Yui’s Fine Whine, or Why Mio Is More Than What Meets the Eyes
Azusa is a bullfrog. She’s a good friend of mine?
I have a lot to say about K-ON, but there’s not a lot of impetus for me to write them down. In fact the only thing out there that nags me is the ongoing debate about people’s expectation of what K-ON is suppose to be. Generally that’s fandumb material and I make a conscious effort to avoid it. Still I guess I’ve reached a point where that information need a home outside my brain, so I’ll try to focus it on K-ON and less on the reactions.
However I think the fan reactions make a good starting point to say about a lot of things about K-ON. For starters, it’s a Kyoto Animation work that has gotten a lot of attention because it has a similar feel as with their last few products. People are flocking to it for reasons that are mostly tangential and superficial to the show itself–the aesthetics, the OP/ED, and the brand name. We just tend to forget at first that K-ON is still just a show about a few high school girls, forming a band in the guise of a “light music” club. High school girls, forming a band in the guise of a K-ON club. High school club. Girls. Music.
I repeated this because that is the ultimate context in which we find our protagonists in their mode of operation. I think this is why people namedrop to Lucky Star or slice of life or whatever seemingly analogous concepts they can get their hands on. And when they do not enjoy what they see either via comparative failure of priming the right expectations against reality, or they were victims of misinformation, or simply overrated all that Kyoto Animation tie-ins as cued by its staple animation style, that’s really only because they forgot the thing I just repeated up there. Or worse, they don’t have a clue what it means.
Let’s take a step back. How many of us joined a K-ON club? How many of us were in high school? How many of us…were girls? And in Japan, all during the 21st century? Do we even have a clue what life is like for people fitting those descriptions? In a band, anyone? In a band that is also a club?
I mean, really, I am not saying anything about unable to do XYZ if you do not have experience ABC. I am none of those (except maybe I’m in a band), and I imagine many of you are none of those. You can enjoy baseball manga just fine if you’ve never fielded a popup in your life. Still, it is doubtless that your life experience, and thus perspective, is likely to be different than someone who did; let alone someone who does it as a major hobby or for a living.
Beyond the context of human adolescent females engaging in recreational activities as an optional part of a mandatory education as portrayed in Japanese television animation, that is. This context is the foundation in which K-ON converses with its audience. And this is why Yui still walks and breathes and does not fart rainbows and sparkles; and this is why people think about anime with this kind of a pace and narrative focus, that slice of life stuff.
For what it is worth I can probably enjoy a version of K-ON where Yui does fart rainbows and sparkles, where Mio has wings and hunts Johnnies for subsistence, where Tsumugi will lose her family fortune if her father discovers her anime addiction, where Ritsu is actually Ui’s mother, and where Suwako-sensei is actually the second coming of Genghis Khan. That is, if they can keep the one thing that still bears the K-ON name. (Well, besides the fact that they’re an organization that is operating under that name.) Do people realize how crazy a story BECK is? And how unrealistic it is? I guess not. But it is also a story about a band, right?
So what’s that one thing? Girls. High school club. Music. If I was a mage like Yume Kikuchi I might write a story along the lines of Someday’s Dreamer, and that would be a story that is otherwise titled “魔法遣いに大切なこと” or as ANN says “Things That Are Important to Magic Users.” I think it’s a wonderful title because it tells you what the hell the show is about. Same with K-ON.
Of course, if it was “COSPLAY ROCK BAND” instead, or “This is Spinal Moe,” we might expect something different. But I think all this fandumb that I’ve been reading come from people not realizing what K-ON is. We got people who got confused with what Yui thought as the dominion of Krauser the II, with “light music.” And even if we know what K-ON is, do we really know what it means, say, in the context of (eg.) Linda Linda Linda? Or something even less dramatized?
I don’t mean to say people are wrong or whatever, but I thought K-ON was a lot more fun once I realized the show is about band chemistry. Sure, it took me 2-3 episodes to realize this, so I can imagine some people might have taken much longer to get it, if at all. It was not obvious. What is obvious is that the pace of the anime is very relaxed…but most people just haven’t made the connection that sometimes it is like just that in a band.
I started to look at the thing in K-ON from the point of view of band life. It’s sort of a no-brainer if you knew anything about this kind of bands, I think. Did you actually cringe when you witness the abuse of Yui’s Gibson classic? I did. I also have friends who “date” their boyfriends because theirs were about as much as Yui’s. Dressing up your expensive yet badass guitar is not beyond the imagination, so to speak. Nor is sleeping with it–of course the humor comes in where Yui doesn’t know a thing about the worth and the need for care for those instruments… and how that interacts with an audience who may know too well.
I can go farther–the whole “belonging” sense is also a common theme in K-ON-type stories where a bunch of school kids make a band and carve into the hearts of their bandmates (mutually) a place where they belong. That’s fun and fine and people get it, but where K-ON does well is showing the the how. And I’m not sure if most people are even looking for that. It’s like having a real life friend who acts just like Osaka, and then you find Azumanga Daioh’s strange cast much more meaningful to you than it really does to most people.
This is also why Mio is more than what meets the eyes. I’m sure this is just a personal anecdote, but ever meet anyone in real life that behaves kind of like her? I know this guy who’s exactly like Mio; and this guy’s role in the band, the way he interacts with the others in the band…is more or less the same. I think obviously Mio (and everyone else in the show) is an exaggeration to some degree, but it captures the same feeling for a bystander (or someone who is just like Ritsu…).
Of course, sometimes, some people just laugh because it’s funny, and that is that. “You’re missing out!” “You don’t get it!” Whatever wasted breath is just that, but that’s fun, too.
I’m curious: would it be fair to compare this show against the likes of either Hidamari Sketch or Sketchbook? (One shouldn’t discount K-ON!’s unique band atmosphere of course.)
Fair? I don’t know. The focus of K-ON to me is still on the band stuff, where as Hidasketch doesn’t have an overarching focus to me. Nor Sketchbook. Perhaps it’s like Aria where there is a focus of “Things That Are Important to Undines” but that’s because it’s not unlike what is important to a magic user :)
I agree that chemistry is central to the show, but I don’t think “band chemistry” is. K-ON could’ve been about any club and the show would’ve been 90% the same. For example, they could’ve been the soccer club. Instead of practicing, they eat cake. Then they wear cat ears when they perform. Mugi is still a rich lesbian. Mio and Ritsu’s longtime friendship is still there. Yui needs something to do and joins the club. Asuza has been playing for years, yet she’s captivated by Yui’s raw talent. Sawako became a hooligan to impress her crush. They go to training camps at the beach. Same old.
On the other hand, a show like Beck had to be about music.
I got all of what this series was supposed to be about and still found it weak sauce. I also got none of this deep stuff that people are trying to attach to the series. Band chemistry? The band was barely a focus and I can honestly say my big beef at the end of the day with this series was that I got felt none of the character chemistry in the previous episodes that Yui seemed to be trying to get us to reflect upon. For the majority of the series they might as well have been any club that sat around eating cake, drinking tea and shooting one liners about each others moe traits. If I had to say anything about K-On was a focus though it was trying to make the maximize the characters moe appeal over the course of the series to in turn increase their marketability and popularity with otaku. Normally I have no real problem with this per se, but when you put as much of a focus on it as K-ON did and at the expense of pretty much everything else that could have been appealing about the show then it starts to affect people’s enjoyment of the show. Not everybody is simply satisfied by watching moeblobs frollick around for the rough equivalent of 10×24 minutes after all.
It’s also starting to become a bit irksome to me that some people keep trying to imply that because some of us didn’t think K-On was all that that we must have missed the slow “light and fluffy” context that it took place in, but even if it is a “light and fluffy” series and no real ambition I don’t see that as an excuse for it being composed mostly of the same few moe gags being used over and over, lazy animation, and characters being made a spectactle of. It get’s really boring after about the third time in an episode that Mio goes over into a corner to cower, Ritsu explains a joke, Azusa frets and fidgets and Yui does something ditzy and makes that face of hers. I personally don’t see the seres being “light and fluffy” as an excuse for laziness in how to make use of the characters and their time on the screen.
It’s not all bad for me for this show though, some gag bits that weren’t constantly recycled were indeed chuckle inducing in their quirkiness, and episode 08 was actually really good in terms of how it made use of the time, what it offered in terms of the characters relating to one another, and just overall feel, which is something I felt the final episode lacked. However looking at the majority series I can’t help but call it a lazy effort.
*Looks above* I swear to god I didn’t even start to read Baka-Raptor’s post and we just said the exact same thing. How weird is that. Also now reading zzeroparticle’s post I think he was trying to imply that it would be important to measure how K-On measures up to other series of it’s slow pace slice of life genre. How did those series make use of their time and characters respectively? Does K-On fall short of it’s mark as a slow paced slice of life series even as it tries to set the bar low? Well people obviously already know what I think, but I don’t think it would hurt to ask themselves that question instead of begging the question with regard to the series being “light and fluffy” that it means all is well within it’s execution.
Anyway that’s all I have to say about K-On for the evening.
P.S: No I can’t say I’ve ever met someone like Mio in real life that cowers in the corner everytime something mildy unsettling is suggested to her, but somehow is still able to win over an exchange of quips with her best friend almost every time.
Wow, you managed to sneak in Yumemahou somewhere…
I watched Linda Linda Linda a week ago, and thought it was more about high school, girls, and music than K-On ever was. But that’s beside the point.
I always watched K-On for the band chemistry, and it worked well enough for me. I knew of a lot of people back in high school who were in a band, and while very few of them were girls, they did have a sense of belonging that made you think “hey, these guys are having fun with what they do, you know?”
“and where Suwako-sensei is actually the second coming of Genghis Khan”
You mean she isn’t?
“This Is Spinal Moe”
OHARUHI YES. SOMEONE FUND IT.
“The band was barely a focus”
Depends on what you mean by “the band” I guess, because I thought it was the main focus of the show all the way. :P
> For example, they could’ve been the soccer club.
Ironically this is exactly the same analogy that I used when this matter came up on MTF.
I was really up for K-on at the beginning, but I’m sure if I’d read the whole manga beforehand (knowing that KyoAni rarely stray too far from the source material), then I’d have been less excited. As it is I consider this the weakest effort from the studio for some time.
I see your point, but wouldn’t this assume that the show was cater-made for people who were in a band in high-school or knew about “band chemistry”? It’s kind of like your saying that if you don’t fulfil these conditions, then you’re not able to legitimately criticise the show.
And don’t use the word fandumb. It’s terrible.
@Omisyth >> It’s kind of like your saying that if you don’t fulfil these conditions, then you’re not able to legitimately criticise the show.
No. Actually that’s exactly what I’m implying as a valid criticism. If someone criticized the show for “too hard to get” if you aren’t familiar with these things, that would be valid. Lucky Star is a very good example of a ton of people NOT getting all the in-jokes and what have you, but liked it anyways because they’re looking for something simple to enjoy and got it. K-ON would be the counterpoint to it.
I’m criticizing people’s opinions because they generally do not even recognize this (very important IMO) aspect of the show; because they don’t understand that subtle layer behind the usual high school hijinks that they’re missing in the first place. Unlike Lucky Star, K-ON is distinctively about a band so there’s all this band-related chemistry stuff and nobody talks about it in that context. I don’t see why this is not a valid criticism on their opinions. I’m not saying if ultimately people are making valid or invalid points about K-ON, but I have yet to read one criticism on K-ON that addresses this specific problem with the show.
@baka-raptor >> I agree that chemistry is central to the show, but I don’t think “band chemistry” is. K-ON could’ve been about any club and the show would’ve been 90% the same.
I agree with your generalization only on a per se sense. The problem is that most people live life similarly, especially when they are in a mandatory institution (military, high school, same corporate jobs, etc), so after all is said and done, 10% difference could be huge. For all we know 90% of Japanese kids in grades 10-12 could be doing the same things 70-80% of their 24×5 weekday hours every week (probably is true!). You can say soccer as a counterexample and hey, you could be right. But that’s totally missing the point of my post. And even though I think the similarity is closer to 70% than 90%, the reason why I watch K-ON is in that 10-30% difference. And why is nobody talking about it? Is it not the focus of the show, actually? I mean, the fact that the girls have tea and desserts on a regular basis is already more meaningful in a keion club context than in a soccer club context; the latter is ludicrousness, the former may very well happen in real life.
>> On the other hand, a show like Beck had to be about music.
LOL, well of course Beck is about music, but it’s not about real music but a popular-cultural, romanticized version of it. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s more like the Dragon Ball Evolution of music than the Dragon Ball of music.
@Kaoishin Sama >> The band was barely a focus
LOL. Go watch This Is Spinal Tap or something and come back when you get a clue.
>> For the majority of the series they might as well have been any club that sat around eating cake, drinking tea and shooting one liners about each others moe traits. If I had to say anything about K-On was a focus though it was trying to make the maximize the characters moe appeal over the course of the series to in turn increase their marketability and popularity with otaku.
I think this is more you than the show. Moe is a reaction; while the show may have designed to get a reaction (or rather programmed some of us) out of us, the substance of the story is as valid as anything. People are rightfully annoyed when the girls dilly dally all day and do nothing to practice, but there’s something meaningful in those idle moments beyond moe pandering. To stop there is to, well, act like Omisyth’s favorite word. I suppose it’s okay to enjoy it at that level, but it makes weak criticism.
Not even that weird, really.
Think about the guy analog. How many guys end up “in a band” only to spend most of their time farting around, playing video games, not tryin’ very hard or making a serious run at it… some of them are good and some of them are just good enough not to suck, but eh, nobody’s stressing over it. Sure, nominally it’s about the music, but it’s as much about the bro’s.
K-On is about the bro’s, so to speak. Even when they want to play, it’s mostly addressed in who wants to, and why; only Azusa and Mio are interested in music as opposed to band-as-group-activity. Yui didn’t sign up because she was filled with the desire to make good music, she was just looking for friends.
[…] really hits the proverbial nail amidst the tl;dr haystack (Ed: Stop mixing metaphors.) when he said unto us: I thought K-ON was a lot more fun once I realized the show is about band […]
@TheBigN: By the band I mean the characters in relation to being a music group not to one another as friends/school chums. As Baka-Raptor pointed out, the degree to which the concept of the girls as a music group was underused meant you could just as easily have swapped out another club activity and had them still partaking in similar experiences, eating that cake and drinking that tea. All that would be different would be that instead of them occasionally practicing music and putting on short concerts, they would do practice soccer or something and play the odd game.
@Omo: To say the show is about successful “band chemistry” while failing to define or prove such an idea is rather weak praise don’t you think. There’s a lot of begging the question going on in what you are trying to imply about both the show and it’s critics. Finally before you accuse others of making generalizations I think you ought to sit back and see if you aren’t doing the same.
I’m not accusing people making generalizations…they’re just not seeing why things happen the way they do. Band chemistry is an obvious concept if you’d go watch some band shows other than BECK, actually. They’re all like this, except just that the characters are not silly teenagers not taking things more seriously than a high school club.
My counter to Baka-Raptor’s argument is that while he thinks drinking tea and eating cake is not special or unique to a band anime, it’s actually pretty unique in that it wouldn’t be found in a sports anime (at least to this degree)! It’s the same as writing off everything in the show that is funny or silly as moe pandering, but in reality they’re quintessential to the 21st century Japanese high school band story concept.
In other words
@Kaioshin Sama >> All that would be different would be that instead of them occasionally practicing music and putting on short concerts, they would do practice soccer or something and play the odd game.
I think this is only true from a conceptual perspective, not in execution. If you think about it, Azusa’s statement about their not-very-practice-eager sempai playing very well with each other is the whole point in demonstrating why this is so; that the time they spend hanging out actually is important in making good live music. And also how it may be a complication to making good live music.
I can’t see you guys’ claim to be valid at all when swapping that into a sports manga (unless it’s some kind of “wax-on wax-off” trick).
Basically, start thinking and stop reacting.
When I realized that K-ON was about 4 (or more) girls trying to play moepop music, it all made sense and the first episode was extremely enjoyable, DMC references notwithstanding. Which made it slightly more structurally stable than Lucky Star, which hammered the viewer with tons of gags.
I may come off as extremely abrasive here, but please, put your grey matter to work. Because it’s very obvious that you aren’t. You’re still stuck at “moeblobs frolicking around” instead of seeing the relational dynamics of the show.
“@TheBigN: By the band I mean the characters in relation to being a music group not to one another as friends/school chums. ”
That strikes me in the same vein as people who claimed that they wasn’t enough music in the show, even if you might consider them different. Either way, there’s more to a band than the beautiful music they make together, and K-On! focused on the “more”. However, when you do see them make music, it is beautiful because they enjoy what they do and being with each other, which is what the “more” is about. But I’ve already said this before, and you already know this. In my opinion, I think K-On! does a good job at the “more”, and that was what I was looking for.
/goes on rant about live music is about a relationship between the audience and the band, how people this day and age lost that via the whole music industry monster, etc etc.
The bros of K-ON are more directly impacted by their relationships than any concept of sports rivalry (and I’d even say boat rowing) that you read from manga, ever. There’s no losers and winners in music, although that’s what sells copies of your cartoon. That’s what BECK is and that’s what is in 90+% of manga out there.
Is it a good enough time to mention that I never really felt any of the relationships were brought to the forefront or that it was given much focus even on a veiled level? I mean other then them mentioning early on that Mio and Ritsu were childhood friends. Sure they did stuff together, but I never got that whole sense of deep comraderie from the characters. It was more that they particpated in gag bits together in the end for me that defined the characters and their relationships to one another. Ritsu scares Mio and comments on the obvious about the others, Mio goes and hides in the corner, Sawaka dressed everyone up, Azusa wears cat ears and gets emotional and Yui makes that face of hers. Some of it was funny, but relationships and band chemistry, don’t know about that. The idea is just barely there, but barely touched upon until the final episodes monologue by which point the monologue ends up ringing hollow.
I think K-On does a poor job at managing the “more” and that it prefers to remain at the most basic level of what it is capable of spending it’s time on even as I sense more potential to reel me in and get me to feel that attachment to the characters that others seem to feel, though to what aspect of them exactly I am left in the dark and confused over. I could also mention how Mio got way to much screen time despite a total lack of development while characters like Sawako, Azusa and especially Mugi languished as caricatures of their archtypes, but that seems like it’s better left as a seperate concern to be addressed should it need to be.
I think the part where I’m currently hung up right now is how nth iterations of the “let’s drink tea and eat cake” is able to bring forth that band chemistry when the dialogue feels so banal in K-ON!. Hidamari Sketch had plenty of those scenarios and the chemistry between the cast was far better because the dialogue used during those “eat cake and relax in each other’s apartments” gave you insights into the characters and built up their relationships better. And it’s no accident that HidaSketch is leagues above K-ON! in terms of how much I enjoyed each show.
>> but I never got that whole sense of deep comraderie from the characters.
You are right, I don’t either. But more often than not, a strong sense of friendship is not what makes great music. That’s partly why I think K-ON’s portrayal of the relationships in a band is rather realistic. In reality a band’s members are not going to be the best of friends, but nonetheless there’s some level of mutual, unspoken understanding that is expressed best through the stuff they do outside of the actual performance of a band.
>> The idea is just barely there, but barely touched upon until the final episodes monologue by which point the monologue ends up ringing hollow.
I think you just have a very set idea of what that is, so you end up not seeing it when the story presents something that doesn’t match what you expect that to be.
>>I think this is only true from a conceptual perspective, not in execution. If you think about it, Azusa’s statement about their not-very-practice-eager sempai playing very well with each other is the whole point in demonstrating why this is so; that the time they spend hanging out actually is important in making good live music. And also how it may be a complication to making good live music. I can’t see you guys’ claim to be valid at all when swapping that into a sports manga (unless it’s some kind of “wax-on wax-off” trick).
Locker room chemistry is extremely important in team sports. And really, have you seen a sports manga or anime that doesn’t beat to death the values of friendship and togetherness on and off the field? Wax on, wax off.
Nobody is denying that “band chemistry” plays some role that can’t be completely swapped for something else. But to claim that band chemistry is what the show “is about”? I’m the farthest thing from convinced. Perhaps it’s your most valuable takeaway from the show, which would be perfectly fine, except you’re phrasing your argument in objective terms. You speak of band chemistry as some truth that you “realized” and “was not obvious” (obviousness issues aside, I’d say that K-ON was not novel, not useful, and not properly disclosed LOL).
So here’s what I say the show is about: fanservice. If you take away the fanservice, the show is completely turned upside down. You need to change nearly every scene. And no, I’m not talking about the animation. The vast majority of the scenes were blatant, substantive fanservice. On the other hand, if you take away the band, you only have to change the following: two performance scenes, an upper estimate of about five group practice scenes, another upper estimate of about five solo practice scenes, and three scenes when they’re in a music shop. Mio is still afraid of barnacles, Asuza is still embarassed when everyone puts cat ears on her, etc…. The chemistry is the same without the band.
At the end of the day, band chemistry is just a side dish. The side dish may be the tastiest part of the meal, but it’s still a side dish.
“So here’s what I say the show is about: fanservice. If you take away the fanservice, the show is completely turned upside down.”
That would be a problem with the source material. KyoAni added stuff, but for the most part, what you saw it pretty closely adapted to the manga. :P
>> Locker room chemistry is extremely important in team sports. And really, have you seen a sports manga or anime that doesn’t beat to death the values of friendship and togetherness on and off the field? Wax on, wax off.
I don’t think you understood my point. Unlike K-ON, you can’t have a sports manga that’s 80% locker room chemistry. Of course, I guess some people don’t think it works in K-ON either, so maybe that’s that.
My point isn’t what is or isn’t important–when I say important I mean it actually should be the bulk of the story. “Wax on wax off” is actually a hax secret training that nobody does in real life because you can swing your arms doing other things besides washing cars. However there’s no substitute to hanging out and learning how to play off each other; it’s just instead of tea and cake you can all go nanpa or karaoke or something else that is silly. And what’s more, that’s how a lot of real bands are. OTOH I have not ever heard of real, serious martial artists waxing cars. Yeah, pro ballers might hang out because they’re all rich and are co-workers, but you’d be a fool to think every NFL team is like Any Given Sunday.
Actually, I’d also like to add that K-ON doesn’t beat it to death, to the extent that while Japan likes its social groupings to be harmonic, a lot of the nuances in K-ON’s social dynamics are at odds with each other. It’s definitely not unique in that sense but it’s definitely something people wouldn’t see often in other manga.
>> Perhaps it’s your most valuable takeaway from the show, which would be perfectly fine, except you’re phrasing your argument in objective terms. You speak of band chemistry as some truth that you “realized” and “was not obvious” (obviousness issues aside, I’d say that K-ON was not novel, not useful, and not properly disclosed LOL).
IMO your claim is a disingenuous claim–because I agree that it’s obvious and not novel yet you don’t even get it. And I think it’s because you might lack the life experience? In any case, I think you’re totally missing it.
I think another way to say the same thing in my post is that one major failure of K-ON is its inability to explain what I just said in my post to you and Kaoshin. It doesn’t spell it out to you (despite what you think is non/obvious or not novel) but somehow you think you understand it and thus think I’m…what, making a claim that the nuances of a band/sport/whatever are not the same? I just don’t buy how you may understand what I’m saying and yet can claim a logically contradictory position unless you failed to understand that aspect of K-ON.
>> So here’s what I say the show is about: fanservice. If you take away the fanservice, the show is completely turned upside down. You need to change nearly every scene. And no, I’m not talking about the animation. The vast majority of the scenes were blatant, substantive fanservice.
Well, if you use that word this way then you need to clarify what you mean by fanservice. The only things I thought was true fanservice was the instrument cameos and maybe the usual “let’s have them go to the beach/dress up” stuff. I think very little would have to change.
[…] Omo’s post on K-ON pretty much hit all the same points I thought of after seeing the polarization of K-ON’s audience over the past few episodes (although it probably started since Episode 1). I think being the latest KyoAni show proper after Clannad, with rumors of Haruhi 2nd season going around definitely created a lot of hype around K-ON before it aired. There were a lot of expectations (unfair or otherwise) placed on the show based on the previous blockbusters of Haruhi, Lucky Star, etc. And, given just how big the K-ON tag was on AnimeNano since pretty much the minute after the first ep ended, it was easily one of the most watched series of the season. And with that level of noise, the signal is bound to go down. […]
What is “it” that people don’t understand? We can’t understand “it” if you don’t define “it” for us because at least in my case I have no idea what “it” is that you are getting at. How can there be an “it” to get if K-On never bothered to define “it” itself. Right now this is looking like a pretty cheap ploy to maintain control of the debate here (saying people lack life experience and trying to declare yourself as an expert on something that has yet to be defined), but in reality you are failing to make any headway in convincing anybody that there’s something special with K-On’s presentation.
As a prememptive follow up question, how do you know “it” really exists if you yourself admit that K-On wasn’t good at showing “it”. Maybe it’s just you picking up on something that wasn’t really there in the first place.
I think you’re just confused.
omo: all those tea time is particularly relevant to band dynamics
Baka-Raptor: no, it’s just like any other bonding activity
omo: no, I don’t think it works like that, why don’t you get it?
Kaioshin: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGG
How do I know it (it=the particularity of tea time &c IRT band dynamics)? Because it happens in real life. Seeing stuff about baseball teams holding hand (to use Big Windup as an example as it’s the last true sports anime/manga I’ve seen) and how that helps you play is…ONLY IN JAPAN. I haven’t seen anything particular to baseball in Cross Game either, besides the obvious–if you play in a batting cage all your childhood, you might know how to bat. But having a conflict in love at 5th grade makes you a better team player than not, etc? LOLS.
If you write off the silly antics the K-ON girls do as just that–fanservice or whatever, you’re missing my point.
Let me get this straight, you don’t understand that having fun strengthens the bonds of friendship?
Ok honestly, what I see in K-On! is not only the music but mostly about their daily lives.
For all we know it might as well be a chess club and they will still be drinking tea and fooling around. That is K-On!. Their focus is not only the music but the 4 girls having fun. I don’t necessarily agree whole-heartedly that it is about band chemistry but I say it’s about the 4 (or 5) girls’ lives and how they have fun in their club.
Actually, I once had to perform a song with my whole class. My class actually has a pretty poor taste in music overall. Not saying that they all love Rap and Hip hop (facepalm) but they don’t like too many music styles except for 2 or 4 people including me.
Anyways, we agreed in this one song that everyone liked (although I once played it for them but only after one other guy mentioned it they liked it) which is Viva La Vida you guys must already know (I don’t really like it anymore when I realize it’s not too great after 200 plays, that from a guy who scrobbled songs over 400 times [last.fm/user/Reb3llist]) and honestly, we fooled around so much that we only truly got serious at the end of it all.
IMO, what made K-On! fun for me was simply, its lazy and relaxed pace, humour and plot. Everything about it was simple. Everybody’s missing it. This whole anime isn’t only just about music, it’s more than that - it’s more like the lives of the members of the Light Music club than actually playing music.
“omo: all those tea time is particularly relevant to band dynamics
Baka-Raptor: no, it’s just like any other bonding activity
omo: no, I don’t think it works like that, why don’t you get it?
Kaioshin: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGG”
That is exactly what they’ve been doing. Can’t they get that ‘any other bonding activity’ helps band dynamics the same way it strengthens their friendship?
I understand that my post won’t ever shed some light into anyone but ah, I’m just so attracted to people who don’t get “it” and don’t ask me what “it” is.
Also, I’d like it so that people STOP HAVING COMPARATIVE MINDSETS WHEN THEY’RE WATCHING SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME. It’s god-tiring when I go to some anime and see “THIS ANIME IS SO DIFFERENT THAN THAT ANIME!!!!”. STFU, why can’t you watch with an open mind? I appreciate everything and always come to an anime with a fresh mind, free of comparisons. Why can’t people even do the same? I never came to Lucky Star expecting a Honey & Clover or Unlimited Anime References, I came wanting to see how good it is, without comparative mindsets until I feel like I get why this show is good and I got what I wanted. Can’t people really do the same? I never even compared this to Beck aside from guitars.
I think I’ve repeated this several times. If you think they’re “just” having fun, you’re missing the part where this “having fun” not only (perhaps) strengthen their friendship, but also makes the music better. The two things are not always “equal.” If they want to demonstrate that they are closer friends as the point of the show they would have tested those bonds (and actually, they didn’t). However what I see is how these relationship change impact the way they make music, and K-ON makes that point in the narrative.
I think K-ON is about music in terms of how daily life impacts music and vice versa, but OTOH we don’t really see how their daily life changes even if now Yui practices at home on occasion. Its focus is on the music. I think, again, if you think this could be substituted w/ any other clubs, you are missing the K-ON’s point on this topic. Sure, you can still enjoy it as simple comedy, but that’s akin to enjoying Lucky Star and not get any of its otaku references.
> I think, again, if you think this could be substituted w/ any other clubs, you are missing the K-ON’s point on this topic.
Simply saying this over and over to yourself doesn’t make it any more accurate!
I’ve presented plenty of reasons why
1. This is how it works in real life, too. You don’t see Olympic athletes spending large portions of their time improving team work by just doing nothing important, but a lot of bands do this.
2. I just can’t imagine a sports anime that has a focus on doing nothing like K-ON does. Even Saki is a good example, it is a “moe pandering” show that focuses on the craft much like K-ON. The difference is that you don’t get better at Mahjong by not playing, where as you can get better at being a band by not playing. Both have a very serious moe sell, but when Yui glomps Azusa and forces her to do silly things, it’s not just moe fanservice…it’s like how some bands ARE!
Context is very hard to resist, and maybe ultimately irresistible.
To put in simple words, I love K-ON!