Title: K-ON Volume 2
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia / New Zealand)
Based on: Manga Series under the same name by Kakifly
Genre: Comedy, Music, School-Life
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1080p High Definition
Runtime: 100 minutes
Cost: $24.95 (DVD), $29.95 (Blu-ray)
Classification: This title is rated PG for Mild Themes
Blurb: Following on from the first four episodes, the club has been… almost successfully formed pending actually being official and finding an advisor, and are now headed for their first official performance at the Cultural Festival. The first two episodes focus on this, whilst the other two are dedicated to both filler and finding a new club member. The storyline is lighthearted fun, however does go too fast and skips several months of potential plotline. The design and music quality is consistent with the first volume. Fans of the first volume should find this volume at the very least an equally satisfying watch,
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to the Madman Entertainment PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.
After a month-long gap, Madman Entertainment have finally released the second volume of K-ON on both DVD and Blu-ray, covering episodes 5-8 of season one. K-ON has achieved a significantly sized fanbase both in Japan and in Western countries, but if you are still not sold about purchasing it after reading the reviews of Volume 1, then hopefully this review will help you decide.
As the Light Music Club rehearses for their performance at the school festival, they realise that they’re not officially registered as a club. They need to quickly find a faculty advisor, but that’s not something that a little blackmail can’t fix. As their new club advisor, Miss Yamanaka coaches Yui to become the frontman of the hand and pushes her to the point of losing her voice. Mio is forced to become the lead vocalist in her stead, but can she overcome her stage fright?
Later, the Light Music Club celebrates Christmas with a party and gift exchange, and soon another school year begins. If they want the Light Music Club to live on even after they graduate, they’re going to have to recruit new members, and that means another performance at the freshman reception!
For those who have not heard of this series before, it generally follows a group of four girls who in their freshman year decide to join the Light Music Club – despite main character Yui having squat experience in any instrument. Whereas the first four episodes focused on the club members getting together to form, purchase Yui a guitar and take part in the all important school exams – this set of four episodes are focused more on the musical elements and throughout resulted in a number of musical numbers being performed.
The story takes place several months after the events of the first volume, resulting in a year passing by the time Episode 8 comes around. The way that the episodes progress may leave some disappointed that there could have been more episodes to progress season one past thirteen episodes, but looking past that – the episodes are paced well and provide a relaxing and enjoyable watch with nothing overly complicated plot wise that would pull the focus from the everyday exploits. The series did try to add a few elements of fanservice, but perhaps something that differentiates K-ON from other series is that it does not rely on fanservice at all with the exception for a comical nature. On the term of comedy, some of it might sound overboard at times, but managed to get quite a few chuckles from me – a considerable feat for a series of this genre.
With the second year for the girls appearing, also begins their quest for new group members in “Freshmen Reception” which shows that this series will not focus on the same set of characters, but will be including new ones as the episodes progress. For character development, I felt it was more heavily focused on Ritsu and Mio – namely with their clash of personalities and past friendship which proved to be interesting. Yui and her sister Ui received some development in terms of the Christmas episode, however Mugi and Nodoka seem to have been pushed to the side, similar to Volume 1. The inclusion of Miss Yamanaka is one I am not certain of if I enjoy yet. It is a vital role of course, but her eccentric nature did ruin it at some moments. Either way, provided you are after a lighthearted series you should find both the storyline and character relationships more then appropriate to enjoy.
My thoughts on both Design and Music generally stay the same, however there were some noticable improvements which I felt improved the overall watching experience. These improvements I feel come from the inclusion of music related storylines which required more animation and a higher attention to the detail to get it right. Character designs I felt improved both animation and anatomically wise (Although I still feel the anatomy is off in some scenes), however the environments were still of a high quality. The inclusion of the musical video sequence in Episode 6 was a bit out there, but was a surprising and welcome inclusion. On the mention of music, the background music still remained the same light-hearted but otherwise slightly dull tunes. The vocal tracks which were not present in Volume 1 were highly enjoyable however and in a smart move – retained the original Japanese dubbed lyrics with the English dubbed songs being included as extras.
Focusing upon the extra content included now, there are a handful of items that may or may not be of interest:
- Fuwa Fuwa Time Music Video – Not so much a music video as a showing of various clips from the series – however the song is dubbed into English instead of being included in the actual series. To be honest, the song isn’t that bad in English and I wouldn’t have minded even seeing it in the anime scenes considering it was sung by Cristina Valenzuela – who also goes by the name of Cristina Vee and a well known song fandubber.
- Interview with Cristina Vee – For those who happen to like watching interviews, I think it is a solid watch.
- Trailers for Summer Wars, Evangelion 2.22 and FLCL – All of which have been released on Blu-ray by Madman Entertainment
Overall, if you enjoyed the previous volume, this should not disappoint you as it generally remains the same quality in the storyline department. I can see why this series has proven so popular and it is nice to see a series that doesn’t have to resort to pointless fanservice or excessive violence to make a mark on the anime industry – something that I have found the school-life genre of anime to rely on quite frequently as of late.
Final Score
Storyline/Character Development: B
Design: B-
Music/Voice Acting: B+
Packaging/Extras: B
Personal Opinion: B
Overall Score: B
