Focus On K-ON!

K-ON

Ironically, I’d never even heard of K-ON until recently (and when I did I still pronounced it as ‘Con’) when my friend cosplayed as Yui. In the small cosplay competition I was in, I was the only entrant not dressed in the distinctive Sakuragaoka Girl's High School's uniform so I decided that the series may be worth a look.

The manga itself is slightly different from average; instead of fancy layouts the art is sectioned into eight neat little blocks per page, and although there is drama and humour, there isn’t really a set progressive storyline – it sort of plods along at its own happy pace, not demanding you to finish, but you still find yourself reading more.

The basis behind the story (and music) is this: Yui Hirasawa, a High School freshman is worried about becoming a NEET (stands for Not in Education, Employment or Training) and therefore is desperately searching for a club to join. Lo and behold, the Light Music Club needs more members otherwise it will be forced to close. So far so Shoujo, only what is interesting is that Yui does not contain any secret musical talent, and neither does the band. They are in fact, pretty rubbish. Yui’s Heritage Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar(creatively nicknamed "Gīta") is wasted on her at first. It’s seeing the band members get better and interact with each other that provides the true enjoyment.

Now here comes the music. Every anime has a notable opening or closing theme (I had the pleasure of listening to Natsuko Aso perform her anime opening themes at Hyper Japan) and K-ON plays on the fact that these girls are in a band. Due to the amount of snacks consumed in their rehearsals, the band is aptly named ‘Ho-Kago Tea Time’ (After School Tea Time). Whilst the first opening and ending themes were sung by professionals, a series of character song singles have been released sung by the voice actresses of the five main characters.

All the songs have cool and cute names like ‘Fuwa Fuwa Time’ (Light And Fluffy Time) and are surprisingly addictive. They cover popular songs such as ‘Tsubasa Wo Kudasai’ (Please Give Me Wings) and have had success in the music charts. GO! GO! MANIAC is a single used as the first opening theme for the second season of the anime and debuted first in the rankings on the Oricon weekly singles chart, selling approximately 83,000 copies. "Go! Go! Maniac" became the first anime image song to ever top the singles chart and the band also became the first female vocalists to occupy the top two spots with "Listen!!", another song from the anime.

One of my personal favourites, ‘Don’t Say “Lazy”’, which by the way has very unconnected, maverick lyrics, debuted at second in the rankings selling 67,000 copies.  It was also awarded the Best Theme Song at the 2009 (14th) Animation Kobe Awards.  The songs range from fast, rock-y and up tempo to chilled and sweet, so there’s something for everyone. I guarantee there will be at least one song in their repertoire that gets you singing along or toe tapping, and they are a must listen for any J-pop fan.

Mio - My favourite K-ON! character!

The London Cafe as featured in the movie.