K-ON!! - Episode 22

It's coming up to Valentine's Day as we hit K-ON!!'s twenty-second episode, leaving Azusa pondering what to do about giving her seniors in the light music club chocolate - A quandary that seems like a no-brainer until you remember that we are talking about a club that includes Tsumugi, after all.

Arguably more important than handing out chocolates is exams for the rest of the girls however, although this gets pretty short shrift in a sense this episode - we see them study a little, watch them waiting for the train to attend the exam's for their preferred future educational establishment, and most importantly of all see the results come in from those exams at the end of the episode.


The rest of the time is spent in more light-hearted fashion with Azusa finding herself ably assisted in her cake baking exploits by Ui, and rather less ably assisted by Jun (even I know how to make a chocolate cake Jun, come on now!). However, actually making the cake is of secondary difficulty to Azusa compared to actually giving it to her senior friends - her first attempt is stalled by Mio being given chocolate by some of her fans, and her second is ruined simply by Azusa's emotions themselves before she finally gets to dish out her delicious cake after school thanks to the kindness of the others.

Speaking of Azusa's emotions, although this episode doesn't (and couldn't possibly) match what we went through a couple of weeks back with this series, it doesn't quite let us off the hook in that department either, as Azusa is reminded forcefully once again that her time left with her light music club friends is limited, which she understandably finds hard to bear. Her role throughout this episode is actually quite sweet, but not to the point of being overly saccharine, as the series roles on to its climax in a way that it seems is going to be tinged with a whole lot more sadness. Still, the good news at the end of the episode leaves me even more tempted to put money on us seeing K-ON!!! post graduation in the future - perhaps when I'm eighty I'll still be writing about the latest anime series, K-ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...