[Ascaloth] K-ON!, Episode 8 at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

[Ascaloth] K-ON!, Episode 8

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Popularity: 10% [?] Published by Ascaloth May 23rd, 2009 in Ascaloth, Anime

A new school year has arrived, it’s time for a new beginning. It almost seems like yesterday when the girls were worrying about the survival of the recently-revived Light Music Club, and now they’ve already set their minds to expanding their dreams. Which, of course, means it’s time to trawl for new recruits amongst the new first-years of Sakura High, competing with the rest of the more established clubs for attention. Which, in fact, is not unlike the current situation of the series itself; though Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody has become the talking point of the week, K-ON! continues to strive for its share of viewership against its immensely popular predecessor with the introduction of a new character. And though many including myself are still basking in the afterglow of the return of the SOS Brigade, I, for one, am not going to deal the Sakura High Light Music Club the ignominy of being forgotten. There’s no SHnY or K-ON; there’s SHnY and K-ON. A KyoAni two-for-one deal; what could be better?

K-ON!, Episode 8.

And Mio, being the designated tsundere/tsukkomi of the Four Girl Band, suffers the same fate of her archetype-sister in Lucky Star in being separated from the rest of the cast at the start of the new year. I haven’t seen enough of the likes of Lucky Star and K-ON to be absolutely sure, but it seems as if being isolated from the cast is the standard karma for characters who fulfil the tsundere/tsukkomi role. Can others help me confirm?

Whenever I see Ui-chan doing things like this for Yui, I can’t help wondering whether she sometimes feel like she’s doing this.

Something isn’t quite right here. We all know Mio is chronically shy and all, but why exactly is she having trouble making friends in a new class even if she doesn’t know anyone? I mean, the girl’s already got her own fanclub; surely there must be one or two who would love to initiate a conversation with her, even if only because they were there to see her rice bowl, if you know what I mean.

I officially have no idea what goes on in Sawa-chan’s noggin.

Azusa’s quite a bit different from her manga version. In the manga, she initially comes across as something of an eager beaver; here, she’s become somewhat more restrained, even pensive if I might say so myself. I don’t know why KyoAni’s decided to portray her this way, but it’s going to take some getting used to.

Meido K-On Bu? Can I say YES fast enough?

KyoAni-physics at work; skirts will almost always just manage to preserve the modesty of the wearer against all common sense. This must be the work of some kind of magic or sufficiently advanced technology that always seem to be present in the worlds that KyoAni brings to life. And it must be particularly powerful magic or advanced technology indeed, if when even the magical/technological KyoAni skirt isn’t enough to preserve the wearer’s modesty by its own means, it’ll call upon some kind of illusion or holograph that causes others to see a rice bowl. Suffice to say, there must be a lot of frustrated upskirt voyeurs in KyoAni worlds.

This is why you give girls like Yui only jobs like serving tap water or collecting tickets. You can put the girl in the meidofuku, but you can’t always put the meido in the girl.

Black stockings! White apron! And, a meido hair band! Moé moé, kyun~!

MugiVision™ is highly contagious. Please use with caution.

It sounds good on paper, but a meido band isn’t all that practical after all.

It’s particularly amusing how Mugi-chan sees everyone else complaining about the impracticality of the meidofuku in playing their instruments, and in a classic case of Kotomi-logic, decides she should do the same and tries too hard to invent a similar gripe, all to no avail. It’s fine if you can’t totally synch with your bandmates, Mugi-chan, but we love you for the effort anyway. ^_^

The girls’ lack of motivation to practise and propensity to get sidetracked by cake comes back to bite them in the rear; they’re simply put, an utter fiasco. Their organization is all but thrown to the dogs, and they can’t ever seem to do things properly. And yet somehow, they can step up their game one level when it comes to the crunch. I think a lot of semi-pro musicians are making themselves taller about now if they’re seeing this.

Yui simply defines a whole new level in "useless". It’s almost as if I can put a collar on her, occasionally give her her guitar to play around with, but otherwise have her do stuff completely unrelated to music for the most part…..erm. Was I thinking aloud there? >_>

Iyada

You know, Sawa-chan in the manga was pretty cool; her antics are a little too reminiscent of Oharuhi-sama, and otherwise she’s the typical Christmas Cake, but otherwise it works pretty well. In the anime, though….she’s just a little disturbing, to put it mildly. The way she does things in the manga is pretty much the same as is portrayed in the anime, but while it’s all good fun in the former, it almost feels as if her antics are barely tolerated in the latter only because the girls need her name as advisor on the club application form. I feel kinda sad for her the way she is portrayed here.

And finally, the thing that many were griping about being missing from ~~last week’s~~ Episode 6’s Fuwa Fuwa Time finally appears in this week’s My Love is a Staple; an actual concert scene with the girls playing their instruments for real, instead of the MTV montage we got last week. The whole sequence was definitely still nowhere near Live Alive, but I particularly liked how they showed that the contingency of covering for your band members is literally a split-second decision, just as it would be in a real-life situation.

And the effort of the girls has borne at least one fruit, in the form of a new applicant for the club, who was impressed after listening to their live concert. And now we are five.

How will Azusa-chan, the prospective newest member, adjust to the unusually slack pace of the Light Music Club she is about to join? And how will she deal with the idiosyncrasies of the members of the club, much less the borderline-insane teacher serving less as an advisor than as the club’s chief cos-rapist? Whatever troubles she might face in adjusting to the K-On Club, one thing can be sure; she will not be left wanting for cake. Until then, we’ll get to see next week what happens when four becomes five.

Ascaloth, out.

Popularity: 10% [?]

9 Responses to “[Ascaloth] K-ON!, Episode 8”

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1 Sniperk 9 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 6:07 am

Just a note… It wasn’t last week the Fuwa-Fuwa Time the vídeo, it was before that, in episode 6. ^^

I just need to see a Mio Mikuru Yuri fanart. OHaruhi-sama, please, lend me your supreme powers.
2 Hypernova 22 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 am

When four becomes five, you get a completed sentai. Ok, bad joke.

Of course, watching K-ON! right after Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, I can’t help but compare them a bit. However, after thinking about it for a while, as you said, you can have both, so what’s the problem?

I think this is a strong episode compare to the two before. The performence is satisfying while still feel real. Adding Ui and Azusa also gives some new spice. Now I want to see why Azusa stay being a member, since I think she’ll face some trial pretty soon.
3 Ascaloth 202 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 10:14 am

@Sniperk,

Thanks for the catch. Doing two articles back to back is so much work, more often than not I end up missing something….
4 OnyxSyaoran 20 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 am

Asu-nyan isn’t as cool as in the manga hope next epi brings her manga attitude (the camp on the beach must come soon!!!) and i wanna see Mio in “Neko Mimi Mode” ^_^v
5 Kairu Ishimaru 13 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm

Azusa is moe. Moe-er than Mio. Take that Mio-fans!
6 Nya~n 20 comments May 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm

Time for nekomimi Azu-nyan
7 Tremere 28 comments May 24th, 2009 at 7:47 am

Is Azusa a tsundere?

Its the twin tails, I just want to know2 if she’s a tsundere in the manga.
8 AK 31 comments May 24th, 2009 at 11:34 pm

It’s also good to see that KyoAni’s ensuring that each of the girls are getting a good share of screen time, too. I noticed that Ritsu and Mugi used to be in most people’s fave-character listing’s third and fourth rankings during the first few episodes, but with each episode after 4 onwards they seem to be closing the gap between them and Mio and Yui.
9 Blacksun88 7 comments Jun 12th, 2010 at 2:29 am

the song is quite nice, and although i always wonder is mio shyness is over-exaggerated, i still like it ^^

Do not use any < and > for your own sake. It will end the comment there and then. Also, there is an automatic IQ filter which weeds out comments made by those who accidentally got transported from the stone age.

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