K-ON! - Episode 8

For some bizarre reason, K-ON! versus The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya seems to have turned into some kind of contest for some sections of anime fandom, and I can't for the life of me figure out why (KyoAni connection aside) - Could you pick two more different series to compare? Well, okay, you could, but you get more point, and we'll be having no such comparisons here thank you very much.

Anyway, episode eight of K-ON! brings us to the start of a new school year, which begins with some good news in the form of Ui joining her older sister's school. Not that you'd be able to tell which is the elder sister from the way the two behave, but never mind. The news is also good for most of the light music club in that they get to join the same class.... All except poor old Mio, who is left feeling isolated until she at least finds herself in the same class as Nodoka for company.


That aside, a new school year means it's time to try and recruit some new members for the club, an effort that you could say the light music club try entirely too hard at, largely thanks to some "help" from Sawako - Who knew that dressing in large animal costumes isn't the best way to attract members to the club? Luckily, the girls also have a performance up their sleeve to try and tempt some newcomers, giving us some actual footage of the girls performing this time around (no cut-aways to music videos here) right the way down to Yui's overly verbose attempt at MC'ing between songs. This performance hardly sets the world alight in terms of their recruitment drive, but it appears not to be a dead loss, attracting as it does an additional moe stereotype to add to their ranks.

I should probably create some kind of script to randomly enter the word "fun" into my entries about K-ON!, but fun is exactly what this series, and of course this episode, is all about. In terms of episode eight specifically it did have a few little laugh out loud moments, not least the song title "Love is a Stapler" (a title worthy of Spinal Tap if you ask me), while I have to continue to complement this series for giving the girls live performance a raw and unpolished air which suits the series far better than the perfection which normally greets us with such performances in anime - A much-appreciated touch of realism if you ask me, which actually adds to the character of the show without detracting so much from the fluffy yet reasonably competent tunes.

So, in closing - "Fun". Yes, K-ON! is still fun to watch, and that's all you need to know.