At long last, we are at the end of our long journey. I have now gone through the entirety of K-On The Movie, thoroughly breaking down each scene and explaining why they don't work, exposing it for the broken disaster that it is, and taking a deep dive into everything that made the show special and how the movie nullified and/or destroyed all of it. And now, for the finale of this analysis, it is time for me to go over every major element of this movie, and how this movie fails to handle a single one of them well, because this is one of those pieces of media where almost nothing about it works in any capacity.
But to start off with one of the few things the movie gets right; the animation. I've always had a deep appreciation for how the animation in the series has this sort of theatrical feel to it, especially in Season 2, between the smooth as hell character animation, really appealing designs, and great attention to detail with the lighting and backgrounds. And the movie carries over a lot of these elements to maintain the visual charm. There are so many scenes that are so beautifully animated and detailed that it's jaw dropping, when you compare the character designs between the movie and the show, the upgrades they got are noticeable and they look cleaner than they ever have, certain shots are almost wallpaper worthy with how much detail went into every aspect, with several highlights being the shot where Yui is thinking about what gift to get for Azusa, the one where the girls are waiting for a train in the subway, every frame of the taxi scene, and even the shot at the end of the movie where Yui is running across the bridge, the lighting in many scenes is great, the slight camera shakes at certain points are mesmerizing, but never jarring, and everything about London from a visual standpoint is an absolute treat to look at. You can tell that the team behind it did everything they could to make the city look as lively and detailed as possible, further proven by how Naoko Yamada actually took a trip to London to be absolutely sure that they didn't miss out any details.
However, there are a few criticisms I can lodge with the visuals. It attempts to give the movie as much of a theatrical feel as possible, and it works wonders, but as a result, it, neglects one other major element of the show’s animation; the expressiveness. The show was so much fun to look at visually because there was a lot of energy and expressiveness when it was needed for the comedic moments, which it had plenty of. That’s almost nowhere to be found in this film, which could explain why a good chunk of its comedy falls apart. It only makes one attempt to be expressive during the scene where Ton-chan picks out the location of HTT's graduation trip, but it actually looks more tacky than appealing. Also, while I said the lighting was great, it has a few shots where it really fumbles to have properly lit scenes, with some major offenses being when it attempts to make the sushi bar mamager as scary as possible by making him look incredibly dark, clashing horribly with the bright lighting of the sushi bar, the lighting being way too bright during the U&I concert, and the scene immediately after that being so blindingly bright that it amazes me how this made it into a theatrical movie.
Not to say that it nullifies any of the obvious visual upgrades this film made to the show, especially when it makes the performances the characters do in London a visual treat, but it definitely lacks a major part of what made the show’s animation so great.
I can’t say this about the OST, though, because that’s definitely on par with the series. K-On’s OST comprised of many energetic and laidback tracks that’s pretty distinct from any other slice of life comedy prior to it, with the highlights, in my opinion, being the softer melodies that range from soothing to emotional, and the movie 100% delivers on all of these tones, with a few new styles that fit in quite nicely with the London environment. With some of my personal favourites being Konayuki, Air of Northern Countries, Train-D, and especially Winter Night in a Warm Room and Far Distant Past, just to name a few bangers. And the direction they take with the vocal songs is also pretty solid, giving a more live concert feel to the audio works wonders for every single performance that takes place in the film. All of this could add up to the movie having an amazing atmosphere to it that could easily enhance the viewing experience. That is, if anything else about the film was even remotely competent. Sadly, every other element of this movie falls apart at the seams if you give them even the tiniest bit of forethought.
For a slice of life anime movie about cute girls going on a graduation trip to London, it's astounding how fundamentally broken it manages to be. You seriously have to try to have nearly every single scene not follow an ounce of logic throughout the runtime, and this movie accomplishes that feat in spades. I won't go over every single instance of this story breaking, since you have the previous parts of this analysis if you wanna look back on them, but to go through a few major logic breaks, there's:
- Azusa somehow being able to hear a mid level cassette from a significant distance away from the light music club room and somehow interpeting that as a legitimate performance so the bait and switch stuff in the first 4 minutes of the movie can play out.
- The incredibly convenient timing of Azusa coming into the club room at the exact time she needs to so she could hear Yui say "repeating a year" while also not hearing any other part of the conversation that kicks off the semi-conflict between them, which I'll get more into later.
- The entire London trip happening at all because they cheat with Ton-chan's placement between shots when tasked with picking a cup that'll decide HTT's graduation trip location.
- Ritsu
kicking Sawako out as soon as possible so they can presumably start
discussing Azusa’s graduation gift, only to wait until sunset to
actually do that.
- Mio’s fear of spinning things being kicked off because none of these girls looked in any other direction for several minutes while waiting for her luggage.
- Mio and Mugi not using their abilities to understand English when it really would have helped them get to the hotel quickly.
- The insane idea that none of these girls knew about the location of their hotel at all.
- The entire sushi bar scene running off nothing but stupidity from all ends, with Love Crysis’s explanation breaking things even more.
- The group not being able to enjoy afternoon tea in London because they somehow didn’t have reservations despite having a travel itinerary planned, meaning that a place for afternoon tea should have been listed.
- Them also not deciding to try and look for another cafe after the fact.
- Azusa somehow being able to immediately identify a trail of candies as such and the fact that it’s Yui’s despite being half asleep in the dark, kicking off the cringe inducing back and forth hotel scene.
- Inhumane creeps presumably chasing teenage girls not drawing suspicion from anyone.
- The entire “conversation” regarding whether HTT should go through with the cultural festival performance being skipped only for the sole problem with doing so, getting to the airport in time, being brought up after they agree to do it.
- Mio still being convinced that spinning things are the worst things ever during the scene where Yui is hesitant to plug her guitar in despite the fact she enjoyed being on the very London Eye that she's looking at.
- Everything to do with Sawako’s explanation for why she showed up in London at the last minute.
- The entirety of Class 3-2 finding out about the fact that HTT performed in London before they even got back.
It blows my mind how much this movie struggles to keep itself consistent when thinking about all these instances, on top of all the other miscellaneous bullshit I've brought up throughout this analysis, that can't even follow the slightest bit of logic, but even if we were to ignore every single nonsensical event and build up present throughout the entire runtime of this film, it doesn't really hold together as a grand journey to an entirely new location for these characters, because the London trip manages to be the most lackluster and wasted trip I've ever seen in any piece of media that has a group of characters visting a new area. After HTT get through the treacherous process of actually getting to their hotel, the movie has no interest in focusing on these characters enjoying the trip. All of their time sightseeing on their second day is relegated to a montage that only lasts a minue and a half, with a good portion of that focusing on Azusa trying to keep her distance from Yui and their shenanigans regardng a dog waste bin. And every other scene after that point where HTT are exploring London are just completely sped through, with the longest a scene would ever last being 30 seconds. It also brings forth a major pacing issue because the scenes that have the most amount of time spent on them while HTT are in London are the sushi bar scene, the scenes inside their hotel rooms on the second night, and the cultural festival, one of which was an 8 minute waste of time with how the broken events that unfolded in it resulted in HTT not even getting to eat there in the end, and another of which had a comedic scene which felt incredibly forced and dragged out, which was also a time waster with the fact that it should have wrapped up the semi-conflict, but didn't.
This abhorrent pacing might have been somewhat forgivable if the few scenes that actually bothered to showcase HTT enjoying London were substantial, but sadly, they're not, because the movie constantly sets up the potential that would come with having these characters come to London and wastes it at every opportunity. When they visit a museum with plenty of UK history for them to be amazed by, it's more focused on paying lipservice to an episode of the show by showcasing a replica of the tombstone that was used in Class 3-2's Romeo and Juilet school play, which becomes straight up baffling when you find out that they had planned a scene with HTT visitng a museum and playing around with it, yet never went through with it for unknown reasons. And this is immediately followed up by a scene where it seems like HTT will be able to experience the joys of UK tea as they make their way towards a cafe that provides afternoon tea, only to be shot down with the fact that they didn't have a reservation for it, and it somehow never occurs to them at that they could continue to look for a place to indulge in UK tea that doesn't require reservations. When HTT visit a music store the next day, this would have been the perfect opportunity for them to indulge in all the amazing stuff that ties into UK music culture, especially when Mio in particular has shown a lot of interest in it, and it served as the main reason she wanted to visit London. But instead, it wants to pay lipservice to the show again by focusing on the fact that a guitar model that's the same as Yui's is there even though it actually isn't if you try to look for it in this shot, but that's besides the point.
And finally, when HTT agree to perform at the cultural festival, it cuts to a scene where they're attempting to translate Gohan wa Okazu into English, building up to the idea that they'd perform one of their songs in English for the special occasion, and they don't show the results of said translation, so it would be safe to assume that we would eventually get to see said results when they perform it. But no, they just stick to singing it in Japanese instead. When taking all of these instances of set-ups with no pay-offs into consideration, it makes London being picked as the locaton of their trip feel more like an afterthought, and it's not helped by how the actual trip feels like so much of a waste that HTT's field trip in Kyoto had significantly more going for it. "But what about all those instances where the characters tried speaking English?" Sorry, that ain't gonna cut it, because the ones who speak English the most in this movie are Yui and Ritsu, who had an entire scene dedicated to showcasing how much they don't need English to live, while the two characters who are established to have some skill in English, Mio and Mugi, almost never make use of said skills in situations where they really would have been helpful. And the relevance this actually has to the trip starts and ends on the first day. It is nowhere near enough to make up for how wasted the London trip feels.
And if you're going into this film solely for the comforting vibes that made the show such a comforting watch, I hate to break it to you, but those are also almost completely void from this movie because so many things here give off a sense of uneasiness. The movie opens up with HTT doing a performance of a Death Devil song and then going into a heated argument once Azusa comes into the club room. It's all revealed to be little more than a bait and switch meant to show to viewers that the film isn't gonna be some heavy band drama, but putting aside how unnecessary that is, and how it still comes off as uncomfortable because the end result is HTT emotionally fucking with Azusa for the fun of it, the rest of the movie actually ends up leaning more towards the tone of the bait and switch argument than the show's. Between the sentiment that Azusa has never had any positive experiences with the light music club (which couldn't be further from the truth), both scenes where Azusa comes into the club room only for the others to freak the hell out over it, the sheer awkwardness between Yui and Azusa when they're on the airplane, the horror vibe that's presented with how it tries to make the sushi bar manager seem as scary as humanly possible during the sushi bar scene, the entire semi-conflict between Yui and Azusa, the scene where Azusa elbows Yui in the stomach, and both instances where Yui tries to give encouragement to her friends in situations where they have to play a song in front of other people only for her to be shot down for it, there are too many moments in the movie where it's the complete opposite of comforting and relaxing, to the point where discomforting awkwardness is the established tone for almost the entire runtime. And this is a pretty significant issue for a comfy slice of life series like K-On where the lighthearted wholesomeness without any worries of potential drama (mostly) is what makes it easy to get in to and is a huge appeal for so many people who love this series, me included.
"Well, isn't the main point of the movie about the characters coming up with a song for Azusa so that the final episode of the show is more impactful instead of just having Tenshi ni Fureta Yo come out of nowhere?" Well, there's just one little problem with that. The amount of time the movie spends developing this is even less so than the time it spends on the characters enjoying the London trip. They bring up the concept of wanting to get a graduation gift for Azusa later transitioning into writing a song for her during the first third, but it’s pretty much forgotten about for almost the entirety of the London trip barring one brief discussion that boils down to them not having any inspiration, and it’s never discussed after that. There could have been an extra scene for that, but instead we got them all discussing Yui translating Gohan wa Okazu into English, which got nullified anyways as I mentioned earlier. The only character who puts any effort into making Azusa’s song a reality is Yui, but that doesn’t really factor into the film spending time developing that because her efforts get treated as if they meant nothing during the final third. It takes until the final 15 minutes of the movie for the characters to actually start properly working on the song, but even at that, the entire process of it that takes days is completely and entirely skimmed over, so it ultimately adds nothing.
This doesn’t feel like a genuine origin of TNFY at all, as it only ends up getting across the sentiment that they found some time before the events of After School to write and compose the song, something that literally anyone could piece together. In fact, the series got this sentiment across better without even trying. If we just go off that, you can safely assume that even with all the stuff the characters did in preparation of their graduation, they stil found some time in their day to write this song for Azusa. It’s almost like they didn’t need an entire episode building up to TNFY for it to be impactful. Until you realise that this is a movie that’s 1 hour and 45 minutes long, and they only spend mere seconds developing anything about how the song came to be. There might have been a point if any of the lyrics tied in to the London trip thematically, but they don’t, so once again I’m just left wondering what this movie added about TNFY that we didn’t already know about or couldn’t already piece together in the series. This just further adds salt to the wound that is the lack of substance the movie has beyond the stuff that doesn't make any sense. It spends minimal time on the characters enjoying the London trip, and it spends even less time developing what’s meant to be the emotional core of the film.
Meaning that the one plot point that gets the most focus is the semi-conflict between Yui and Azusa. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the worst things about this movie. I’ve already mentioned how it kicks off because of the bafflingly convenient timing of Azusa coming into the club room to hear Yui saying “staying back a year” with no context and not any other part of that conversation, but honestly, even with that, there’s no way it should have ever happened in the first place. DIsregarding how Mugi successfully manages to cover it up, any suspicions that Yui could be hiding something from Azusa should have been dropped when she saw with her own eyes that Yui couldn’t hide the fact that she cheated the graduation trip lottery she did, and when Ui confirmed the fact that Yui sucks at hiding things later on at the library.
And yet, even with all this evidence she has that actively goes against the idea of Yui hiding the fact that she’s staying back a year and not getting any further hints that she could be in the several days that pass while they’re preparing for their London trip, she still ends up having a nightmare about Yui staying back a year, repeating this same nightmare on every single night of the trip, implying that she’s been letting the idea of Yui staying back a year live rent free in her head this entire time as if she somehow caught onto a hint that confirms that idea, but she didn’t. Unless she somehow saw Yui holding onto her guitar earlier as definite proof of her hiding that fact from her, but that is such a reach that it’s unbelievable for someone like Azusa to ever come to that conclusion. There’s also the moment where Azusa believes that Yui has romantic feelings for her from the first night of the trip all the way to the second despite “Azu-nyan Love” being written on Yui’s notepad being no different from the usual affection that Yui has given her over the years, and the fact that she didn’t even believe that sentiment when she was almost kissed by her. So yeah, the build up to this semi-conflict is as broken as the rest of this film, but does it at least add anything meaningful?
But I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Nah, you’re like, super biased, bro! The show was also prone to writing problems similar to what you’ve brought up in this analysis. In fact, the show has more of these ‘smaller’ issues, what makes the movie worse?” And to that I say, you are right about one of these things. For as high as a regard that I’ll always hold it in, K-On is not a flawless series, and you’ll never hear me claim that it is. In fact, to prove that I have no issues criticizing the series that I adore more than any other piece of media that has ever existed, allow me to list every single thing in the series that particularly baffles me whenever I think about them.
To start with, you have the way that School Festival ends. The two episodes prior to it were building up to Mio overcoming her shyness and embarrassment over being in the spotlight to some degree, which is further built up in this particular episode as Mio is now in a situation where she has to take the lead vocals for their first school festival performance. And she manages to pull it off really well, leading to her feeling a sense of satisfaction from the applause she’s getting. But then it’s all seemingly undone as she fucking trips on her bass cable and reveals her panties when she’s about to walk off stage experiencing the type of attention that she feared she would get, leading to the most embarrassing moment of her life and scarring her as a result. While later episodes didn’t fall into the trap of nullifying Mio’s development after this actually leaning more into rectifying this major screw-up, it was still a really discomforting ending to what was otherwise a strong episode.
Next, there’s the scene from Christmas where, because nobody invited her to Yui’s Christmas party, Sawako wants one member of HTT to wear her Christmas outfit. She first gets Yui to try it, but since she shows no embarrassment, Sawako’s not satisfied, so her next course of action is to force Mio to wear it, even if it means undressing her herself! I didn’t think I would need to explain why this scene is just terrible, but apparently I do because whenever I bring this scene up, I get defenses like “Every anime does this, though, what’s the big deal?” Look, putting aside the fact that this absolutely does not happen in every single anime that's ever been made (in fact, most of the anime I've seen has never had a scene like this), I don’t care if something like this was done worse in some random ecchi anime, that doesn’t detract from the fact that a grown woman forcibly taking off the clothes off of a teenage girl is not at all funny and culminates in the worst scene in the entire series because this type of humour feels so out of place compared to the rest of the show’s comedy! Not even mentioning how this takes place in the episode right after School Festival, so seeing Mo get treated like this after seeing how the previous episode ended makes the taste of this scene even more sour.
Then there’s almost the entirety of New Club Member. It’s the one where Azusa sees firsthand what really happens in the light music club, but couldn’t they have presented that in a less discomforting way? I swear, the usual light music club antics are exaggerated to incredibly unfunny levels that never got to this level before or after this episode and a good chunk of the episode consists of Yui and Ritsu forcing Azusa to succumb to being treated like a pet, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like this should have driven Azusa to leave the club the next day. And the joke about Mio being blackmailed into staying with the light music club was so dumb that it honestly broke my brain, because both we and the characters know full well that this isn't the case. I did break down how masterful the last few minutes were in the first part of this analysis, but that's honestly the one saving grace that stops this episode from being flat out bad, because most of the rest of it is unfunny and sometimes irritating. I don’t think they had to take away the initial charm and fun of the rest of the series to build up to this.
Then, and this is definitely the worst thing in Season 1, you have the conflict between Ritsu and Mio in Crisis. What exactly is this conflict, you may ask? Well, the way it kicks off is that Yui and the others are about to leave the music shop after getting Yui's guitar fixed, except Mio who's fixated on a bass for left handed people. Ritsu keeps telling her that they need to go, but she continuously says that she doesn't want to, so Ritsu tries pulling Mio out, and fails as she ends up causing her to fall over, and this makes her genuinely angry at Ritsu, coldly calling her an idiot.
I’m sorry, what the fuck?!? You mean to tell me that this is Mio’s breaking point with Ritsu? Wanting Mio to come out of the music store because the group is ready to leave? WHAT?!? Ritsu has done far worse stuff to Mio prior to this, most notably continuously scaring her to death with horrifying toys in Christmas, and that, alongside with every other time Ritsu was being bothersome to Mio, was played for laughs. But her doing something that didn’t even have the intent of messing with Mio is the point where you want me to take this stuff seriously? This is some incredibly baffling tonal whiplash. And it only gets worse because seconds later, they have Ritsu grow insanely jealous over Mio wanting to spend time with Yui and Nodoka! Where the fuck did this come from?! There’s no buildup to this sudden jealousy, her first instinct is just to drag Mugi and Azusa along with spying on Yui, Mio and Nodoka and then immediately barging into their conversation! There were no signs that Ritsu was ever the type of person who would act this irrationally over someone else spending time with Mio, especially when it's for, not even a day. She's acting like this over Mio spending time with Nodoka in the middle of a single goddamn day! And it becomes even more infuriating as Ritsu then starts acting like the biggest annoyance to Mio ever after forcing her out of lunch break, leading to a brief fight between the two, and all I wanted to do was break my skull open! I'd be more understanding if it were the case that Mio was actively avoiding Ritsu just so she could spend time with Nodoka n a consistent basis, but that's not what happens, so it just feels completely overblown. Literally why is this here?! Nothing about this conflict’s build up feels even remotely natural, and it just leads to brief drama that’s tonally at odds with the rest of the series. Admittedly, I can at least give the way it wraps up credit. When Ritsu comes down with a cold and is off school for several days, Mio eventually gets over her grudge with her, Mio decides to visit Ritsu at her house, and they share a really sweet heart to heart that serves as a great bonding moment for the two of them.
So that’s at least one advantage it has over a certain other conflict. But much like New Club Member, everything about this could have been handled in a way that didn't serve as a low point in the show.
Now moving on to the flaws that boil down to just not
making sense, and both of them are from Season 2, crazily enough,
there’s Azusa getting tanned way too fucking late in Summer Festival.
The sun was especially bright throughout most of this episode, and
Another Training Camp established that Azusa suntans very easily, yet we
also get scenes where the sun has significantly lowered and Azusa still
isn’t tanned yet. So why then, does it take until nighttime for Azusa
to be fully tanned? It straight up makes the recreation of this gag feel
completely out of nowhere with the lack of consistency on display here,
especially given that it's the very next moment after the two scenes
where the sun clearly wasn't bright enough to tan her.
But
if one moment in the series is just full on broken, it’s the prologue
in the episode Visit. It’s obviously meant to take place at some point
in-between New Club Member since it shows Azusa unfamiliar with what the
light music club is like, but it literally cannnot fit in the timeline
at all due to several moments at odds with that episode.
And that’s not the only inconsistency here. Because in this prologue, we see Azusa making a comment about if it’s actually a real club as if it’s her first time seeing what they’re really like, but that doesn’t make any sense because she already realised that during the first half of New Club Member. Also..
They’re commemorating Azusa joining the club? When would they get the time to do this? It couldn’t have been after Azusa’s outburst because there’s no way Mio would be going along with this after she told the others that they should practise more for Azusa’s sake, and it couldn’t have been any of the days between then and her feeling guilt over her outburst because it would have been way too late to do a commemoration, and it couldn’t have been before any of those days because we saw Azusa leave the club room before sunset, so when did this happen?
So
yes, K-On is not without its flaws. And I won’t let my love for it
blind myself to them. But what you’ll notice is that across all 39
episodes and 2 OVAs of the series, I’ve only broken down 6 major issues
and/or particularly baffling moments. Whereas I’ve covered way, WAY more
of these that plague the movie’s script, and they’re a lot more
significant. Because when it comes to the main stuff, such as the vibes,
characters, humour and character dynamics, the show absolutely nailed
all of these. And its amazing qualities more than outweigh any flaws it
may have, which is something I cannot say for the movie. Although that
last thing leads me to my next major issue.
I’ve said this quite a
few times throughout this analysis, but the character dynamics and the
friendship between HTT carried the heart of K-On, and are easily two of
my biggest points of praise for the show. I’ve previously broken down
how amazing Yui and Azusa’s dynamic is and how much the characters are
willing to do for Yui, but it extends beyond that on both ends, because
other character dynamic highlights include the shared braincell that Yui
and Ritsu seem to have, any dynamic that Mugi has with any of the other
light music club members, the beautifully sweet relationship Yui and Ui
have, or the fun group dynamic Ui, Azusa and Jun have, there are a
plethora of incredibly fun and entertaining character dynamics present
in the series that make it such a blast to watch. And the amount that
each character in the main group is willing to do for one another is
legitimately beautiful, and undoubtedly one of the biggest factors into
the show’s wholesome vibes. If they at least keep these two things
consistent in the movie, then I likely would have been able to ignore
most of the story issues and be able to say that it at least gives more
of what were the best elements of K-On.
Unfortunately, both of these things were handled horribly in the movie. Throughout the entirety of the London trip, the characters do interact with each other, but none of the entertaining dynamics between them are present, and it makes a good chunk of the film feel dry because a huge part of K-On’s charm is just not there. And it’s made even more baffling when you look at interviews with the director who brings up a scenario between just Ritsu, Mio and Mugi because the spontaneous mood of their dynamic was something she found nice, yet didn’t include a single moment in the entire film where these three had any interactions just all by themselves, meaning she’s either actively avoiding implementing the character dynamics from the series into this movie or she has zero confidence in doing so. Either way, the result is the same. And on the rare occasions that the character dynamics do come into play, major parts of what made them so enjoyable are completely disregarded. The only character dynamic that gets any kind of consistent focus is the one between Yui and Azusa, but as I brought up earlier, thanks to the semi-conflict, it’s been reduced to nothing but 100% annoyance from Azusa. Not that Yui is entirely clean either because she ends up being uncharacteristically forceful towards her at times, for no good reason, so any time their dynamic comes up, it’s more discomforting than enjoyable.
And the friendship between the main group has been completely nuked. Not only because of the lacking or discomforting character interactions in place of their usual dynamics, but also through how the entire group treats Yui throughout the movie. Everyone laughing at Yui when she gets a funny piece of paper stuck onto her face when she's crying from embarrassment, the remark Mio makes about Mugi calling Yui incredible for the graduation trip lottery cheat not being praise, everything about how Azusa treats Yui throughout the London trip, Mio taking pictures of Yui putting her hand in a bin literally labeled "dog waste only" when it was implied earlier that Mio could read English, only for her to be the most scared when running away from Yui, and Mio later taking a picture of Yui being jumped on by a dog and laughing about it are only a few examples of the garbage treatment Yui gets from her “friends'' throughout the runtime. But most egregious is this scene where Yui is justifiably hesitant to plug her guitar in out of fear of being electrocuted, and not only do the others just stand out doing absolutely nothing, but Azusa adds salt to the wound by continuously treating her like a moron for this as if it’s more baffling than the stickers she puts on everything!
This does not feel like the close knit band I knew and adored from the series, and as a result, the rooftop scene near the end of the movie that’s meant to showcase how close these characters have become over the course of their 3 years together doesn’t hold anywhere near as much sentimental weight as it could have. I genuinely fail to understand how so many people have deflected my criticisms of the movie with “It’s just an extended episode of K-On'' when this is how it handles the show’s two most prominent and best elements.
And the butchering of the show’s charm doesn’t even end there, because the movie’s comedy isn’t faring any better. The show’s humour managed to be consistently hilarious with how it presented itself. There’s either a lot of energy or a lot of silliness coming from each one, and sometimes they go for a great combo of both, heavily complimented by the highly expressive animation and near perfect comedic timing. It even managed to bring forth some running jokes, like Mio bonking Ritsu on the head or Yui giving her affection to her guitar as if it’s a real person, that never got tiring because of how effectively they’re handled. Sadly, that level of charm is absolutely nowhere to be found with the movie’s humour. A large chunk of it has already been surgically removed thanks to the poor handling or blatant disregard of the character dynamics, on top of lacking the sense of energy that came with the show’s animation, but what jokes they put in place of those are just awful.
When they’re not confusing the hell out of you with shit like the double entendre with Mio mentioning that she sleeps without socks being interpreted by the others as her sleeping without panties, which they felt the need to bring up a second time for some fucking reason and whatever the hell Sawako was doing when she was scaring Yui and Ritsu, they show the most baffling shit imaginable on the screen in favour of actual comedy, such as the mountain of cringe that is everyone acting surprised by Azusa coming into the club room, Yui fumbling about trying to cover up the fact that she rigged the graduation trip roulette, Yui deciding to play Curry Nochi Rice at the sushi bar after seeing an Indian man despite that making no sense for her character in the slightest, the dog waste segment of the sightseeing montage and the repetitive back and forth sequence in the hotel rooms minutes after the most painful scene in the film, each one being unfunnier than the last.
But worse yet are the jokes in the movie where the characters’ comprehension skills have to be compromised in order to make them work, resulting in shit like Ritsu interpreting Maki speaking to them in their native language and calling out their names specifically as English, and everyone being so baffled by Sawako showing up at the London trip that she thinks her ghost came. The type of humour present here doesn’t at all feel like it comes from a K-On movie. And don’t even get me started on how it handles 4 of the jokes and gags previously presented in the series.
The first one being where Mio whacks Ritsu on the head because she did something that pissed her off. It’ the most frequent running gag in the series, and it proves to be effectively hilarious any time it happens in multiple areas: the exaggeratedly large bump on Ritsu’s head, and seeing Mio’s reaction that may or may not be followed up with a comment after the impact. All the foundations to recreate this gag once for the movie have been perfectly laid out, and yet it somehow avoids all of them. They cut away for a brief moment during the impact of Mio whacking Ritsu, yet when we cut back, there’s not only no exaggerated head bump to be found, but also no reaction from Mio because all she does after whacking Ritsu on the head is comment on who rang their hotel room phone. And the impact of the whack isn’t effective either because we don’t get to actually see it. Literally how does this happen?
The second is Sawako suddenly showing up in the scene for seemingly no reason. It made absolutely no sense whenever this happened in the series, but it was effective as a joke that requires some suspension of disbelief because the characters are left just as confused as the viewer on how she could have made it to the Christmas party at Yui’s house when Yui presumably never told Sawako her home address, or any other instance where she randomly pops into scenes as if she were always there when she just wasn’t. But for some reason, Naoko thought a logical throughline needed to be added to this joke when recreating it for the movie because she “didn’t want viewers to question why she showed up”, yet by doing so, the entire point of why that joke worked at all has been thrown out the window. They have Sawako be there the entire time the girls are discussing the travel itinerary for the London trip, meaning that she’d know exactly where to go if she ever wanted to join them on their trip, which makes this scene where they’re all baffled by Sawako appearing incredibly cringe inducing because they treat it as more of a major impossibility than when they met Love Crysis earlier on, even though it was far less likely for them to have encountered the latter during their trip because they would have no idea about HTT coming to London on the same day that they did, while the former absolutely did know they were going. And trying to add logic to this joke makes it harder for me to suspend my disbelief on how Sawako even knew to find HTT at the cultural festival when she had no way of knowing they would be there to perform, on top of her explanation for why she’s here making even less sense.
And then you have the entire scene where Azusa elbows Yui in the stomach, which manages to fuck up two jokes from the series in one. The two scenes in the show where Yui attempted to kiss Azusa, who responded by reacting with physical force as a way of communicating that she doesn’t want that, worked really well because those moments came as a result of Yui feeling like she’s gotten close enough with Azusa to want to kiss her after two beautifully heartwarming moments. And the way Azusa reacts in both instances perfectly and hilariously gets across the point that while Azusa likes Yui a lot, she doesn’t like her in a pseudo-romantic way. Also, comparing the two scenes together shows how close they’ve become, as Azusa goes from slapping Yui to pushing her face away, meaning that she’s learnt to deal with this kind of situation better. And what does the movie do when recreating this type of scene? Have it seem like Yui is gonna go and kiss Azusa seconds after a moment where Azusa clearly wanted to be away from her, and then have Azusa react by fucking elbowing her in the stomach, completely missing the point of how those kiss scenes were built up and undoing the sweet sentiment of Azusa learning to handle Yui being too affectionate better by going to the extreme of hurting her like this, not even making any sense when she literally said…
…when she would have had no reason to say this directly to Azusa because they literally spent the entire day together sightseeing, and above all, being presented in the most discomforting way imaginable with the camera snaps and how long they drag on the effect of it for, topped off with the fact that Yui wasn’t even trying to kiss Azusa at all. Which brings me to the final recurring joke they messed with. Yui being affectionate with her guitar and treating it as if it were a real person is an adorable character quirk of hers that led to a lot of great comedy, and this movie blatantly hand waves it by hinting towards a moment like that in this scene, only to not have her be able to do that because she was fucking elbowed in the stomach, meaning that they thought this discomforting recreation of a previous joke was a better substitute for a scene than something that would actually be in line with the tone and vibes of the series.
I can only think of two jokes in the entire movie that are even remotely effective. The first being this scene where Yui hints at the idea of putting Ui in her suitcase so she can take her to London with her. The idea of her actually going through with that is hilarious to think about, but it also doubles as sweet as it shows how much she’s come to value Ui. And the second, to some degree, is the moment in the sushi bar scene where Ritsu says “I love sushi”, but that’s only funny without the context of the scene it’s in because if Mugi wasn’t a fucking idiot, she would never have had to make an attempt to say this at all. So, in all, It’s already baffling how unfunny the comedy throughout the film is with its original jokes, but the way they handle jokes previously presented in the series makes it almost insulting.
But the final nail in the coffin for why this movie is an absolute failure as both a slice of life anime and an addition to K-On is how it handles its characters. The movie has already fallen apart in every other area, between its broken story, incredibly wasted London trip, messy pacing, insanely botched tone and vibes, underdeveloped emotional core, sidelining or poor handling of the character dynamics and especially the friendship between the cast, and humour that ruins jokes from the original series while offering its own cringe inducing jokes that feel out of place for the series it’s based on. But if the characters that I, and many others, have come to adore and connect with over 39 episodes and two OVAs were kept intact, if their development wasn’t undone, if they all weren’t turned into the biggest morons imaginable, and if everything I loved about them was still present, I might have been able to give this film some credit in spite of everything else it failed to keep consistent. But unfortunately, aside from two, they were all dealt significant damage in one way or another. I’ll start with the characters that only have a few scenes throughout the movie.
In the two scenes Jun has in this movie, her personality has been kept entirely intact. Her energetic nature and how she just said whatever came to her mind made the scene where Azusa was wondering why the other HTT members were acting strange a bit less painful with her hilarious assumptions about what they might be hiding.
This may be a controversial stance to take (saying this as if the mere existence of my analysis isn’t making me enemy #1 in the K-On fandom , lol), but I’ve never really had a strong opinion on Nodoka, since throughout the series, I didn’t feel like she had much going for her compared to the rest of the cast. But I will say that she didn’t suffer majorly in the scenes she was in… until the very end of the movie where she not only decided to go against her agreement to walk home with Yui after their final day of high school to walk with Azusa instead, but was also somehow surprised by Yui going up to hug both her and Azusa when she was literally looking in her direction for 3 seconds as she was running up to them. They somehow made a mid character hateable by having her partake in the terrible treatment that Yui gets throughout the movie. Brilliant. :/
And
Sawako wasn’t majorly damaged, per se, but she was definitely poorly
handled. She had one moment in the movie where she acted crazy with
absolutely no justification or explanation at the beginning, which was
not how her bursts of insanity played out in the series, and after that
point, she shows up in London at a time where she gets absolutely
nothing to contribute other than breaking the movie’s story some more,
and with the addition of the director wanting to add logic to Sawako
suddenly showing up as a justification for only giving her a minute of
screen time during the London trip, the suspense of disbelief I would
have had from her being able to track HTT at the cultural festival
completely falls apart. It just makes me wonder why they even had her
show up in London at all because her big contribution to the movie
is ensuring the classroom concert happens, which is after the London
trip is over.
And now we come to the characters within the main band, Ho-kago Tea Time, the group that we’ve been following throughout the course of the series. Or at the very least, that’s what they want you to believe, because man, do they not feel like the same characters.
To start off, we got Ritsu Tainaka. The tomboyish drummer whose energy can sometimes match Yui’s, and definitely shares her desire to goof off a lot. Not only did all of these traits make her incredibly entertaining as she’s portrayed as one of the more comedic characters in the show, but they manage to completely avoid just making her the type of annoying character who only makes things worse for the people around her. As shown in Training Camp where she ends up taking her usual teasing towards Mio to a point that actually leaves her in tears, and Ritsu actually feels remorseful for pushing her that far and makes an effort to try and make her feel better, and we learn later in Career that Ritsu played a huge role in helping Mio open up more when they were kids, meaning that if it weren’t for her reaching out to her the way that she did, Mio would not have had the encouragement to become the aloof and mature girl that we see throughout the series. And she actually has her own moments of self-reflection and maturity that give her at least a bit of depth, but the one thing that has been 100% consistent with her character is how she’s one of the most energetic band member, and that sense of energy allows her to give way to some of the funniest jokes in the series.
But now, in K-On The Movie, while her original personality occasionally shows, it’s mainly baffling how dry she is throughout the runtime, with all of her jokes either relying on her being dumber than she ever was in the show, or making the coldest and driest remarks to anything Yui does, which is especially infuriating in this scene where Yui and Mio are having fun taking pictures of everything they can see in London within their current vicinity, only for Ritsu to just coldly say “Hey” for literally no reason at all, which also doubles as the film actively avoiding showcasing the characters enjoying London since this is one of only two instances where we actually get to see that throughout the trip, only for it to end off like that. You seriously cannot tell me that Ritsu would act this fucking cold over seeing Yui and Mio enjoying themselves, or Yui being pumped up for the sushi bar concert and the cultural festival concert. Any remarks Ritsu made towards Yui in the show were ones that were justifiable and usually weren’t delivered in such a cold and dry tone. And any moments of her being energetic lack that tomboy flavour that made her sense of energy stand out from Yui's, so she now just comes off as a generic genki girl. It can’t be a case of her becoming more serious with age because this level of out of character seriousness was not present in any of the 4 episodes that take place before the movie, neither was it shown inAfter School or Graduation Ceremony. So I don’t get Ritsu’s sudden change from an energetic tomboy to someone this cold and dry.
Tsumugi Kotobuki, or Mugi, as she’s better known, is probably the most adorable character in the entire series, due to many cute quirks she has such as just casually being the strongest character in the show like it’s nothing, her secret obsession with seeing girl on girl action, and her comically large eyebrows, but what made her so lovable is her joyous curiosity when it comes to experiencing a normal life. Born into and raised by a rich family, she does value the life she had there, and sometimes uses it as a means to help her friends with stuff like getting the person at the desk of the music shop her family owns to reduce the price of the guitar Yui wants in Instruments or providing them with vacation homes for their training camps, but the one thing she wants to experience more than anything is what common people do in their daily lives, an opportunity she gets more than ever upon joining the light music club. And whenever that part of her character comes into play, it really is one of the cutest things you’ll ever see, especially in Summer Classes where she gets to spend the day out with Ritsu. She not only gets to experience a lot of fun stuff people do at cheaper prices, but also gets a desire to want to become closer to the group by asking Ritsu to whack her on the head after seeing Mio do it to Ritsu so much. While she is otherwise well mannered and mature, this desire combined with her childlike naivety can lead her to falling into Yui and Ritsu’s playful nature without being as energetic as them, and all of this adds up to her being one of the sweetest characters I’ve ever seen in any anime ever.
But now, in K-On The Movie, she’s been reduced to an unreliable idiot during their enitre first day of the London trip. The movie implies that she can understand English, yet when the taxi driver asks which Ibis they want to go to, she interprets it as him asking where the Ibis is despite “which one” being two of the most basic words in the English dictionary, which is made even more baffling by the fact that she, alongside all the other characters, for that matter, somehow didn’t know about the specific location of the Ibis they made a reservation for. And then in the very next scene, she claims that the desk woman was talking too fast for her to translate despite the fact that she was speaking slower than the average person. But her worst moment of stupidity is easily at the sushi bar, where upon realizing that HTT are being set up to play for the people there, and despite the others clearly not wanting to go through with it, Mugi’s first instinct is to ask the staff for a keyboard, which pretty much forces them into playing, and not even getting to eat at the sushi bar like they wanted. And her last moment of idiocy is when she suggests calling a staff member over when Yui is hesitant to plug her guitar in at the cultural festival, immediately after Azusa shot down the idea of asking someone in the audience because they, you know, speak English!
All this leaves me baffled with one question on my mind; Naoko Yamada, exactly what brought you to believe that Mugi was ever unreliably stupid? Worse yet is that she gets absolutely nothing to contribute beyond these moments of stupidity. If you wanted to see Mugi’s curiosity and naivety carry over to the London trip where she’s enamored by what this wonderful city has to offer, sad to say that there isn’t a single scene throughout where her most prominent character traits come into play. It’s absolutely baffling how much potential was wasted with how Mugi was handled in this movie, and even more so that the director and writer actively sidelined a moment like this. Although with all this said, she suffers the least amount of character damage out of everyone in this movie, because her incredibly kind demeanor is kept intact, and outside of 2 scenes where everyone collectively left Yui in the dust, like the one where she had a picture taken of her while crying in embarrassment, and being abandoned at the dog waste bin, Mugi’s the only one who never treats Yui like complete shit by herself or takes jabs at her existence, so there’s that at the very least.
And it’s absolutely baffling. But worse yet is how she handles coming up with something for Azusa’s song. The movie makes it seem like she’s going to be the one to focus on it the most as she shows hesitance to go on a graduation trip in the first place because she fears Ritsu will leave Azusa’s graduation gift until the last minute, and in a later scene where she says they’re not here to look at pictures, yet throughout the entirety of the London trip, she is not seen making any efforts to come up with anything for Azusa’s song. It’s not only at odds with those scenes I brought up because there’s no way she wouldn’t be thinking about it a lot given her attitude there, but also a complete waste of her potentially trying to write some lyrics only for them to be too silly to be on the scale that Yui wants the song to be on. As if that wasn’t already bad enough, later on when Yui concludes that they can just stick with their usual style for Azusa’s song, Mio treats her like an idiot for ever wanting to go bigger with it, saying that she “knew that from the beginning”, and then treats her as if she fucking forgot the song was ever important to begin with after the classroom concert despite the fact that Yui was literally the only one who even brought up Azusa’s song during conversations.
Speaking of Mio treating Yui like garbage, these aren’t even the only instances of her being fucking horrible to Yui. When Yui puts her hand in a dog waste bin, not only does Mio not tell her that it’s a dog waste bin when it’s labelled as such despite the movie implying that she could read English, but she’s the one who wants to run away from Yui more than the others when they eventually realize it, which is a colossal dick movie when she would have never put her hand in there at all if Mio didn’t just take pictures of her doing it. She also laughs at a picture during a potential situation where Yui was attacked by a dog and was presumably left behind by all the others given the shaky quality of the picture and refuses to help Yui when she’s hesitant to plug her guitar in at the cultural festival because of her stupid fear of spinning things. But if there’s one moment of her treating Yui poorly that really cements her character assassination, it’s the one where Yui is crying from embarrassment from a note being placed on her face after being caught rigging the ghostleg lottery that would have decided the location of their graduation trip, and Mio’s reaction is to take a picture of her like this before subsequently laughing. You are never going to get me to believe that Mio would ever, under any circumstances, treat anyone feeling any sort of embarrassment and shame like this when her mental state would absolutely be crushed if she were in a similar situation. What has happened to this girl? She went from relatable and endearing on top of being really well developed to a pathetic bitch with no intelligence whatsoever.
Azusa Nakano was established as someone who is strict and serious, which makes her feel like an outcast among the other HTT members when she first joins the club because they don’t seem to take music as seriously as she does, and while initially excited to join due to how moved she was by the freshman reception concert they did, she quickly realized that her level of seriousness clashed with the carefree natures of Yui, Ritsu and Mugi. But the reason you won’t be screaming “Bruh, why doesn’t she just leave already?” is due to how even in spite of her issues with the light music club to begin with, she has justifiable reasons to admire each and every one of them for their incredible music skills and even some of their own quirks, especially Mio who shares her desire to want to push her fellow club members to be better. And over the course of the series, as she spends more time with Yui, Ritsu, Mio and Mugi, she learns that there are times where taking in the moment with them and enjoying the time they have is just as important as getting a lot of music practice done, slowly appreciating their little quirks and finding a solid balance between taking in the moment and asserting hard work and practice, but to a bigger extent than Mio. Because as a result of this development, she also ends up forming a really strong connection with each HTT member, going from someone who felt like she didn’t belong to being more relaxed and reserved. And her connection with her friends being cemented by the end of Entrance Exams where she’s fully warmed up to them and the overall nature of the light music club, saying that…
…later followed with her throwing a bunch of money into a wishing well, praying that they all manage to get accepted into the same college, and that she spends every last minute with them before graduating laughing and smiling. And this is what ties into the emotional core of the latter half of Season 2. She’s grown so close to her friends that the thought of them graduating starts to get to her more and more. The first sign of this was in Romeo and Julier where she started to have irrational thoughts about the others not caring about the upcoming school festival because they’ve been so focused on the school play that the third years have been working on, but she’s quick to dismiss those thoughts and give her fellow seniors the benefit of the doubt because she realizes that working on such a big event takes up a lot of time, and reassures her trust in Yui and the others that they wouldn’t just throw her to the side like that. That’s the kind of character that Azusa is. A reserved and relaxed girl who is willing to look at a situation from several perspectives when she starts to act on emotion for the sake of the people she cares about.
And this ties into her desire to keep her emotions in regarding the upcoming graduation of her friends because she wants to send them off on a positive note, but by the time we get to Graduation Ceremony, her built up emotions get to her too much since it’s finally the day of graduation, and as a result, she ends up breaking down into tears after telling Yui and the others not to graduate, knowing that it’s not possible for them to go back on it. She’s no longer able to come to grips with the fact that Yui, Ritsu, Mio and Mugi, the friends she’s connected with over the course of 2 years, have officially graduated and this will be her final day with them at high school. But this makes it all the more emotionally cathartic when Yui and the others play Tenshi ni Fureta Yo for her, giving her the closure she really deserves after bottling up her emotions, sending her a message that will stick with her for a long time, that graduation isn’t the end.
But now, in K-On The Movie, not only has she suffered immense brain damage on the same level as Mio and Mugi, given how she somehow never knew the location of the hotel they booked despite the movie also establishing that she’s been going to great lengths to make sure the trip runs smoothly and doesn’t mention the fact that they have to catch their flight back home tomorrow during the scene where they’re contemplating on whether they should attend the cultural festival to perform until after they’ve agreed to go through with it, she has also been reduced to someone who’s cold, distant and irrational. Most of the movie has her with the most neutral expression imaginable that sometimes leans towards being completely done with life, and she rarely ever expresses any emotion throughout the movie even before she starts suspecting Yui of shit, which I don’t understand at all when she’s previously been way more expressive in the show. The most baffling example being this moment during the classroom concert. Yui is pretty much telling Azusa that she values her as much as she values Ui, and she doesn’t give any reaction to it at all, just turning back to her guitar with a deadpan expression.
And I know I’ve already torn the semi-conflict between her and Yui to shreds, but I cannot understate how much the inclusion of that garbage just annihilates her character! When she starts suspecting Yui of wanting to hold herself back a year, she heavily sticks by that suspicion, not once giving the benefit of the doubt that Yui isn’t actually gonna do it, even when there’s blatant evidence against it, only going off a single thing she said out of context without ever considering if she meant anything else. And not only that, she only sees Yui potentially staying back a year as the worst thing that could happen to her, repeating the exact same nightmare on every night of the London trip, which makes absolutely no sense given how close she became with Yui over the course of the series, the fact that the film takes place after the episode where the upcoming graduation was starting to get to Azusa, and, once again, there being evidence against her belief that she holds onto for the entire fucking film.
She also lets this suspicion get to her so much that she is never seen enjoying the London trip during this montage. And her other suspicion adds salt to the wound, because in spite of all the affection she’s put up with from Yui without interpreting her as a creep she needs to keep her distance from, even when she’s had to deal with nearly being kissed twice, it takes said affection being written on a notepad for her to interpret it as Yui having romantic feelings for her and being horribly creeped out as a result, and wanting to avoid her as much as possible, eventually leading to the disaster of a scene where she elbows her in the stomach. I do not get what made these writers believe that Azusa was always this irrational.
Of course, she was in a few instances, notably when the graduation of her friends starting to get to her is what leads her to bottle up her emotions and eventually beg them not to graduate, but it did not define her character, and it definitely didn’t justify her acting like this. Worse yet is that after all that and all the nights she spent on the London trip sleeping horribly, she feels absolutely zero relief from Ui telling her that Yui’s not staying back a year. Literally who is this character? But even putting the main issues of the semi-conflict aside, the way she treats Yui in general is frustrating. Getting pissed at her for looking in her direction when they’re sitting on opposite sides of the table, tearing her down for wanting to reassure the others that they’ll make it to their flight back home when they agree to attend the cultural festival concert, outright telling Yui that she had a strange dream about her and refuses to elaborate, the previously mentioned moment of her having no expression whatsoever when Yui sings a part of U&I’s lyrics directly to her, and especially the scene where, instead of helping Yui in any way when she’s hesitant to plug her guitar in at the cultural festival concert, she just stands there treating her like a colossal moron for having a justifiable fear. I'll ask again; WHO THE FUCK IS THIS CHARACTER?!?
And to top this off, all of Azusa’s development across the series and the close connections she formed with every member of the light music club have been completely undone. Despite taking place after the episode where she fully warmed up to the light music club and was incredibly happy to hear that all of her friends got into the same college, this movie regresses her all the way back to questioning why she joined the light music club in the first place and only seeing Yui and Ritsu getting accepted into college as a miracle despite her knowing how much effort the former can put into something if she’s really dedicated to it, and this is driven further by Ui implying that she has absolutely nothing positive to say about the light music club, but that doesn’t add up because she has said many positive things about the light music club across the series! Not to mention the fact that she’s almost never seen being happy spending time with them, further getting that bullshit sentiment across, her heavy level of hesitance to even join HTT on the London trip, claiming she has to "stay level-headed" when her coming along on the trip is set in stone, and the insane lack of faith she has in getting any help from her friends when she's putting together the plan for the trip, only to turn down said help when Mio offers it! And by the end of the movie, she pretty much forgets who all of the members are since she takes Jun’s word regarding them being incredibly serious about hiding snacks from her, and her assumption that they didn’t actually get into college, which is cemented by the recreation of Graduation Ceremony's ending where she feels absolutely zero emotion from Tenshi ni Fureta Yo being played.
The impact of that scene has already been sucked right out due to everything that made Azusa such a great character being destroyed, but her reaction to this song being neutered to this degree is insult to injury in terms of ruining the show’s ending and rendering the whole point of the song completely meaningless by implying that the others graduated without Azusa having any positive experiences with them, and cementing her character assassination by not only having this little of a reaction to a song that her friends poured their heart and soul into creating as the best send-off imaginable, but also making her breakdown in that episode come off as hypocritical thanks to the existence of the semi-conflict. Azusa has been dealt so much damage in this movie that it’s impossible to see her as the same character that she was in the show. Her sudden shift from reserved, relaxed and caring to cold, almost emotionless, irrational and inconsiderate is so baffling that I would believe a skinwalker murdered Azusa in cold blood just in time for the movie’s events to take place.
And finally, we have Yui Hirasawa. The sweet and adorably airheaded guitarist that I’ve connected with more than any other in any piece of media for over a year now. She, like the other characters, has a lot of cute and relatable quirks that make her incredibly lovable, topped off with a level of sweetness combined with a high sense of energy that cements that lovability, but the #1 thing that would come to mind regarding her is how she develops as a character over the course of the series. Yui’s arc throughout the first season was about her finding something to focus on in her life. She spent her entire life up until the events of the series being content with not having a clear goal in mind and losing track of things, two parts of her that are shown very prominently throughout the first half of Season 1, between the opening minutes of the show and how quick she is to go from trying to study for her make up exam to playing her guitar in Cram Session. But now that she’s joined the light music club and becomes a guitarist, she becomes more dedicated to things as she now has a new purpose in her life, and when it really matters, she puts her heart and soul into working towards being the best guitarist she can, and this can be seen through minor details hinting towards her growth, such as her usng her spare time at home to practice as shown in Freshman Reception, and major moments where said growth is very evident.
In Supervisor, she lets herself be pushed so hard into being able to sing and play the guitar at the same time that she loses her voice before the school festival concert, but even with that setback, not only does she still want to sing for Mio’s sake in the following episode, she also does backing vocals when the concert is taking place, the first sign of her really coming to value her friends and putting effort into being a worthy band member. In Another Training Camp, it seems like it would have been a second training camp in a row where the characters barely got to do any practicing because Yui, Ritsu and Mugi got too caught up in playing once again and dragged Mio and Azusa along with them, but when everyone else is asleep, Yui is the one who wakes up again to practice a guitar solo she’s been struggling with, showing a definite improvement regarding how seriously she takes playing music compared to the previous training camp.
And her development reaches its highest point in Light Music, where we see Yui bedridden with a fever, but she’s not letting that bring her down. She absolutely does not want to disappoint her friends by letting her cold bring her down or stop her from attending the school festival concert, and this level of determination is showcased wonderfully with this one shot of her in bed with her guitar, heavily implying that she put in as much effort as she could in her current state to practice.
And the next day, she comes into school trying to convince the others that she’s recovered so she can continue practicing with them, even though her fever hasn’t gone down in the slightest. I really want to put more emphasis on that. Disband the Club showed the path Yui had to go down to get to school, and she went through that entire path while she was still sick, because that’s how much she didn’t want to miss out on performing, and said determination is further enhanced when Mio tells her not to come to the club room until she’s better, and not to give up until then, giving her the push she needs to rest as much as she can so she can get better in time for the concert. The Yui that was established in the first 4 episodes would not have been this focused on something so passionately with this much dedication. When she comes back fully recovered, she realizes that she forgot Ui leaving her guitar next to her at home, and rushes all the way back home to get it. And this is where all her development across the series comes full circle to create a truly impactful moment. As she’s rushing back to school with her guitar, she looks back on how similar it feels to her first day running to school, only this time she doesn’t get distracted by absolutely anything, being laser-focused on getting back to be at the school festival concert, looking back on the memories she’s made being in the light music club and the people she’s become close with throughout the two years she’s spent with them and realizing just how much an impact joining that club had on her life, which ends up leaving her in tears when she finally makes it to the auditorium, thinking she caused her friends trouble at the most important time imaginable. But it all pays off beautifully from being told by her friends that even in spite of everything that’s happened, they all love her, and the encouragement of the audience.
Yui’s development over the course of Season 1 is truly incredible from every conceivable angle, and it’s carried over amazingly from the beginning of Season 2, where upon arriving to school early, the first thing Yui does is practice the guitar solo for Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss for the upcoming freshman concert, perfectly following up how dedicated to music she became throughout Season 1. On top of this, she becomes to value her friends even more to the point where she wishes she could be in a band with them forever, a sentiment that is shown very prominently in several episodes, and she pushes herself to put as much effort as possible into several things at once, as seen in Finals where she has zero issue juggling exams and practicing for a talent show she agreed to participate in so she can put on an entertaining show for Tomi, someone who has meant a lot to Yui since childhood. But even with all this, there’s one person in Yui’s life that she had been taking for granted, and that’s none other than her own sister, Ui. Throughout the entire series, Ui has been taking care of Yui and looking out for her whenever she can, despite being the younger sister of the two, and clearly loves her a lot. While Yui does also seem to care for her a lot, such as a really sweet moment in Christmas where she shares her scarf with her and when she was gonna die over the thought of her not getting into Sakuragoaka High in Freshman Reception, and being incredibly overjoyed when it’s confirmed that she did, she also thought that Ui would always be in her life, because it seemed like that would be the case. But in No Club Room, Yui realizes that it couldn’t be further from that when Ui comes down with a cold, and that realization drives her to write a song dedicated to her called U&I, with the most seriously passionate lyrics that she can come up with, and just before we hear this song in Yet Another School Festival, Yui gets to hear this.
And when U&I plays a minute later, it culminates in the most heartfelt thank you message from Yui to Ui that also serves as an emotional powerhouse of a performance, on top of perfectly putting a wrap on Yui’s character development with her best traits, her determination, passion and love for the people she cares about, reaching their absolute highest points. Yui is one of the most fantastically written characters I've ever seen in any piece of media, providing a lot of entertainment value with her adorableness and energy, and having immaculately crafted development across the entire series.
But now, in K-On The Movie, all of that is thrown out the window. There isn’t a single thing about Yui that this movie didn’t take a jab at. She gets plenty of character damage of her own, including moments of infuriating stupidity that seem too much even for someone like her, her being the one who wanted to fuck with Azusa the most during the bait and switch argument at the beginning of the movie being the one to enforce speaking English onto Azusa during the airplane scene despite her joining Ritsu n declaring that they on't need it in Career and somehow being able to immediately make the connection between Indians and curry even though this very movie establishes her lack of cultural knowledge with how she didn't even know London was in Europe, but the worst thing here is that she is constantly treated horribly and/or as out of character by her friends at every turn when her most prominent character traits, her sense of energy and undying determination, come into play.
Being treated as a weirdo for being pumped up to perform at the sushi bar despite the fact that not even she wanted to be in that situation, her efforts to reassure the others that they’ll make it in time for their flight home after their performance at the cultural festival being shot down by Azusa and everyone agreeing with that bullshit as if she’s unreliable with no justification, getting treated like a colossal idiot for showing hesitance to plug her guitar in at the cultural festival due to having a justifiable fear while none of them even bother doing anything physically or emotionally to ease her worries, being treated as a weirdo AGAIN for doing something that no-one made any comments about her doing earlier in the movie, and finally being made out as if she’s the only one who forgot that composing Azusa’s song was even remotely important. All this on top of all the other miscellaneous instances where she’s dragged through the mud with nonsensical remarks and being the butt of a comedic situation, with this shit lasting from the moment Azusa paints Yui getting into college as a miracle all the way to the end of the movie where Nodoka walks home with Azusa instead of Yui despite agreeing to do so with the latter, and being treated as completely casual if it’s not for comedy.
But her treatment from the writers is somehow even more insulting, because the existence of the classroom concert completel nullifies every single bit of her development across the entire series, with the recontextualization of a song that was a passionate thank you message to the one person that Yui had been taking for granted up until that point being twisted to get across the sentiment that she had been taking her friends for granted this entire time! This colossal bullshit combined with her being shot down every time she tried to be encouraging throughout the film cements the idea that Yui is meant to be seen as nothing but a useless waste who doesn’t value anyone, which is not only debatably the most disingenuous sentiment in this movie when stacked against everything she’s done for her friends over the course of the series, but it’s even at odds with what happens IN. THIS. MOVIE. Yui is the one who comes up with the idea to get Azusa a worthwhile graduation gift, and throughout the rest of the movie, she puts in a lot of effort to try and come up with lyrics for Azusa’s song, and is the one who kickstarts most of the discussions regarding it, meanwhile none of the others seem to give a single shit about it until the very end of the movie. So painting Yui as a moron for wanting to increase the scale at all when she eventually settles on just sticking with their usual style for Azusa’s song, and then making her out as if she never saw it or any of her friends as important is made even more frustrating than it was already! What happened here?! Who on the KyoAni team hated Yui this much? At this point in the series, she’s become an incredibly dedicated guitarist and vocalist who’s driven by the desire to show how much she values everyone she cares about, and going to any lengths to do so. But nah, this movie treats her as if she’s the useless klutz that she was at the beginning of the series. ACTUALLY PISS OFF WITH THIS GARBAGE!!! If Yui was treated this horribly in the show, there's no way in hell it would have gone anywhere because the wholesomeness of seeing her grow as a person would be completely stripped.
That cements it. Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Mugi and Azusa, all 5 Ho-kago Tea Time members utterly destroyed by this pile of garbage!
And to those still convinced that I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should and that I should just enjoy this movie as a silly slice of life movie, I cannot stress this enough; no matter what aspect you look at this movie from, whether your taste in what makes a slice of anime appealing lies in its story, humour, characters, or overall vibes, it fails to function on even a basic level at all of them, and the fact that it's an entry in a series that nailed every element of what makes a slice of life anime good adds salt to the wound with the blatant character assassination and mistreatment and the nullification of all the meaningful and emotionally impactful moments present throughout. But I guess that only leaves one question hanging: Why? Why did this movie end up being so disastrous when it's done by the exact same talented team who worked on the show?
This is something I've thought about ever since I realized just how awful this movie is, and for months, I've struggled to click on to if anything happened behind the scenes for this to feel so detached from the show it's based on, even with some speculations that I’ve gotten from several fans, such as the fact that this is one of the first KyoAni works that’s entirely original, and from some info I gathered about Naoko Yamada's trip to London, she poured as much effort as she could into making this movie happen, because actually going to an entirely different location just so you can nail the details of said place when translating it to an anime movie takes a lot of dedication. But after looking through interviews where she and Reiko have discussed this movie, I can quite clearly tell that she either misunderstood what made the series so great, which is ridiculous considering that she’s the director of said series and there’s only a year’s difference between this movie and Season 2, or she had zero confidence in making the K-On Movie a K-On movie. Like, you cannot convince me that this isn’t the case when she says stuff that doesn’t add up to what the show presented or mentioning her ideas as if she implemented them into the film when she full on didn’t.
Yamada: It made me happy that we were able to take advantage of delving into the characters previously. There were a lot of things that weren’t able to be shown in the TV series. However, getting Sawa-chan to appear in London was quite troublesome. (laughs) It was challenging to show that without having the audience feel like they were being fooled or going “why’d she show up?”
Yamada: There were so many times where Yui wanted to head to Azusa during the training camp, vacation, etc, so I wonder if it’s just natural for her now. (laughs) Also I love the set of Ritsu/Mio/Tsumugi. The three initial members of the light music club are together. I could just hear Tsumugi asking Mio “How do you use this remote control?” That spontaneous mood is quite nice.
Yoshida: She’s surprisingly stubborn, that Tsumugi.
– It was only her that could go “Excuse me!” and have them prepare a keyboard while everyone else was still in shock.
Yamada: It’s that part of her that makes me think she’s not very reliable. You start to wonder if she’s the one person you’re thankful who came, but then instead of conducting negotiations like you thought, she’s just saying “there isn’t a keyboard here.” (laughs)
I will never understand where this sudden lack of confidence in committing to making a K-On movie came from, but given how much of a talented individual she is and the amazing contributions she’s made while working at KyoAni, I’m 100% willing to believe that it doesn’t go any deeper than that, because she’s gotten better at directing movies since, with Tamako Love story being a solid conclusion to a series that I consider mediocre, and A Silent Voice, a beautifully crafted film that gets really emotional. Plus, her passion for London is definitely undeniable as this was her reply when I asked her what her favourite thing about working on this movie was. 
But at the same time, it makes me question why she didn’t do more with the idea of HTT visiting London if she was this passionate about it. Some have speculated that it could be due to the movie’s runtime. Disregarding the opening logos and end credits, the movie clocks out at around 1 hour and 45 minutes, which sounds like enough time to pack in everything that made the show it’s based on great, but when actually looking at the movie, there clearly wasn’t enough time for anything, whether it be showing the characters enjoying London, presenting the usual character dynamics or even developing the emotional core to any degree. Which in that case, it really would have benefitted from an extended run time. Now, an over 2 hour long movie based on K-On may seem like way too much, but it’s something I would have been content with if it meant being able to do more with the material that it presents. Of course, there are other things that could be fixed, but an extended runtime would undoubtedly do this movie wonders.
But what would be my idea for a rewritten K-On Movie? Well, I have so many ideas that it could suffice its own blog post, but to cover the major stuff I would fix, I would rework the opening scene to remove almost all the parallels to how the first episodes of both seasons started off, and have it so HTT are actually playing a Death Devil song because they want to up their music game for college without any of the bait and switch bullshit. I would then cut out the line of dialogue where Azusa questions why she joined the light music club in the first place, alongside only seeing Yui and Ritsu getting accepted into college as a miracle, and I’m especially reworking the scene where Ui implies that Azusa never had any positive experiences with the light music club to where after she mentions the negative things she’s said about them, she also mentions that Azusa still admires how dedicated they are when it really matters, and that she’s expressed her enjoyment at the club for all the years she’s been there. As for how the origin of Tenshi ni Fureta Yo is handled, I’ll keep the way it’s set up the same, but dedicate more of the movie to showing all 4 characters actually thinking about what to do for Azusa’s song, and remove both instances where Yui’s efforts to come up with something are rendered completely meaningless. As for the London trip, I’m doing away with the scene in the airport because Mio’s fear of spinning things does not need to be there and I'd have them be able to actually get their luggage to their hotel before heading out to get Azusa some new shoes and going for a place to eat because it’s unbelievable that neither of the girls would know the exact location of the Ibis they booked. And if the cultural shenanigans absolutely need to happen in the sushi bar scene, then just have it so the sushi bar manager treats them to some food before prompting them to get on stage so the fact that they were randomly roped into performing wouldn’t be as baffling, and definitely not have him say the name of the actual band they were expecting. These two fixes make the sushi bar scene a lot less frustrating.
Then I’d have the sightseeing montage be extended beyond just a montage to have the girls exploring London take up a good 5-10 minutes of the film, with at least a few of those minutes being dedicated to them having afternoon tea so the setup of HTT having tea in a city best known for its tea would actually be paid off. And the build up to the cultural festival performance would only need one single fix. Have Azusa bring up the fact that their flight back home tomorrow is at 5, and yet still have the girls want to sign up for the performance because they don’t want to miss out on the opportunity of performing at such a big event in a foreign country, and when the cultural festival performance actually comes, cut the scene where HTT are translating Gohan wa Okazu into English and instead play one of the songs that are part of the cassette mixes, but never played in the actual show.And there’s a lot I’d fix about the semi-conflict between Yui and Azusa. The only scene I’d keep that builds up to it is the one where Azusa overhears Yui saying “repeating a year”, because if you genuinely want Azusa to suspect that Yui might be holding herself back a year, there’s no reason to have any scenes that are clear evidence against that suspicion. I know I crticised it for the insanely convenient timing of Azusa not hearing any other part of that conversation But even with this, I’d have it so when after Azusa has a dream about Yui staying back a year, she has no idea how to feel about it until the next two days she has the dream where she transitions into thinking that Yui staying back a year wouldn’t be a bad idea after all, rather than just have her be annoyed by Yui’s mere existence and treating her like garbage for the entire rest of the film. And if that moment where Azusa sees “Azu-nyan Love” isn’t getting cut out, it’s at least being reworked so Azusa has a reaction that makes sense, and not the beyond creeped out by it reaction that she actually had. And with all this set up, I would rework the table tennis scene near the end of the movie to have Azusa happily ask Ui if Yui’s staying back a year, only for that happiness to noticeably fade when she confirms that she isn’t, with both Ui and Jun internally questioning why she isn’t happy about that. That last one could be subject to change, but I’m definitely going with something that would tie into the ending of the show to make it more impactful.
As for other miscellaneous stuff I would fix, the scene where Ton-chan picks the graduation trip location being so he clearly ends up in-between both the London and Europe cups so Yui think it’s a hard decision only to be proven wrong by Azusa, have Sawako show up at an earlier point in the London trip so she actually gets to do something, include at least one scene with Ritsu, Mio and Mugi just by themselves, definitely do away with Yui’s horrible treatment, absolutely have any song other than U&I play during the classroom concert, preferably Samidare 20 Love in its entirety or Utauyo Miracle, with the latter actually fitting the context of the emotional weight that was attempted to be driven with U&I’s recontextualization, and keep Azusa’s reaction to Tenshi ni Fureta Yo in line with how it was originally while also keeping all the changes the movie made to the scene to keep it fresh. Of course, there’s much more I could cover, but once again, I might as well just make an entire blog post on this topic if I want to cover everything. Because the potential for an amazing K-On movie is there, even with the materials that we actually got.
Which just makes it sadder that this is how it turned out. Instead of something that I can cherish as an extension of a series I love so much, it was a broken mess that fucked up everything that made it so great. “Bro, if you hate the movie so much, why don’t you just disregard it and act like it never even happened? The show already has an ending you’re content with, so you could just not acknowledge the movie’s existence.” You know what, maybe you’re right. With all of this now off my chest, there's only one thing left for me to do. Put this movie to the wayside and erase it from my mind forever. Because there is no way I can count this disaster as part of the main canon. In my eyes, K-On is a franchise that consists of a 4 volume manga with two follow ups that link together, two seasons of a phenomenal anime, an amazing video game for the PSP and PS3, a series of comedic shorts with a chibi style, and a spin-off manga focusing on an entirely new cast.
Nothing.
Else.
Well, that's pretty much the end of this analysis. If you read this from beginning to end, I cannot thank you enough for dedicating your time to seeing everything I have to say about this movie all the way through, and I really hope you enjoyed what you saw. Tearing this movie apart is something I’ve been wanting to do for over a year now, and I’m really happy that I’ve managed to do that in the best way I can with this blog series. The road to getting this out was definitely rough in more ways than one, but I pushed through it all because I love K-On. Even with all the amazing pieces of media I've experienced between when I first watched this show in 2021 and the present day, they have not come close to the huge level of adoration I have for this series. Which is why the extent to this movie deals significant damage to everything I loved about it isn't something I vibe with in the slightest. But alas, I've finally done it. I’ve said everything I want to say on this topic, and I can finally put this absolutely awful movie behind me, hopefully forever. This is definitely not going to be the only analysis I want to do on such a grand scale, so any feedback on how I can improve my style and structure will absolutely be appreciated. I have plenty of ideas for analyses and reviews I can write up here in the future, so if you like what you've seen of this blog series, I'll have more stuff like this on the way sooner or later. So once again, thanks a huge bunch for hearing me out on this silly slice of life anime movie where cute girls go to London, and I'll see you all later. Solaris/Indigo out.
Finally done! Reading this blog was so interesting to me. Me before reading this blog was hesitant as the amount of time that had to be poured in was indeed alot. But it was worth it, as for my opinion after all of this, I liked the movie. But this captured everything bad and told it very well, that my opinion shifted, I was shocked when you brung up all these things that I never noticed. If you ever make similar blogs, about K-On or things I might have interest in, let me know!
ReplyDeleteFun blogs are fun!