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TheAndySan – K-ON! Review

Intro

Have you ever wondered what strange shapes Guitar Hero and Rock Band based their controllers around? Do you have an interest in making music, or just watching other people make music? How about a love for all things moe? Well, then I have an anime for you to watch; K-ON!.

Summary

K-On! is about four (later on five) Japanese high school girls who join their school’s light music club (light music in Japan meaning contemporary or pop music) to try to save it from being abolished. However, Yui Hirasawa, the lead guitarist, has no experience playing musical instruments or reading sheet music in the beginning, but is blessed with perfect pitch. Eventually, she becomes a competant guitar player and background singer. The rest of the club helps her to buy a Gibson Les Paul, and they perform at the school festival twice, despite the fact that they drink tea and eat sweets most of the time and practice very little when together.

Character Overview

Sakuragaoka High School’s light music club consists of:

Sawako “Sawa-chan” Yamanaka – the polite advisor who used to be in the light music club as part of a heavy metal band called Death Devil. When with the light music club, she’s rebellious, lazy, and has a panche for making the girls cosplay.

Yui Hirasawa – the clumsy but obliviously talented lead guitar player as well as backing singer. She had no previous musical experience before joining the club (except for playing castanets in elementary school), but managed to become suitable to the band’s style of music shortly after joining.

Ritsu “Ricchan” Tainaka – the energetic drummer who’s also the club’s official leader. She was the one who wanted to join the light music club and managed to convince everyone else to join, sometimes using underhanded tactics to do so.

Mio Akiyama - the reluctantly popular bassist, lead vocalist, and main songwriter as well as the only leftie of the group. She’s usually shy and responsible, but tends to freak out when it comes to scary stuff.

Tsumugi “Mugi-chan” Kotobuki – the wealthy and gentle keyboardist who has been playing piano since she was four and has won several competitions. Her father is the president of a large but unknown company that seems to own the music store where Yui got her guitar and a maid cafe where all of the club’s sweets come from.

Azusa “Azu-nyan” Nakano – the younger rhythm guitarist who joins the group a year after it was saved by the original four members. She’s much more technically proficient than Yui and takes practicing seriously, but learns to loosen up as she is with the club.

Story: 5/10

Being in the slice-of-life genre, which is one of my favorite genres, as well as having a severe case of the moe, the story for K-ON! can get downright muddled at times. It’s not that it’s random ala Azumanga Daioh or Lucky Star; there is a storyline in each episode, but the focus likes to shift a lot. This sounds interesting in theory, but doesn’t quite pan out in practice.

Now, I’m by no means an anime snob. I absolutely detest elitist attitudes towards anything in life. When it comes to anime, I don’t really care if I’m watching something critically acclaimed like Cowboy Bebop or severely panned like Green Green, as long as I enjoy what I’m watching.

The amount of in-show fan-service has also been modestly and smartly placed, despite the zillions…and zillions…of mostly suggestive fan art of Mio and Azusa creeping around the Interwebz.

I give it a 5/10 for an at-times jerky ride of a storyline with smart fan-service placement.

Animation: 6/10 & Music: 8/10

Anime critics be damned, I thought the animation quality was mostly good! However, the instruments, especially Yui’s poor Les Paul named Gitah, seemed to be on the wrong side of the budget cuts. Her guitar’s appearance ranges from very well drawn to a blobby mess, with seemingly no good middle ground.

Since K-ON! revolves around music, it’s only natural that the music be nicely done. The club’s signature tune, Fuwa Fuwa Time, which translates to Light and Fluffy Time, reminds me a lot of Party Hard by Andrew W.K., but lighter and fluffier haha! The song I like the most from the soundtrack is a slow bluesy number called Hold On Your Love. It’s a very moving 2 minutes of music.

I give the animation a 6/10 for sometimes butchering Gitah and the music an 8/10 for a well put-together soundtrack.

Characters: 7/10

The one thing that bugged the crap outta me when watching this series is that I sometimes visually confused Yui and Ritsu. Yes, they have slightly different hair color. And yes, Ritsu’s hair is pulled back while Yui’s hangs down. However, it’s their hair length and texture as well as their closely matched hair color that mix me up sometimes.

Looks aside, although each girl has their own personality unique among the group, I feel that they don’t evolve much as characters as the show progresses. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt since this is only a 13-episode series, which should see another 13 episodes considering the immense popularity of the series.

I’ll give ‘em a 7/10 since they’re unique among themselves, but still have a ways to go to develop their characters.

Enjoyment: 8/10

Although the recession has put the kibosh on producing as many anime series as before, of the recent anime that I’ve been watching, K-ON! is only seconded by Toradora!. Would I watch it again? Sure. In fact, I’m rewatching the series this week to gain a better prospective on the characters after I know what’s going to be going down in the series.

As I said before, K-ON! should be getting a second season since it was especially weIl-received by moe-hungry fans looking to whet their appetites while waiting for Season 2 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which was finally released near the end of K-ON!’s first season, after three years of impatient waiting and broken promises aka marketing strategies. But that’s another story altogether…

I give them an 8/10 for a fun, light-hearted musical romp through Moeville.

Overall: 6.8/10

K-ON! took a beating in its overall rating mostly because of its oddly structured storylines, occasionally awful instrument illustration, and little to no character development. Despite these shortcomings, it was quite an enjoyable anime to watch. Its immense online popularity also makes it relatively easy to talk about amongst other otaku without having to explain what the series is about.

I would suggest that the next season focus on drawing the instruments clearly on a consistent basis and give the characters some backstory to help us the audience gain a better prospective of them.

I give K-ON! an overall rating of 6.8/10.

TheAndySan

After last week’s vlogfest, I thought it would be nice to kick off this week with a trip down memory lane!

In this week’s Deja Vuesday, we turn the clock back a year to when I was quite ambitious about earning money online. Also, my posting quality was much better and more consistent in those days, haha! Here’s A Man Imperfect:

Hello guys, it’s TheAndySan here with a significantly less emo-frasticle post.

I’m sorry if I alarmed you guys with my previous post; I was a bit angry that Eriopolis defeated my argument so soundly.

During my lunch, I discussed it with Cody. He asked why I didn’t just say that you should follow your passion. I thought I was getting that across without actually saying it, but I guess I was wrong. So here goes another rephrasing of my previous statement: In closing, I believe that you should pursue your passion or everything will become pointless.”

I have found that my passion is not working at Wal-Mart. Some people love to work there and have for many years. More power to them. However, it’s not what I want to do for a living.

Ever since I turned 18, I have become a restless soul searching for meaning in my life.

Consequently, I have gone through my fair share of jobs since then because I grew tired of them. Once I had learned the routines, the work days became more and more monotonous. It eventually bothers me so much that I end up quitting, and in ths economy, it’s getting harder and harder to pick up a new job right after you leave another one.

I still believe in what I said, and I’m still doing what I love to do. I’m still playing guitar, singing, watching anime, blogging, and vlogging. The only thing is is that I also work in order to pay my main expenses. I still want to get to the point where a job won’t be required for me to cover all of my expenses.

My goals in life at the moment are thus:

1. Make at least enough money from my websites to cover my monthly expenses.

This is a biggie. It’s the first step to becoming a business owner. In order for that to happen, my websites need to consistently generate at least $410 a month. Seems daunting, but I’m confident that it’ll be a very real possibility in the near future.

I’m still shooting for this goal. Why? For the simple fact that I can put my expenses on auto-pilot while I focus on more interesting things, or just lay around the house if I want to.

However, my expenses have gone up quite a bit from $410 a month since I’m living on my own now. They’re roughly $600 a month now, which is still not impossible to make online, but it’ll take me some time to do it.

2. Quit my job at Wal-Mart to work on my sites full-time.

Now that I’ll have enough income to at least not get kicked out of the house and to not have my Internets turned off, I can pursue working on my websites full-time without worry.

As I said before, once I’m able to consistently make enough money online, I’ll quit my job in order to persue it full-time. When I say consistently, I’m talking at least three months of being able to make enough money online to support myself, which in this case is around $600 a month.

3. As my income increases, make more sites to further increase it, but not too much to where I’m too busy with them to do anything.

The keys here are freedom and balance. This is my biggest goal when it comes to making money: make enough money to at least be able to comfortably support myself while having as much free time as possible. If I work too much, then I won’t be able to enjoy all the money that’s coming in. Conversely, if I work too little, then I won’t have enough money to support myself.

Although I said here that I would be making multiple websites, chances are that I won’t simply because it would be too much of a chore to not only create them, but to constantly manage and update them on a regular basis. I might use an e-commerce system already set up by someone if I were to sell things online, but I’ll try to keep things as closely tied to TheAndySan.com as I can.

4. When my income becomes large enough to comfortably support myself and still have a good amount left over, then I’ll begin to pay off my debts.

It might take me awhile or no time at all to pay off what I owe. This includes what I owe on ITT Tech, Sallie Mae, UU, my credit cards, my lawyer fees, and I think that’s it. I’ll definitely have to get a credit check either before or after to fully assess my debt.

I already got myself a free credit check thanks to PrePaid Legal, which is the only good thing they’ve done for me. The results are bad of course, but not as bad as I had previously thought.

Working full-time online should net me enough money to not only pay my immediate expenses, but my large amount of debt as well.

5. Once ALL of my debt is paid off, I’ll apply for a credit card to boost my credit and save up to go back to college.

Since my debt will be all paid for, I want to raise my credit score even further by properly using a credit card. During this time, I’ll also save up to go back to college, this time at Bowling Green State University. Since I’ll have a MUCH better credit score this time around, I’ll be moAr eligible for loans and I’ll be able to get lower-interest loans if I need them.

Although I’ll be getting a credit card once I’m able to afford to pay on my debt, I won’t have to wait quite this long since I’ll be going to Owens Community College once I turn 24, which is when I’ll be considered financially independant from my parents and able to reap a varitable shit-ton of grants since they’ll look at what I make alone. Since I make less than $10,000 a year, I should be able to get loads of grants to help pay for college.

6. Go to college and still maintain the websites to generate money while I’m in college.

Because I will have balanced my workload in Goal #3, I shouldn’t worry about overdoing it while I’m at college. In the event that my grades begin to slip because I’m too busy updating my websites, then I’ll lower the update periods from daily to weekly while I’m in college and go from there.

As I said above, I’ll be going to Owens to take general courses at an easier price to swallow and to boost my GPA so that I’ll be accepted into BGSU within a year of attending Owens.

7. Once I graduate college with a BA in Japanese, apply to study abroad.

I might be able to do this while I’m still in college, but I dunno for sure. One of my big life goals is to not only visit another country, but to live in one, even for a short amount of time.

If I go to BGSU, I’ll definitely be able to live in Japan for at least a year as a student. After graduation, I’ll apply for the JET Programme to become an ALT or a CIR. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll fly out to Japan and look for a job as an English instructor.

8. Live in Japan for at least a year or two.

As I said before, I would love to live in another country. I’m really interested in Japan because they are on the forefront of technology. For example, although we have screen-savers on our cell phones now, the Japanese have had them since the late ’90s!!!1 Also, their music scene is out of this world! It would also be nice to meet Marty Friedman if he were taping a show or performing a concert.

When I do visit and end up living in Japan, you can count on me vlogging about it. Sure, there are a zillion j-vloggers out there ever since guys like TokyoCooney and Gimmeabreakman started vlogging about Japan, but I want to add my own take on things to the mix.

Of course, we all know how life can throw you a curve-ball that’ll pitch your plans out the window. Basically, these are my life goals until something in my life changes and makes me change my goals.

In closing, I would like to say that no one’s perfect (especially me, lol!) and that you must follow your passion without fear of failure. Because it’s better to fail doing what you love than failing to do what you love.

Good-night, and good-luck.

TheAndySan

P.S: It’s been 40 days since www.theandysan.com has been up and 12 days since www.spicymelon.com has been up. I’m going to be retooling www.spicymelon.com so it might take a bit before I update it again.

Man, I love that quote of mine! “It’s better to fail doing what you love than failing to do what you love.” It’s just so awesome! I told you guys this time period was a creative high for me!!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this little blast from the past. I’m going to be rewatching Umisho before I go to work for the first time in awhile. I really loved it!

I’ll be seeing you guys later. Bye now!

TheAndySan

Holy crap, I completely lost track of uploading the videos!! I’m sorry, guys! I blame work and extreme laziness.

I had a most wonderful time in Michigan! I met some really fun people, went intertubing on a boat, caught up with my family, and enjoyed some great food that I didn’t have to pay for!! Speaking of food, I’m gonna put in more effort to eat more fruit as well as cook my own meals instead of always eating out so I don’t gain a bazillion pounds like I did when I went to UU.

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 05 – Crazy Train

This beast of a song is always fun to sing, even though I’m not always in tune, haha! By this point, my voice is feelin’ a little wear and those high notes get harder to sing. Also, I noticed that the music is pretty loud so you can’t hear me totally suck, lol!

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 06 – Carry On My Wayward Son

Carry On My Wayward Son sits in a high register territory and because of that, I totally bombed this one. This will be one-starred fo’ sho’!

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 07 – Unchained

Like Runnin’ With The Devil, Unchained is still David Lee Roth-era Van Halen and not Van Hagar, so I’m in good standing vocally speaking (no pun intended). My voice is a tad on the gritty side, but I think that it fits with the song better than totally clean singing. Also, I noticed that I seem lost with some of the lyrics. Oh well, better luck next time…

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 08 – Fool For Your Loving

Surprisingly, my voice didn’t peter out singing this one! Once again, I get lyrically (as well as musically) lost with this one, but that’s because the 1988 version with Steve Vai has been practically engraved into the ridges of my brain.

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 09 – A Tout Le Monde

Here it is, the last part of my Singing Videos (aka Suckfest 2009, lol)!! Around this time, my voice was roached, but I really pushed it with this song.

Despite several delays, I hope you guys have enjoyed my Singing Videos miniseries! I’ll be recording some vlogs that I’ll put up on YouTube within the week, depending on how involved I get with it.

Well, I’m going to be catching up with Gakuen Alice so I’ll see you guys later. Bye now!

TheAndySan

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 04 – Runnin With The Devil

Sorry about the delay, folks! I completely lost track of time and forgot to post the fourth installment of my new vlogging series, Runnin With The Devil by Van Halen.

Since this is David Lee Roth-era Van Halen and not Van Hagar, I’m in pretty comfortable vocal territory. It’s not my best range, but it’s very doable. With that in mind, here comes yet another Van Halen fanboy rant *groan where appropriate*:

When it comes to Diamond Dave or the Red Rocker, I prefer Dave mostly because of the tunes. Van Hagar in my never-to-be-humble opinion is a completely different animal than Van Halen (hence the nickname). Not better or worse, but different. I loved Sammy’s solo stuff (let’s face it, who doesn’t totally rock out when I Can’t Drive 55 is on the radio?) and unflappably adore Van Halen.

When they came together, the music they made was completely uncharacteristic of both parties. I’ll admit, I got more than annoyed when Eddie wouldn’t stop playing the damn keyboard and practically left his guitar to collect dust. “Jump” was pretty damn cool, but it was a bad idea to keep going in that direction.

Thankfully, they came to their senses and got Dave back at the cost of Michael Anthony, the unsung (although his legendary background vocals would say otherwise) rock of a bass player. It’s no biggie since both he and Sammy are kickin’ out the jams (mothafucker!) with Chickenfoot, which also consists of Joe Satriani and Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Okay, rant time is over, shower time is now!

The next video , which will be released later on today, will be me singing Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. It’ll drive you banana!!

I love my l33t Pat Patterson reference, ololol!

TheAndySan

P.S: The miniseries will be taking a break on Friday the 26th (although I might release a video early that morning) and will resume on Monday the 29th (but possibly the Sunday before, if I get back here in time). I will be up in Michigan with my family at Jon and my cousin’s grad party.

TheAndySan – 06-20-2009 Singing Videos 03 – I Kissed A Girl

In the third installment of my new vlogging series, Singing Videos, I’m singing I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry.

Because my voice isn’t nearly as high as Katy’s, I try singing in an octave below her. It’s not quite as dynamic-sounding as when she sings it, but at least I can stay in key with her. Sometimes, haha!

The next video will be me singing Runnin’ With The Devil by Van Halen. It’ll be slammin’!

TheAndySan

P.S: The miniseries will take a break on Friday the 26th (although I might release a video early that morning) and will resume on Monday the 29th. I will be up in Michigan with my family at Jon’s grad party.