K-On! is Not About Music
For purposes of simplicity, I will be referring to both the 1st season (K-On!) and the 2nd season (K-On!! [see what they did there?]) of the anime as K-On!.
K-On! is not an anime about music. It's not about high school. It's not about girls being all moe for otaku fanservice.
K-On! is about nothing in particular. That's why it's so freakin' awesome.
Most of our narrative pop culture are about, or want to be about, 'something'. By this I mean that they have a recurring theme or message that they want to impart by using their specific medium. A lot of anime that go on to become really famous are usually about something. Gundam, as a series, is a statement on global conflict resolution through human evolution, where the world would certainly be a lot more peaceful if we had Newtypes, and not idiots, in charge. Fullmetal Alchemist warns that the abuse of technology (alchemy in this case) by those in power can result in catastrophe. Naruto is about embracing your destiny by fighting against it (which would imply that Naruto is about irony itself).
K-On! has been compared (unfairly and incorrectly) to BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. BECK is an anime about an indie rock band trying to make it big, overcoming trials and tribulations and all that standard shonen anime tropes that we've been accustomed to (and thus, wholly expect from our anime), and thus BECK is about 'something'. We can't even compare K-On! to Nodame Cantabile either, heck, I'd be wary to even compare it to La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo. Comparing these would be like comparing a Van Gogh to a Playboy pin-up. Van Gogh certainly should be appreciated at a deeper level, but dang if that pin-up doesn't stimulate the viewer.
Nope, K-On! occupies the same planet as Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, and Working!!. All these series are about nothing in particular, but each one uses a different canvas for its nothingness. Azumanga has slapstick high school comedy, Lucky Star has otaku humour, Working!! has NEET sensibilities, K-On! has music club. I would wager it to be far from coincidence that these were all based on 4-koma manga, rather than the serials published in weekly magazines.
How in the world do Japanese otaku read all those manga every week and still have time left over to record late night anime shows or learn infinite juggles for the latest doujin fighters?
Kyoto Animation (the studio responsible for K-On! and Lucky Star) seems to have the slice-of-life genre down pat. Even cash-cow Suzumiya Haruhi is essentially a slice-of-life anime with sci-fi inflections. Try watching the infamous Endless Eight arc, which boils down to Haruhi trying to cram the best high school summer break ever into a couple of weeks. The Suzumiya Haruhi series is probably the most substantial anime about nothing in particular, which would probably mean that it would be about something, but a show can be like a NatGeo documentary: deep, but thoroughly pointless.
That is the point of slice-of-life shows, that they have no point at all. They are the sitcoms of the anime world, showing hints of deep revelations on life truths, but never really aspiring to preach them, precisely because it would be too much trouble to do so. This is probably why something like K-On! can only be published in a Seinen (adult) magazine, younger readers have too much expectations about what a series should contain. Adults can, and should be expected to, pick up on many of the subtle hints and implied meanings. Many have argued that these shows have degraded anime as a whole, but there should really be room for them. If you think these 'shallow and pointless' anime are bad, then by all means, every medium needs a 'bad' example to show us what our standards for 'good' should not be. But you'd still be wrong.
K-On! is not about the music. It's about life as a strawberry shortcake, sliced and served on a dessert plate, and music is just the strawberry chunks between the layers.
K-On! is not an anime about music. It's not about high school. It's not about girls being all moe for otaku fanservice.
K-On! is about nothing in particular. That's why it's so freakin' awesome.
Most of our narrative pop culture are about, or want to be about, 'something'. By this I mean that they have a recurring theme or message that they want to impart by using their specific medium. A lot of anime that go on to become really famous are usually about something. Gundam, as a series, is a statement on global conflict resolution through human evolution, where the world would certainly be a lot more peaceful if we had Newtypes, and not idiots, in charge. Fullmetal Alchemist warns that the abuse of technology (alchemy in this case) by those in power can result in catastrophe. Naruto is about embracing your destiny by fighting against it (which would imply that Naruto is about irony itself).
K-On! has been compared (unfairly and incorrectly) to BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. BECK is an anime about an indie rock band trying to make it big, overcoming trials and tribulations and all that standard shonen anime tropes that we've been accustomed to (and thus, wholly expect from our anime), and thus BECK is about 'something'. We can't even compare K-On! to Nodame Cantabile either, heck, I'd be wary to even compare it to La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo. Comparing these would be like comparing a Van Gogh to a Playboy pin-up. Van Gogh certainly should be appreciated at a deeper level, but dang if that pin-up doesn't stimulate the viewer.
Nope, K-On! occupies the same planet as Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, and Working!!. All these series are about nothing in particular, but each one uses a different canvas for its nothingness. Azumanga has slapstick high school comedy, Lucky Star has otaku humour, Working!! has NEET sensibilities, K-On! has music club. I would wager it to be far from coincidence that these were all based on 4-koma manga, rather than the serials published in weekly magazines.
How in the world do Japanese otaku read all those manga every week and still have time left over to record late night anime shows or learn infinite juggles for the latest doujin fighters?
Kyoto Animation (the studio responsible for K-On! and Lucky Star) seems to have the slice-of-life genre down pat. Even cash-cow Suzumiya Haruhi is essentially a slice-of-life anime with sci-fi inflections. Try watching the infamous Endless Eight arc, which boils down to Haruhi trying to cram the best high school summer break ever into a couple of weeks. The Suzumiya Haruhi series is probably the most substantial anime about nothing in particular, which would probably mean that it would be about something, but a show can be like a NatGeo documentary: deep, but thoroughly pointless.
That is the point of slice-of-life shows, that they have no point at all. They are the sitcoms of the anime world, showing hints of deep revelations on life truths, but never really aspiring to preach them, precisely because it would be too much trouble to do so. This is probably why something like K-On! can only be published in a Seinen (adult) magazine, younger readers have too much expectations about what a series should contain. Adults can, and should be expected to, pick up on many of the subtle hints and implied meanings. Many have argued that these shows have degraded anime as a whole, but there should really be room for them. If you think these 'shallow and pointless' anime are bad, then by all means, every medium needs a 'bad' example to show us what our standards for 'good' should not be. But you'd still be wrong.
K-On! is not about the music. It's about life as a strawberry shortcake, sliced and served on a dessert plate, and music is just the strawberry chunks between the layers.
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