Anime blog that focuses on Yuri and School Girl Slice of Life Anime and Editorials
This tag refers to any series that is animated by Kyoto Animation, an animation studio in Japan.
Since the Spring 2011 Anime Season will start in about a week, I have a hard time deciding what to watch besides Nichijou considering that there are so many shows airing during the season.
In addition, I will reveal future plans regarding the blog and real life stuff. (Image Source)
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Besides the second season of K-ON, which I will be covering in a future Anime Moments post, there was an OVA that released in the first season. Basically, the Light Music Club decides to do a live house performance, which they are very excited about. They met many girl bands they haven’t heard before and had lots of pleasurable time with them. (Image Source)
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After the final performance from the four girls that left Azu-nyan in tears, we are now left with the Extra Episodes.
The extras are what you expect if you watched the last season; they are fun and enjoyable stories to look at. The first extra involves the Light Music Club producing another promotional video since the last one is shoddily done. The second involves a visit to Sawako’s apartment to get her approval on the final copy of the yearbook. In addition to visiting her, they made dinner and done the laundry while she recovers from the cold.
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Air is one of the most memorable shows I seen besides Kanon, Clannad or even 5 Centimeters Per Second since it was Kyoto Animation’s first Key Adaptation that was faithful to the Visual Novel. As a result of how well Air done in terms of animation and story, it gained a fandom and hatedom.
In spite of this, Air still remains a masterpiece for several reasons; it conveyed the summer theme rather well. Also, it had a historical backdrop and scenes with emotional impact the viewer receives. [1. Original Picture Source]
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The final episode was heartbreaking and heartwarming…
The last scene where Misuzu reaches her goal and hugs Haruko was so emotional that I almost started crying. At the same time, it was heartwarming since Misuzu could stay strong because of her mother’s (Haruko) love. When she passes away in Haruko’s arm, it was very heartbreaking for Haruko and the audience to bear.
Nevertheless, what people say about Air being a snobbish Anime is simply not true in my opinion. It shown a beautiful life that was cut short by something unfortinate. Tragic and sad events is what makes people stronger and make us value our lives as a beautiful thing. This is what makes Air so emotionally powerful compared to the other stories.
Goodbye Misuzu… I will miss you forever! ;-;
9.5/10, A, Masterpiece
Overall Review is coming shortly!
This definitely has to be the second most emotional episode with the last episode being the most emotional out of the whole series.
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After the tragic ending of Kanna, we are brought back to the feature where Yukito gets incarnated into this crow that Misuzu talks to. From there, we learn more about Misuzu’s family problems and of course, some really cute moments.
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It was nearly a year since I have watched Air. The reason I left the show collect dust for the reason of being occupied on other Anime. It was not until recently that I started where I left off because Flak was taunting me by trying to spoil the ending for me. This is probably an incentive to complete the remaining 4 episodes I haven’t seen yet so I can write a final review on it.
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I have to admit, it was a pretty emotional episode as the four girls are finally graduate and leaves their school behind for college. In addition, it was quite funny for Yui to hide the gift from Sawako to give for appreciation. This pretty much makes her worry about Yui a lot during the graduation ceremony. In the end, it seems that she loves the gift she receives from her students a lot.
As for Azusa, she has not gotten over the graduation anxiety and she broke down towards the end. Yui gives her some mementos (the four girls freshman picture and a five petal flower) to her. Afterwards, the four girls played a “thank you” song to Azusa with the four girls singing. It was one of the best songs in addition to U&I. It was emotional and a happy song that pretty much marks the happy continuation of the friendship even though Azusa still has a year left in high school. After they played the song, they do an encore and it sends happily ever after.
I have to admit; K-ON is probably the most emotionally happy comedy slice of life ever. Forget the haters, I enjoyed and liked it since it brought nostalgia when I was having fun with my friends in high school. It even surpasses Lucky Star over its random comedy. K-ON in my opinion shows the good and simplest things in life, friendship and living life to the fullest. It’s also fully evident in another familiar slice of life show. I’ll keep that a secret. :p
Next Episode: Time for Azusa to get some new recruits… Final Review will be written after I watched the second Extra Episode.
10/10
9.45/10, A, Masterpiece.
Even though the four girls seems to be a bit nervous about leaving the school behind and entering society by going to the same college, there is a reason to feel like that. The fun memories they had together in the Light Music Club bonded the friendship together. That friendship allowed the girls to decide on going to the same college to learn, play, and socialize together in their eternal and happy friendship.
After I looked at this episode, it reminded me of my senior year. I had fun with my friends when I went on a field trip with the bands or the time I socialized in the lunchroom. When graduation came, I know that the real world is going to be different and my friends would be going separate paths. Three years later, I am still surviving college rather well with a good outlook in my life.
For the girls, I think they will have an even brighter feature considering that they are together. It makes me wonder if they going to continue having a band right into college. They most likely will since they enjoy making music along with drinking tea and eating cake. As for Azusa, there is no doubt that she is going to miss them. Nevertheless, I think she will survive considering she still has Ui and Jun as her friends. Later on, she can apply to the same college once she graduates and reuite with her other friends.
The tape recording of all their music is very significant at the end of the journey as a memento. This allows them to treasure the fun memories through their songs and give inspiration to the newcomers who want to carry on their legacy.
In the end, these kinds of moments is what caused whole perception of K-ON being just a moe comedy change into something of a life lesson. Strong and good friendships is what makes life a beautiful thing and the girls are living proof of it. They are ambitious with their studies while having a fun time. In my opinion, this is what friendship is all about and there is no doubt that the last episode will leave us with an emotional and joyous impact once they graduate and start their new chapter in their life.
Over the course of last week, I kind of got caught up writing editorials, reviews and homework that I completely forgot about writing my thoughts about K-ON!! Episode 22 and Kaichou wa Maid-sama Episode 21. Since there isn’t really much to say about them, summing my thoughts in one post is enough to satisfy.
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Friendship is one of the most desirable aspects of life since it allows us to interact with people that share the same interests and have a fun time. Without friendship, people would not be enjoying life and be setting in a corner with a feeling of boredom. In addition, having many friends can increase the chances of getting a job depending on how good your friends are.
K-ON is probably one of those shows that most people wouldn’t know about the friendship theme because of its reputation of being a girls doing cute things kind of show. If you look deeper in the activities and the songs they do, you realize that they are enjoying themselves because of their strong relationship between them. That feeling of friendship is what brought some of the nostalgia explained more in the last editorial when I looked back in my high school years.
Fanart used in this post is made by n@tu
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As the four girls’ high school year come to an end for good, they must overcome the second to last thing before graduation… Taking yearbook pictures! I remembered this time 2-3 years ago when I had to take senior portraits and it turned out to be pretty good. Yui on the other hand… Thats another story.
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Surprisingly, time goes by very quickly when you are having fun with friends. After all, four of the girls are seniors and they had to perform their greatest to make the memory last forever. From the three festival performances, this is probably the best out of three and was pretty heartwarming. Some observations:
The sad realization is that it’s their last year they would be performing in front of the crowd. We know that good things have to come to the end, but never let go of the fond memories they had with each other. As we let the festival go away in the sunset, we should realize that K-ON is not all about girls doing cute things or eating cake and drinking tea. Its all about friendships, which is one of the simple things in life. Most people might have even gone through this feeling after graduating from High School or College and leaving old friends behind. In the end, as the girls did in this episode, we should remember the times we had fun with our old friends and never let them fade away…
Next Episode: Time for the Yearbook pictures!
9.5/10
Nobody has stage fright as Mio does… She is scared out of her mind!
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Imagine that your club room, gym or field became unusable because of some accident or rare occurrence. You have an important event happening in a few day and need to practice or you won’t perform well. You soon find out that the other rooms are being occupied by other club activities that are preparing for the same event… Then what? The same exact occurrence happens to the Light Music Club and they really need to practice to prepare for the festival.
Since when the Light Music Club ever practiced? Every time I see them, they are drinking tea and eating cake… They will do fine, except in this instance…
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Although we don’t want summer break to end, break ends for them. This leaves us with the most feared activity for Yui… Running long distances!
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Kanon, released on June 4, 1999 was a visual novel that changed the bishoujo game industry forever. It featured deep melodramatic story lines for each girl that gave a sense of sympathy and sadness (along with the optional eroge scenes). The one that was behind this masterpiece is Key/VisualArts. They continued to create other masterpieces like Air and Clannad that released several years later.
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As the Summer Break heads to the very last days, Mugi is deprived of Mugivision and wants female to female contact. Ritsu decides to help by taking her out and try to fulfill Mugi’s wish of being smacked.
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What most people do during Summer Break? Stare at the wall or computer!
I spent most of my summer having my eyes glued to the computer with some exceptions. Now, I am on vacation in Wisconsin/Minnesota and I felt refreshed since staying at home all summer was boring and I wasn’t doing much except sitting at the desk doing programing work, blogging and chatting with other bloggers.
Azusa suffers the same fate with Yui, Mio and Ritsu having a study session in the library and Mugi vacationing Finland. Azusa spends time with Ui and Jun to get away from the summer boredom.
The dream flashback is rather strange, but silly.
Throughout the whole episode, Azusa falls asleep. In the dream sequences, we get a flash back of memories for all the four girls on what happened during the summer. They range from silly to completely funny. The flashback includes Yui eating the wrong combinations of food, Mio watching scary movies, Mugi trying to win a prize with Azusa winning a trip to Finland and Ritsu pushing Azusa down with a bowl of Yakisoba on top of her head. I couldn’t help but laugh since they did silly things.
I'm surprised they had such a movie within an anime like K-ON!… Also, the doggy was so cute!
Of course, those dream sequences that we are shown have some consequences… For instance, Azusa forget what she was doing or misses an entire movie… It happens when you are tired during the day and decide to take a nap while you were doing something like listening to a lecture. It’s not a good sign…
They had a fun time without the whole crew…
Most people think that summer is long… In reality, it’s not. Sitting in the house in front of the computer is no way to spend the whole vacation. If you want an enjoyable summer, you need to go on one vacation at least and enjoy what it has to offer. I’m doing so right now and It’s a breath of fresh air. Even though there isn’t much things to do in Wisconsin, I enjoyed some of the sightseeing in the state. I don’t regret it.
Besides the flashbacks Azusa had while she was sleeping, this episode was rather enjoyable. However, it wasn’t as enjoyable as the last episode. Its pretty much the trend where we have one episode being very enjoyable and the next… well a mixed bag. It’s not a bad thing, but I wished that the enjoyability factor was a bit more consistent. At least they aren’t repeating content like they did in the last season.
Next Episode: Time to study for those exams?
8.6/10
This is an unbiased review on the new dub. Since I have watched the whole season back in 2009 when it was only in fansubs, why not take advantage of viewing it in English? It seems fun, right?
The dub wasn’t all that bad. I’m pretty lenient and don’t complain why it doesn’t sound like the original because it’s difficult to imitate the pitch since it’s a different language. As long it’s not 4Kids, we are fine.
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Let’s play some games!
They decide to go to a Summer Festival before hitting the training camps… and guess what? Sawako had 6 tickets!
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Ah, summer, it’s that time of season where you want to be at the beach (unless your beach is polluted by BP’s oil spill, damn bastards) or at the pool. What happens if you are stuck in school? Well…
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Sawako is under pressure because she wants to keep her pure image around the freshmen. However, the former members of “Death Devil” want her to participate in playing music at a wedding reception since the bride thats getting married used to be part of the band. Sawako refuses and the Light Music Club devises a plan to eventually force her to play.
You might be wondering how well they will perform without Sawako. We will find out soon enough.
In the last season, Sawako revealed that she had a wild past because the boy she wanted liked wild girls. However that pretty much backfired as she went too far and he rejected her. If she was so talented, why she stopped now? It’s because purity and hardcore death metal does not mix.
Wait… Haven’t I seen something like this before?
When I saw the girls in K-ON spying on Sawako, I thought about Nogizaka Haruka Episode 4 when they were spying on Hazuki. In the the first half of the episode is focus on following this one person. It was the same, except it was a lot shorter and the girls got caught as you will find out.
The funniest thing that happen when the girls were spying on Sawako? The short, light brown hair woman noticed them all along.
In the end, Yui cries because she spent the most amount of money. It happens because sometimes, we want the best and the greatest that we sometimes spend too much money.
By the way, that girl… isn’t she…
Actually, she is a nice person. Her name is Norimi and she finally tells them what is going on. She wanted Sawako to play with the former members of Death Devil at a wedding, but Sawako declines. It’s pretty difficult since Sawa-chan had image problems.
This scene is probably the funniest scene in the whole episode. Passing notes during class is somewhat typical when students are up to no good. Mugi passed notes to Mio. then to Yui and Ritsu. The reactions from Yui and Ritsu is hilarious. Yui says that Mio’s handwriting is cute and Ritsu draws some scary shit that would make Mio laugh. The response is pretty obvious. Sawako catches them and they get time out in the hallway as Mugi had wished for…
Usually, standing in the hallway is a punishment like shitting in a corner… It’s so elementary, yet the girls make standing in the hallway a fun punishment. I highly doubt it will happen in real life, but it was pretty funny.
Now that they were unable to get Sawako to participate, they help Norimi and dress outlandishly…
Whose idea was this? Well, of course, Norimi’s!! You know when something doesn’t feel right, but you don’t want to blow your image, but you have to do something… Sawako flips, went on stage and started to play. She blew everyone’s expectations away on Death Devil. After performing, she realizes that she had done it and her image is completely ruined!
In the end, I knew that the girls couldn’t pull it off because it’s not their type of music. It seems that they do better with fluffy J-pop music instead of metal and I don’t blame them. Some people are simply better at a niche than others.
Well, I guess Sawako would be popular either way, so it’s no use of holding what you like most back. Sawako shouldn’t be so worried about the past because she is so talented. People change and grow up once they graduate in high school. The students aren’t going to make fun of her just because her past. Heck, they might even be amazed about it. Lastly, people look up to others who are talented, so she take advantage of that. If she does, she will remain a good role model.
Next Episode: It’s so freaking hot… can’t move… Yep, summer is in full force and you might be wondering… Where is the Air Conditioning?
8.9/10