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| I hope you like your characters like you like your cake. |
Dear Internet,
I do
not get it, Internet. I do not get the
hype over the anime "K-On!" If
you had monitored any sort of anime forum or message board, or even a few print
formats if you can find one, that monitors the anime circuit, you would have
noticed the explosion that came from this show.
People clamored for "K-On!"
They claimed it was the best thing since slice bread. The sheer number of fan works that stem from
this show is proof enough of this show's popularity. This further confounds me considering that
the show is based on a four panel comic strip manga. One would think that the manga would receive more
attention, but from what I gather, this outpouring of admiration is directed
towards the anime mostly. The characters
have been plastered on everything from high level calculators to being used as
marketing spokeswomen. They are even plastered
on trains and cars by some people. But
then again, considering that Pokemon got on a plane, I should not be surprised
at how Japan knows how to sell a product, and sell it repeatedly. The multitude of music albums and side items
besides home videos of the show prove this.
A quick count shows 15 music albums, and I do not want to try and count
all the models and statures that were made.
But I am getting ahead of myself again.
"K-On!"
follows the everyday lives of some half dozen high school girls. There are the four, and then five, members of
the light music club who form a band.
There is the guitarist, the drummer, the bassist, a keyboard player, and
then another guitarist that comes later.
Then there is a childhood friend, a teacher advisor for the club, and
one or two other nameless characters here and there. But then again, I have not named any of the
characters to begin with. That is
because there is not really much of a reason to remember their names. The characters are pretty bland and
forgettable with only one or two traits that are exclusive to each one. The main guitarist is a ditz, the bassist is
the mature one that is easily scared, the keyboardist is rich and somewhat
quiet, the drummer is energetic and somewhat an airhead, the second guitarist
is serious and the youngest, and the teacher is a fanatic for cosplay with a
punk rocker past. After that, nearly
every other facet of their personalities becomes almost indistinguishable from
one another.
Take
for example sweets, teas and candies.
After a long day in school, the group retires to their clubroom. What do they do once they have reached their room
of solace? Do they begin to shred those
electric guitars? Do they beat out a rhythm
to drive away their fears on the drums?
Do they play that keyboard a melody that gets them feeling alright? No, they eat cake, drink tea, and play
around. And they do this for the
entirety of some episodes. In the
thirteen episodes that the first season makes use of, the group only makes
three live performances with a few jam sessions scattered here and there. When these jam sessions take place, they are
short and sometimes painfully to the point.
What I mean by this is that when they practice, sometimes the show will
completely skip over the practice and only show the result of the session. If someone plays poorly, the show does not
display their inability by actually showing them playing badly so that we can
hear them play off beat or miss a note.
The show will cut straight to when they are no longer playing and
instead shows the reactions of the other characters. This format repeats in a number of different
varieties, but it points out a big problem with the show.
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| Practice, who needs to practice? They got the power of friendship to make them play better. |
The
show is not much about music despite depicting itself as such, especially
considering it is following a music club.
The show even recognizes this when the second guitarist calls out the
group for not practicing much. Consider
that in the span of the thirteen episodes, there are two major references to
musical techniques concerning the guitar.
Not counting the chords since that would be like mentioning the term "beat"
regarding the drums, the show mentions vibrato and mutes. Beyond that, the show never delves deeper
into the intricacies of music or music theory.
It is all somewhat whitewashed over by pure ignorance and willful ignoring. The ignorance is on the behalf of the main
guitarist who does not know much about the instrument she plays. The ignoring aspect comes from the fact that
the show makes her play nearly perfectly to the point that it needs to be
called out. She does not know what a
tuner is until her second year of playing the guitar and has been tuning her instrument
solely by ear. On top of that, she picks
up her skill so quickly that it is laughable, even though this is what the show
is aiming for, but I will get to the comedy aspect in a bit. The fact that she gets so good at playing the
guitar while at the same time has massive holes in her knowledge of the item is
more unbelievable rather that humorous.
The amount of practice that she would have to do to get that good would
require much more blistering and bloody fingers than the show displays or hints
to. In the thirteen episodes, she gets
one finger injury that requires a Band-Aid.
Otherwise, her talent is supernatural.
While
the whole time I watched this show today, I was constantly thinking of
"Eyeshield 21." This is
perhaps a silly little notion, but, please, humor me for a while, at least
longer than "K-On!" humored me.
"Eyeshield 21" and "K-On" both follow the high
school club formula. That is to say they
both consist of high school students gathering together in an extracurricular activity
while setting on their sights on some goal.
"Eyeshield 21" had the Christmas Bowl, and the show centered
on the various dreams of those that aimed for it as well as the lengths they
were willing to go to try and reach that goal.
"K-On!" has got Budokan, a major venue that can be thought of as
a Japanese Madison Square Garden.
"K-On! treats the goal as more of a joke rather than a respectable
dream considering how Budokan is featured as a punch line often and how the
show does not really showcase the girls earnestly aiming for that goal. Both shows feature some sort of end point,
but they do it in different ways. In "Eyeshield
21" it is a dream, but in "K-On!" it is a daydream made of fluff
and marshmallows. It is not a serious thing
in "K-On!" despite the characters claiming it is, especially with the
lack of hard work that the group puts into their practice.
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| I could add an "or bust" joke here, but the show makes enough boob jokes. |
Another
comparison between the two shows can be made concerning how the shows handle interpersonal
relationships. Both shows have a group
dynamic that requires the individuals to forego themselves for the betterment
of the others. One is an American
football team, and the other is a musical band.
Both need cooperation for the group to reach the short term goals and
the long term ones. But I want to
mention the intricacies that exist outside the game and the performances. Each handles the relationships between
characters similar. They focus on the
bonds of friendship that ensure that strengthen the resolve and ability of the
group as a whole. In "K-On!",
the bassist and drummer are old friends, so that dynamic is already there. Early on, the group comes together to help
the guitarist make enough money to buy her dream guitar. Even though their work is for naught in the
end, it still shows their willingness to come to the aid of each other, even if
at the same time it displays the stupidity of the guitarist to aim for a guitar
that costs $2500 rather than a starting instrument.
I want
to touch upon the show's humor briefly before I end this rant. The jokes are poorly timed. There is no doubt about this, especially
considering how the show is overall not very funny. If one compares it to another 4 panel comedy
manga adaptation like "Azumanga Daioh" or even "Cromatie high School,"
one will find what the show is instead placing emphasis on. It is not on the comedy, otherwise the amount
of jokes could double or triple in their amount, considering how infrequent
they occur. Instead, the show wants to
put emphasis on the growing phenomena of "cute girls doing cute
things." It is exactly what it
sounds like with all the lack of a definitive plot line or even a central theme
beyond that. I do not necessarily mind
this rather shallow theme. Sometimes you
got to watch a bunch of kittens on Youtube, but that does not mean that it is
an excuse for anything more than a mild amusement at best. "Azumanga Daioh" might fall under
this category accidently, but that would require one to completely ignore the
comical aspect of the show which is much more important to the show's dynamics. One would do a better job of being a matador
and ignoring the bull's horns. "K-On!
spends an extensive amount of time trying to show the characters either being cute
through their ditzy behavior or absentmindedness. Almost
all of the jokes stem from this to the point that if you do not find them cute,
or even irritating and unlikable, the show then has no merit. Perhaps if the show were to make the
characters more fleshed out and actually individuals with all that entail, one
might become emotionally empathetic to them.
However, the show never goes that far since the girls are made as
shallow cardboard cut outs with the only difference being how much each
contains post-consumer waste.
"K-On!"
is a bland, average show. It does
nothing unique or very enjoyable. The
only single thing it does right is the musical performances, which include the
opening/closing credits. The songs are
somewhat fun, if not a bit lacking on the lyrical department. Then again, that might be due to a cross
language barrier, so I will not strike against the show. The characters are forgettable. The plot is nonexistent. The jokes rely too much on shallow emotional
tricks rather than tangible comedy.
Slapstick is better than the watching the same joke for the tenth time
that relies on them eating cake. All I
can think about right now is that I have to watch the second season, which has
twice the amount of episodes as the first.
The only reason I can think of as why this show got a second season was
that it was highly marketable beyond sales of home media. Either that or the Japanese are suckers for
cute girls doing nothing, which includes being entertaining.
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| Merchandising! Merchandising! |
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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