that. As a day-at-the-beach-with-cotton-candy-and-fireworks of an anime, it just hits the spot every once in a while. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Seriously? It’s moe. The backgrounds are rendered with loving care and the characters are blob-faced. 5
Story – Either you like this kind of comedic hyper-realism or you don’t. This time, I like it – 7
Characters- Separately, they are all kind of annoying. As a team, they work for me – 8
Yuri – 0, see below
Service – 98%, because Mio’s underwear! and Yui hugging Azusa obviously means they have bodily-fluid filled sex, duh.

Overall – 8

Many, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsoring today’s review and making me whistle “Don’t Say Lazy” all day. ^_^

You may have noticed recently, I’m soliciting more Guest Reviews. There is one very serious reason why – I love Guest Reviews. ^_^ I’m not being facetious, I really do love having the pleasure of reading your thoughts, and deciding for myself whether I agree with you. As I always say, Okazu readers are really smart, interesting people. I may not agree with you – but I love hearing what you have to say. ^_^

In the case of blockbuster series K-ON!, you may remember that I heard rumors about the Blu-ray…and I don’t watch dubs, so returning Guest Reviewer Marc M. is here to cover these two very important issues. But before I do, I just want to tell you, in case you wondered, common wisdom says that Yui is playing a Cherry Sunburst Epiphone Les Paul Special 100 and, because otaku are easily influenced, TBS actually sells a Hirasawa Yui model.

For those of you who missed it, here is my review of the regular DVD (and subtitles, rather than dub.) 

And now, I will turn it over to Marc!

*** 

Many people have been slamming the Blu-ray version of K-on!, so I’m here today to see if it’s as bad as some make it sound.

The story is about Yui Hirasawa (Aki Toyosaki/Stephanie Sheh) a new high school student who ends up joining the light music club because she thinks it plays easy music. There she meets Ritsu Tainaka (Satomi Satō/Cassandra Lee), Mio Akiyama (Yōko Hikasa/Cristina Valenzuela), and Tsumugi Kotobuki (Minako Kotobuki/Shelby Lindley). They become fast friends, and Yui becomes the guitarist in the band the other girls have put together. The episodes are slice-of-life stories about their daily lives and adventures (such as helping Yui buy a guitar). It’s fun, light storytelling. So if you like that sort of thing, this anime is for you.

But I’m here to specifically look at the Blu-ray and to review the English dubbed version.So let’s get down to it.

The Good:

The visual: I’m a big visual kind of guy. For me, how the picture looks is a big part of whether or not I’m going to enjoy an anime. The quality of the picture on the Blu-ray is superb. It is crisp and clear and shows off the artists’ work. You can see the work that went into designing the landscapes, backgrounds, and buildings. The characters stand out beautifully. I’ve been spoiled by HD, and this anime didn’t disappoint me.

The voice acting: Stephanie Sheh, Cassandra Lee, and Laura Bailey (who play Yui, Ritsu, and Yui’s childhood friend Nodoka Manabe respectively) are well chosen for their characters. Each actress brings their own take on their characters that aren’t exactly like their Japanese counterparts, but still feel like the right fit. You can hear Yui’s ditzyness, Ritsu’s rashness, and Nodoka’s competence. I usually like listening to the original Japanese, but they won me over with their acting.

The Sad (no, that’s not a typo):

The sound: The biggest complaint from the detractors is that the sound quality is poor. Well, it’s not. It’s just not great, and that’s almost worse. Blu-ray technology is supposed to enable companies to add to the quality of their work. There is great potential with Blu-ray technology, and to not use it to that full potential is a waste. With this anime, Bandai wasted that potential. The sound is in plain old 2.0 Dolby stereo. That means you can hear everything: the dialogue is understandable and the background music never overpowers the dialogue (believe me, it’s happened in other DVDs I’ve had). Unfortunately, you’re never immersed in the sound. When you’re immersed in the sound you get more out of the experience of watching an anime. But Bandai decided it wasn’t worth using 5.1 or 7.1 surround. And that’s just sad.

The Voice Acting :Wait, you’re saying to yourself, didn’t he just put voice acting in the good category? You’re right, but there are some problems with the voice acting as well. Cristina Valenzuela and Shelby Lindley (who play Mio and Mugi respectively) both both play their characters as softspoken and shy, which is how they are supposed to be portrayed. However, unlike in the Japanese track where Mugi and Mio are very distinctive, here the two actresses sounded too much alike. At times during the show, if I couldn’t actually see whose mouth was moving when they spoke, I couldn’t always tell which of the two was talking. That was a little distracting.

Only 4 episodes: That’s right, only four. Blu-ray can hold large amounts of data, but they only put 4 of the 12 episodes on this disk. That’s like binding a 500-page book, but only having writing on 200 of the pages and leaving the last 300 pages blank. What was the point? Bandai pays a lot of money for the Blu-ray technology and then does nothing with it that they can’t do with regular DVDs. I don’t get it.

The Ugly:

The extras: Really, I don’t understand some companies. There’s all this space to put stuff on the Blu-ray and they give us one lousy interview with Stephanie Sheh. Don’t get me wrong; I love interviews with the voice actors (Japanese or English), but why only one? Why not all four of the main actresses? It’s not like you couldn’t squeeze them on there. In this day and age, it just feels miserly to not add a few more extras on Blu-ray. It feels like Bandai is trying to milk as much money out of this as possible. And that’s just ugly.

So on to the scores.

The anime: A great big 9. I love this anime. It’s fun, the characters are interesting, and the stories are light and amusing. A terrific anime about friends going through high school.

The Blu-ray: Now things get a little complicated. If you’re big on visual quality, 8.5. If you’re big on sound quality, 7.5 (maybe 7), and if you’re big on all the extra potential, 6.

That averages out roughly to 7 for the Blu-ray as a whole.

But that won’t stop me from buying the Blu-ray of volume 2. Like I said, I’m more of a visual guy.

***

Erica here: Thanks, Marc, for clearing up the issues. It sounds like Bandai doesn’t quite get the point of high-quality disk recording yet. Sort of like burning a scratched LP recording onto a CD. Okay if your requirement is archiving a dying technology….totally uncool for new music.