Anime Eiga Review: K-On The Movie

Film Synopsis

Now in their final year of high school, the Light Music Club is preparing for their next great challenge; college.

The founding members of After School Tea Time, lead guitarist Yui (voiced by Aki Toyosaki), bass player Mio (voiced by Yoko Hikasa), drummer Ritsu (voiced by Satomi Sato), and keyboardist Mugi (voiced by Minako Kotobuki), suddenly realize that although the four of them will be graduating, their rhythm guitarist, Azusa (voiced by Ayana Taketatsu), still has another year to go. The four older members of the band decide that they must do something for their precious underclassman.

Coming up with the perfect gift is hard, but it gets even harder when the girls hear that other clubs will be going abroad for their graduation trips. The Light Music Club quickly decides that they too should do something. After some deliberation, they decide to head off to one the greatest musical hot spots out there, London. What started as a whim quickly became a reality and Sakuragaoka High’s Light Club Band found themselves at the center of one of musical capitals of the world.

While on their trip, the girls try to get the full London experience; albeit having to constantly cross the language barrier. But for the older members of the band, they must come up with Azusa’s surprise without letting her know what they are planning.

Their time in London might be short, but it will be one of the most important trips for the girls of After School Tea Time.

Film Positives

Let’s see, I reviewed K-On back in February of…2015! Holy Christ do I even remember anything about this show?

And that right there will determine if you end up liking K-On the Movie or not. As is common with any film based off an anime, it expects you to be familiar with the show. If you haven’t seen the series, one why would you start here and second you’re going to be very much out of luck. There is zero time allotted to reintroducing the characters and what the actual hell is going on.

However, if you have seen the series, you’ll be right, even if the only thing you remember about it is that there's a high school band.

I've got to commend this movie, it makes it easy to get back into the swing of things. Once through that hurtle, this is pretty good.

Out and About

As I’ve said on multiple occasions, one of my biggest issues with K-On is that it never pushed itself. After School Tea Time had their fan base at their school, and that’s where they stayed. I’ll just say it, the girls appeared to be a rather competent band. So why then did they never go out and perform; you know build some sort of reputation?

I’m not talking about anything big or grand; amateur night or a local festival would have been more than enough. To limit themselves to only school functions seemed like a waste of potential.

The movie rectifies this.

Going from a school auditorium to performing in London, albeit at extremely small venues, is a bit of a jump. After School Tea Time did technically expose itself to an international audience. I would say that this was a very successful trip.

Though an extreme, I still can’t understand why the show never did this. Instead it chose to become routine and by the numbers. So to finally see it here was a huge breath of fresh air.

 

Azusa’s Gift

This is where time and distance is showing its effects. I don’t fully recall how the show led up to it, but I do remember what the best moment of the K-On is.

This is a spoiler for those who haven’t seen the series, but again if you’re going to watch the movie it’s probably because you’ve already seen the show. Also the film doesn’t hide where it’s going.

The present Yui, Mio, Ritsu, and Mugi come up with is an original song specifically for Azusa. Not only was it just a song, it was the best the band had created because of how much meaning was behind it. The reveal is a stupidly sweet scene; very happy tear inducing. The movie gives us more background behind that moment.

We get to see how much work and worry the girls put into this one song. There's another thing the series never did; actually showing the band put effort into their music. Surprise, surprise, it made this already amazing scene even better because we fully understood what this performance meant to everybody.

Imagine for a moment, if the series had gone and done this itself. This shouldn't be something reserved for the big screen; doing this can make certain anime worth watching and remembering.

Film Negatives

I was't going to kid myself when starting this movie. I knew damn well I was't going to remember everything that happened in K-On. Sure enough, there were characters that showed up and I was all like “Yeah you’re familiar, but I don’t know a single thing about you”.

Accepting that this was going happen, I was legitimately shocked how well the movie compensated. However, there is no way that you can convince me that some of these people were recurring characters.

Movie, you will not sit there and tell me that some of the people After Girl School Tea was acting very familiarly with were ever in series. Stop pretending that these people were a thing that happened because you're are completely full of s@#$.

Time Management

This doesn't make any sense. Why have the girls go to London when you’re not going to capitalize on that set up?

After School Tea Time doesn't arrive in London until about thirty minutes into this hour and fifty minute movie. So okay that’s a lot of time not being in the main location, but I guess it’s excusable since one of the other main purposes of the film is Yui, Mio, Ritsu, and Mugi writing Azusa’s song. It made sense that while on their trip, a good amount of time was spent on this plot point. 

This entire set up is of course for the film’s finale. The band is going to do their thing in London, but it will all end with this song. Therefore when they return home, the movie’s pretty much over right? I mean there’s what, five, ten minutes left? Fifteen would definitely be pushing it, but I suppose that’s fine.

Question, why in the hell was it that when they returned to Japan there was still 30 F@#$ING MINUTES LEFT TO GO? Why…why do that? You found an excuse to bring a young band to one of the most important cities in music’s history, why not use it to it's full advantage? Especially since when they come back, the girls are still writing the damn song?

Oh After School Tea Time had to give one more show before they graduated.

YOU HAD THEM PERFORM IN F@#$ING LONDON! WHY NOT MAKE THAT GRAND FINALLY?

It’s mindboggling to imagine what the priorities of this film were and the ass backward ways it went about fulfilling them.

Final Thoughts

Okay, so while I don’t understand what was going on with this its allocation, K-On the Movie is still a lot fun.

For those who are fans of the show, this is a good addition and is defiantly deserving of your time. It tries to do different things that series never attempted and it gives a really great backstory to one of K-On’s strongest moments.

This movie thrives on what made the anime memorable in the first place and is well worth a look.

                Google+                          Facebook                           Twitter