Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 14 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2009 - 2010
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Ditzy and vacant Yui Hirasawa enters high school (the equivalent of year 9) and has a real difficulty trying to figure out which club to join. Meanwhile three students who have also joined high school that year, Mio Akiyama, Ritsu Tainaka and Tsumugi Kotobuki, want to join the Light Music Club. The only problem is that they need four members of the club, otherwise it will be disbanded. In their attempts to recruit new members, Yui spies one of the club’s flyers. Misinterpreting the meaning of Light Music (she thinks it means “light hearted” music), she joins up. The girls are delighted at first, but soon discover she can’t play a single instrument or even read sheet music. Yui decided to leave the club, but the others mange to change her mind by having cake, snacks and tea at every meeting. As the other three play bass, drums and keyboards, the only spot left for Yui is guitar, which pretty much forces her to buy one and learn how to play it.
The girls go through some strange trials and tribulations such as Yui failing her exams because she was leaning cords and not studying, practically blackmailing the music teacher, Sawako Yamanaka, to be the club’s adviser and surviving their first live performance. Drinking tea and eating sweets does seem to take precedence over band practice in the club. However a new school year brings opportunity for new members. Yui’s younger sister, Ui, enters high school and takes her friend Azusa Nakano to see the club. Initially not very impressed, Azusa later attends a welcoming ceremony where the band play. The performance impressed her and she joins up. However being in a family where her parents play in professional jazz bands, she takes exception to the lax attitude to practicing. Mio picks up on this and becomes a little more forceful in getting everyone to take things more seriously.
I fully admit that I am not really in sync with what modern day fandom likes. I really hate the poor, unsubtle and emotionally manipulative writing in the Key/Kyoto Animation tittles. I think the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise (the anime part at least) relies too much on gimmicks (broadcast order of the first season, endless eight etc) and the titular character isn’t exactly the most pleasant or likable person in the world. I was sort of bracing myself for a similar reaction I had to previous “hot” otaku shows I’d seen over the last few years with “K-ON!”. However I was really pleasantly surprised with this show. While the set up and personalities of the girls are set to 11 on the moe amplifier, it is quite well written, particular in terms of humour. And the humour is surprisingly genuine and not forced or clichéd for the most part. The girls themselves (oddly the only boys I can recall in the show were Ritsu’s younger brother and his friend whom we only get to see briefly in the final episode) are bunch of rather cutesy moe tropes; Yui is a ditz, Mio may seem to be a normal girl but she gets creeped out by horror or anything she’s not used to like barnacles on rocks at the ocean, Azusa is the new girl which they pick on in cute ways, Tsumugi is the rich girl and Ritsu is the tomboy. But somehow with the way the show is written and the situations they find themselves in, I forgave a lot of that. OK, I forgave all of it and gladly accepted pretty much all of it. It’s just so damn friggin’ cute! Certainly the most “moe” moment of the series was for me a scene where Yui and her sister Ui and snuggling together trying to get warm while walking to school on a cold winter's day. Somehow that flipped my paternal switch on to the max. I really don’t understand why either...
While a lot of reviews criticise the fact the show really has no drama whatsoever to it, I think that the lack of drama is what makes the show so successful. It’s the interactions between the characters as they go about their very pleasant school and after school activities. How is any different from something like “To Heart”? I’d prefer a show like this to yet another robot show with teenage protagonists and tons of angst and melodrama (but I like those shows a well from time to time). There are some problems with the show however. Once Azusa arrives the tone of the show changes a bit. There is some drama (as such) which lasts for an episode or two, but it reverts back to normal afterwards. I really felt this threw the whole vibe of the show off and was kind of unnecessary. I also thought the band itself was a little too tight. None of the bands at my schools were that good. Or could write songs, let alone decent sounding ones. There’s also the issue with Yui’s quick succession from beginner to guitar goddess. I get she’s an idiot savant (well, that’s my interpretation), but come on! And then you have the music teacher with the heavy metal past who makes fetishistic costumes for the girls. That was way too hard to swallow. I mean it’s just s lame cover to get the girls into cute costumes for the benefit of the target audience. But in the end I can overlook these issues. After all it’s just a show with cute high school girls acting cute, drinking tea and eating sweets, playing cute pop songs in a school band. It’s not high art or in any way substantial and it doesn’t have to be. I really liked this show. 8 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 27 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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