K-ON!! - Episode 19

It's day one of the much anticipated school festival as K-ON!! hits its nineteenth episode, which means no appearance from Ho-kago Tea Time... however, it does means that today is the day of that all important performance of Ro-Mio and Juliet.

Of course, the build-up to this big event is comprised largely of blind panic, be it from Mio and her usual aversion to public performances or more general concerns such as whether the scenery and costumes will be ready in time - indeed, Sawako seems to have rather over-extended herself when it comes to providing costumes for the festival; is there anyone she hasn't created something for?


Those involved in the play aren't the only ones with worries though, as Azusa is concerned at the lack of practice undertaken by the light music club, with their performance set for the following afternoon -luckily for her the latter part of this instalment sees the girls pull an all-nighter to get in the required practice (as well as larking around a fair amount, of course), although surely we're not going to be treated to a smooth live performance this time around after seeing some kind of problem or other plague every other event they've stepped up to?

Anyhow, the highlight of the episode is of course the class performance of Romeo and Juliet... or, more specifically, Yui's turn as "Tree G", which made me laugh every time she put in an appearance - there's something endlessly enjoyable about seeing her with her head stuck into the middle of a cardboard tree, although to be fair she does prove her range of acting abilities by also sticking her head into a cardboard bush. It's the oldest joke in the "school play" scenario book, but it was pulled off excellently here.

Away from that, the rest of the episode was pretty entertaining too, from the occult club and their talk on cattle mutilation through to the general ambience of the school festival, which makes me wonder if Japanese school festivals are really as awesome as they always seem in anime? Anyhow, you somehow couldn't be swept away with the excitement of the day with this episode, which allowed it to effortless breeze through an instalment that wasn't outstanding but worked well regardless to create a fun time for all before the main course that is the light music club's event next episode.