K-ON! - Episode 13 (Final)

It's nighttime at Mio's house with her bedroom windows appear to be covered by something. She's working on writing with the lyrics. It seems that the cold winter has arrived.

On a morning, Tsumugi rides the 1-car train at a deserted station terminus.
Ritsu walks along sidewalk, but stops for a while to look at 2 girls from the same school who walked past her before continuing on. She turns around to see another pair of girls together and walks again.
Azusa walks across a bridge and finds a white cat, but when she tries to pat it, the cat hisses. So she walks away.
The Hirasawa sisters are walking together on the way to school too.

OP

Everyone is in the clubroom table having tea, but not talking with each other. Yui walks in and joins them, complaining about the cold. Yui suddenly placed her cold hands on Ritsu's cheeks. As payback, Ritsu does the same thing to Yui.

番外編　冬の日！

The cold makes it hard for Yui to play the guitar. She tries to play it with the gloves on, but the pick keeps slipping off. When she does manage to get a hold of it, it keeps getting stuck by the strings. Ritsu says that that is obvious and asks Ritsu if she agrees, but is staring blankly. Yui then asks everyone to have hotpot at her house on Sunday, but sighs filled the room: Tsumugi has something to do, Ritsu had promised her younger brother to see a movie, Azusa has to stay at home. By this point, Yui is already disappointed. She asks Mio too, but she can't too as she's writing a new song and blames Yui and Ritsu for distracting her and shows her a notebook full of scribbles as proof. There was a slight pause before those two apologized to her. In the end, Yui would have it with just Ui (and Gitah).

While everyone walks home, Tsumugi suddenly calls out that she has to leave and runs towards the fast food restaurant (the very same restaurant featured in most K-On episodes), leaving everyone puzzled as to what she was up to, like meeting up with a boyfriend. Ritsu feels uncomfortable when the word "boyfriend" is mentioned. At that point, Ritsu & Mio and Yui & Azusa go their seperate ways. Not long later, Azusa says that she has some shopping for "some toys" to do near the station before heading home, but doesn't want Yui to come along and excuses herself from there.

Meanwhile, Mio asks Ritsu about something, but Ritsu suddenly stops and turns around. Mio wonders if there is something wrong.

Yui walks out of the convince store with hot meat buns in her hands.

Morning has arrived. A girl is seen opening the sliding door with her legs while she shivers in the cold. She walks out of the door and takes the newspaper from the mailbox. She looked at the mailbox closely, but finds nothing else in there. She looks around for something before walking back in and closing the door.

At Azusa's house, she took out something she bought earlier. The gray cat in the scene belongs to her classmate (who is seen mostly with Ui in school) whose grandmother was supposed to take care of, but caught a cold. It's still a kitten, so she's afraid to leave it by itself. However, Azusa has never raised a cat before. She takes it in anyway as there was no one else who would do it.

Tsumugi is in her work uniform and punches in her card. Mio is on a train, bringing her notebook along. Yui has only just began to wake up.

Ritsu lies on the bed, reading a sheet of paper that sounded like a poem. On the line "But I want to see how you look with your bangs down" made her deep in thought. She removes her headband (that unknown girl from earlier was her), added some hair cream, and looks into the mirror: she looks weird. Her younger brother called if she was ready go head out. Ritsu puts her headband back, grabs a coat, and heads out of the room. She enters back a short while later to take her mobile phone.

Azusa is sitting on the couch with the cat curled up while taking a nap. The cat meowed as she patted it, With that, she names it "Azu-nyan #2".

At the restaurant, Tsumugi is serving a customer, with a Trainee tag on, repeating their order. A colleague reminded her to smile.

Mio walks along the cold rocky beach with a canned drink, finding a nice spot to sit on to come up with a good song. The place has dark clouds, strong wind, and strong sea waves.

At the dairy section of the supermarket with Yui, Ui is disappointed that nobody is coming. Yui came up with the idea of creating a new style of hotpot that would be used when everyone comes. She suggests marshmallow soy milk hotpot and chocolate curry hotpot, but Ui doesn't think that it would work. Yui argues back by saying that they might be tasty. On that, Ui suggests strawberry milk.

CM

At the beach, the cold and the strong winds made it hard for Mio to come up with anything and wished that she should have just went to Yui's house for hotpot, but everyone else had something to do and wonders what they are up to.

Ritsu and her younger brother has left from the movie theater. All of a sudden, she touches his cheeks and finds them worm. The brother (named Tainaka) is horrified by this but is saved by a friend who is on the way to Suzuki's house (Wonder who's that? Ui's friend?) and joins him. After Ritsu's younger brother left, she looks at the reflection of herself in the glass window.

At Tsumugi's workplace, she placed a cup of cola on the tray, but the customer ordered coffee instead. At that she takes the drink away, but bumps into her colegue and spilling the drink onto her. Although the latter apoligized, Tsumugi panicked and deeply applogized repeately.

Azusa woke up from her nap and finds out that the kitten is unwell and is chocking out something.

Back to Ritsu, she is reminded with the mysterious piece of paper placed in the mailbox and belives that it's a love letter. It was at that moment that everyone received a message from Yui asking if they would rather have a marshmallow soy milk hotpot or a chocolate curry hotpot. Everyone is puzzled as to what the message meant.

The Hirazawa sisters are now at the vegatables section. Yui wonders why nobody is replying, before she receives a call from Azusa. Azusa said not to send weird messages at "times like this". Yui did not understand what she meant by that. Azusa explained that the cat a friend had she had been entrusted with is not feeling well and there is no one else at home. She's at a loss at what to do.

The Hirazawa sisters are now at Azusa's house with the cat sleeping. Azusa didn't know that cats coughed up hairballs. Yui then feeds Azusa with a marshmallow and says that it's better to have it as it is. She checks her phone to find that everyone has repiled to her.

Everyone is now gathered at the restaurant where Tsumugi works at. Jun, who gave Azusa the cat, has now collected it back. Mio did not come up with anything to write. Yui is amazed at how they could do things by themselves and leaving Yui behind to become adults. At that, Mio asks Ritsu about the lyrics she had handwritten and left it in her mailbox. Ritsu was shocked when she said that: all the while she thought that it was a love letter from a mysterious sender. She feels uneasy on the thought of having a same-sex relationship before strangling and said not to do things the old-fashioned way. In defense, Mio said that she had informed in advance, but Ritsu continues on.

At the clubroom, everyone wonders why Tsumugi is playing the keyboard as usual while everyone else is having difficulity playing theirs. Yui touches them and finds them warm. Ritsu and Mio joins in. Tsumugi has a high body tempreature.

Everyone is having a nice warm cup of tea and some cakes. She would be working at that restaurant until the end of the year (How long is that? 1 month? 11 months? Has Christmas and New Year's alerady passed?). Yui then wonders if it's expensive to rent the Budokan, as they can't do a live performance if they don't. Tsumugi comments that it's good to have big dreams. As they are not professionals yet, they could do with some practice.


ED

[insert "大正野球娘。" episode 1 trailer here instead of the usual "Next Time" trailer here]


The whole series in 7min 17min (basically, a collection of the 36sec summaries up to episode 12)


Overall review of the series: "K-On!" is a great series to watch as a whole and meets almost all of the requirements that would have me to look forward to it and watch it to the end. It has nice character design and a great storyline to go with it. No offense, but most of the other anime I had watch either have great storyline, but questionable character design, or very moe (萌え) characters, but horrible storyline. It's strange how I can write a lot based on how little there is in this special. I started writing this on Friday, but the Spring 2009 anime review and the news of MJ's death delayed it further.

I was thinking of doing Haruhi too, but I already had trouble doing this already, and multiplying what I had done for "K-On!" by 2 and add another 2 episode is torturing if not willing to do it. You might have probably have seen some kind of pattern on the way I wrote. If I start now, I would have 13 episodes' worth to catch up with. However, the time spent doing this could be better spent doing other things like my stories on my main blog, which I have not put up anything (not even in draft) for quite a while. On top of that, I have to head off to somewhere from July onwards, with more details on my main blog. Since I'm writing this like out of leisure, it has been great. Due to me being away, I probably won't be able to watch from 10th July onwards and maybe the 2 days before that as I need to do some packing and sleep early. (The time of this post tell you how messed up my sleeping hours are.)

K-ON! - Episode 12

Yui has yet to recover from her illness and is resting at home while Ui takes care of her. (She's having a dream about Tsumugi's eyebrows...) Ui takes care of her so much that she herself risks being late for school.



OP

In Ui's class, she talks to Azusa that she's still too ill to probably come to school the following day. The problem is that the school festival is just 4 days away. Ritsu suddenly barges the door at that moment. Mio hits her for scaring their juniors.



最終回　軽音！

Mio listens to what Ui said about Yui's condition. As to how she got it, it ranges from catching Ritsu's flu (episode 11), or some days ago when they were trying out various costumes for their upcoming performance. (Ritsu don't seem to have the flu at that time.) Yui liked the yukata so much that she wore it the whole day. On the possibility that Yui might not recover by then, Mio asks Azusa to practice for the lead guitar.

That evening, Ui reaches home to see Yui holding the guitar with used tissues next to her while still lying on the bed and uttering random words to describe delicious food. Ui is worried for her.

The following day, the club practices as Mio teaches Azusa. Yui drops by the clubroom with the implication that she did not go for classes earlier and they practiced together. Everyone felt that something was different: Yui played the guitar with the rhythm being too accurate. Upon Yui addressing Azusa, Ritsu and Tsumugi as "Azusa-chan","Ritsu-san", and "Tsumugi-san" instead of the usual "Azu-nyan", "Ricchan", and "Mugi-chan" respectively. It turns out that this Yui is actually her younger sister. Sawako is not fooled by this as Ui's breasts are larger than Yui's. (Come to think of it, Ui is wearing red indoor shoes instead of blue.) She tries to deny it, but it's quite obvious from the voice now.

Ui changes back (with the blue ribbon and pantyhose still on) to her usual self. They commented on how much she really looks like Yui to the point that everyone didn't notice it at first. At that point, the real Yui drops by but is not really recovered. (She's holding a box of tissues) Yui is happy to see her guitar there, runs to it, but collapses due to the weight of it and her being weak.

Yui lies down on the couch with her fever still up with Tsumugi taking care of her. Yui knows that she's still too sick to play and counts on Azusa to take over her role. Azusa doesn't want to, as not having everyone there is as good as not performing at all and starts running out, crying. Mio stops her and advices Yui to not come to the club until the performance to let her rest.



CM

It's 12:30 of the day of the festival, half an hour before they are scheduled to perform. Yui has not yet appeared, but had messaged Tsumugi that she would make it on time. Azusa still doesn't want to practice without Yui around. Nodoka enters to tell them that the performance would be delayed by 10 minutes, but to head there as planned.

(With the sound of Yui's castanet in the background,) Nodoka recalls their time back in kindergarten where she would gather a lot of small lobsters and dumping a whole load of them into Nodoka's bathtub. She didn't know about it at first, but she did see Yui running back and forth several times. She was shocked to see those lobsters. The present Mio shivers in fear. The point of her telling this is that once Yui has her heart on something, she would go all the way. Nodoka believes that Yui had forgotten about having a cold.At that point, Sawako brings in Yui with the Yukata on and apologizes for making Azusa worried.

Yui wonders where her guitar was as she though she had left it in the club room. Turns out that Ui had brought it home and place it in Yui's room, but is too sick to notice that she did back then. Yui worries about what to do. Sawako offers her guitar, but Yui can't play on guitars besides her own, so she rushes back home to grab it.

Everyone is excited about the performance with the light music club about to perform. Everyone is in their yukatas and in Yui's place, Sawako takes over. Meanwhile, Yui grabs the guitar at home and rushes back out. As she rushes back to school, she remembers running like this back on the day of the opening ceremony (episode 1) and telling herself that she had to do something, but doesn't know what that would be and worried about growing up without doing anything.





劇中歌①：「ふでペン ～ボールペン～」

Yui made it back just as they were done with the first song. The audience were heard cheering. Yui climbs onto the stage and thanks Sawako for taking over her. She reintroduces the club to the audience also apologizes to them for being late as she had forgotten her guitar. She explained that the club has a goal to perform at the Budokan and worked hard together to buy a guitar, drink tea everyday, have training camps. She add on to say that the stage they are on is their Budokan. Yui starts off the next song.





劇中歌②：「ふわふわ時間」
(Yui's singing this time)

At the end of the song, Tsumugi suddenly continues playing on the song with the rest following suit. Yui then continues singing from the chorus and exclaims to everyone that she likes music.

They ran out of time just as Yui wants to sing more.



おしまい
(The end)

ED

Note: Sad to see them go at this point, but there is a winter special next week. Credits seems to mention that Tsumugi was the one who composed the music. The animation during the performance (except Yui's running) looks weird...

K-ON! - Episode 11

With the school festival soon approaching, Azusa did not expect a crisis to strike the light music club.

Azusa was excited about being able to perform at the upcoming festival. She want to see the club performing last ear, but Mio was reminded about the time she tripped on stage. Ritsu wants to say more, but Mio shuts her up. But Sawako has it recorded on a disk and ordered Yui and Ritsu to bring Mio away so that she won't interfere while the video is loaded on a laptop and jumps to the scene Mio was so hyped up about. Azusa can't unsee what she saw.

OP

#11 ピンチ！

Everyone (except Sawako and Mio) is now watching back the footage from their performance at last year's performance (episode 6). Azusa comments on how well they perform during their performance

Nodoka comes in with the form for using the auditorium, which they had not handed in yet. Azusa fills it in, but upon the "Title" section, Ritsu asks to use the band name, except they don't have any. Since they have problems coming up with one and are taking so long, Nodoka makes her leave. Before she does, she asked her to head out later. While they think of a name, they would practice. Yui raises the point that her guitar hasn't been sounding good lately and had Azusa take a look at it.

To her horror, the strings are already rusting and wonders when they were last changed on top of other problems. Yui doesn't know that they were supposed to be changed, so she hasn't really been taking care of it properly. Sawako (who was shocked on being asked) suggests bringing it to the store.

They reach the store (same as episode 2) when Mio decides to head somewhere: she feels bad entering the store filled with right-handed instruments since she plays with her left hand. Fortunately, there is a "Lefty Fair" in the store. Left-handed instruments are quite few. While Mio enjoys her "heaven", Azusa and Yui heads on to have Yui's guitar serviced. He takes a look at the guitar and is shock at the state it's in and wonders if it's a vintage guitar. While he does some maintenance on it, Yui comments on how he's stripping naked her guitar. Azusa doesn't understand what she meant or why Yui picked a heavy guitar with a thick neck. Her reply was because it's "cute".

While they rejoin Tsumugi and Ritsu, staff of the store (one of them is the same as in episode 2) greets her, gathered around and had a conversation with her. Ritsu explains to Azusa that the instrumental store belongs to Tsumugi's family. Mio is still looking at left-handed instruments. Yui's guitar is now done and it's all shiny again. Yui got so happy hat she hugged it and thanked him. That staff add on to say that the maintenance fee is 5000 yen (US$50), but Yui doesn't have money and panics. Tsumugi comes into the scene and wonders what the commotion is about. She herself doesn't have enough money. On one of the staff hearing her say that, he said that it's free. Tsumugi feels bad about it, but he said stuff like about how her father takes care of the store.

They were about to head back. Mio is still not with with them, so Ritsu calls her out. Mio replies with a straight no. Adding that everyone is waiting, she still gives the same reply. Ritsu pulls her by the instrument case on her back, but she resists strongly until she falls down. Mio is now angry and calls Ritsu an idiot.

Outside, Ritsu decides that everyone to have tea. Yui, however, has promised Nodoka to meet up with her. Mio asks if she could tag along with Yui as she is in the same class (or maybe Mio just wants to get away from Ritsu).

CM

At a tea shop with unique furniture, Nodoka wonders how she does in the club. Mio says that when she learns something, she forget another. Nodoka seem to already know this and adds on that when she does try hard, she can be amazing and a bit troublesome.

The scene switches a little to the left of Nodoka's view to reveal that Ritsu, Azusa, and Tsumugi had followed them in and covered their faces (except the eyes) with the store's menu at a table. Ritsu is jealous that they are getting along well and decides to butt in. Mio is not happy about it.

At a certain day during lunch in Mio's class, she says to Nodoka about how nice her lunch box is and that she made it herself. Ritsu pops by in the classroom to practice for the festival.

Mio is now at the club room. Ritsu talks about what happened last year and wonders what she would do this year. She continues on to annoy her and possibly went too far. The others are worried and stopped when Azusa puts on the cat ears.

While practicing, they noticed something is missing: the drums are not rushed as usual and could barely be heard. Mio asked what wrong, but she just says that she's tired and just walks out and says that she would come after school or the following day. They worried about what would happen next.

Mio drops by 2-2 the following morning, but Ritsu is absent from school: she's having a fever. So Mio drops by to say how lonely it is without her playing the drums or that her usual style of playing the drums is what makes the band lively and that no one was angry at her. Mio wants to head home, but wants to be with her until she falls asleep. Later in the evening, everyone else drops by, when she's already asleep. Yui sleeps with her too.

Yui soon recovers and motivates everyone for the festival. The auditorium usage form is still not handed in yet. Since Ritsu, being the club leader, was stick, the council decides to extend the deadline to the following day. (When was the original dateline? Seems that it had already passed.) They still have problems deciding to the point that Sawako steps in (as she can't have tea peacefully) and writes the name without saying what it was before she did.

The name of the band is now 放課後ティータイム (Afterschool Teatime). Yui seems to have received Ritsu's illness.

ED

(Note: I sense tense atmosphere thought most of this episode.)

Haruhi Suzumiya Timeline

While looking around, I found an interesting table describing the timeline in Haruhi. You can view the original source at this page.

School Year	Period	Title	Volume
Middle School Year 1	July	Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody（Time Travel）	Volume 3: Boredom
		The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Time Travel)	Volume 4: Disappearance
Middle School Year 3	March	Editor in Chief Straight Ahead! (Kyon's Story)	Volume 8: Indignation
High School Year 1	April to May	The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 1: Melancholly
	June	The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 3: Boredom
	July	Knowing Me, Knowing You	Manga Volume 3 (Manga Original Story)
		Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody	Volume 3: Boredom
		Mystérique Sign
		End of Mystérique Sign	Manga Volume 4 (Manga Original Story)
		Solitary Island Syndrome	Volume 3: Boredom
	July?	The Serial of Haruhi Suzumiya	DS Game: Serial (Game Original Story) Summer Break's "The Seven Wonders of the School's Ghost Stories" theme
		The Arrangement of Haruhi Suzumiya	Wii Game: "Arrangement" (Game Original Story) Uproar that happened during the summer break
	August	Endless Eight	Volume 5: Rashness
		Stray Cat Shamisen's View of Life	Manga Volume 5 (Manga Original Story)
	October	Get in the Ring
	November	The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 2: Sigh
		The Promise of Haruhi Suzumiya	PSP Game: Promise (Game Original Story)
		The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00	Volume 6: Disturbance
		Show Must Go On	Manga Volume 6 (Manga Original Story)
		Live Alive	Volume 6: Disturbance
		Sound Around	Drama CD: Sound Around
		Tales From the Thousand Lakes	Manga Volume 6 (Manga Original Story)
		The Day of Sagittarius	Volume 5: Rashness
		The Day After Sagittarius	Manga Volume 7 (Manga Original Story)
		Someday in the Rain	August 2006 issue of "The Sneaker"
	December	The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 4: Disappearance
		Charmed at First Sight Lover	Volume 6: Disturbance
		Snowy Mountain Syndrome	Volume 5: Rashness
		Where did the Cat Go?	Volume 6: Disturbance
	January	The Melancolly of Mikuru Asahina
	February	The Scheme of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 7: Scheme
	March	Editor in Chief Straight Ahead!	Volume 8: Anger
		Wandering Shadow
High School Year 2	July	The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya	Volume 9: Dissociation
		Unknown	Volume 10: Surprise
Extra Chapter	Unknown	Haruhi Suzumiya Theatre	August 2004 issue of "The Sneaker"
		The Return of Haruhi Suzumiya Theatre	June 2006 issue of "The Sneaker"
		The Confusion of Haruhi Suzummiya	PS2 Game: Confusion (Game Original Story) *Made after Kyon's monologue of "The Scheme of Haruhi Suzumiya"
		The Agitation of Haruhi Suzumiya	Wii Game: Agitation (Game Original Story) At a certain Saturday after school, the everone in the SOS brigade had an unexpected dance pratice by Haruhi
		Parallel Outer Chapter I An unexpected Cinderella Story	Manga Volume 8 (Manga Original Story)
		Parallel Outer Chapter II Mikurun Darer Baby

K-ON! - Episode 10

The summer holidays has arrived. Ui is waiting for Azusa at a spot near the train station. Inside a fast food restaurant, they discuss about the light music club having an upcoming training camp. Ui said that her sister (Yui) enjoyed the camp. Ui wasn't really sure if she actually practiced, because she saw her packing her swimming attire before that trip.

OP

#10 また合宿！

Ui asked Azusa what her sister is like in the club. She said the things she doesn't like about her, but Ui misinterpreted that. Ui said that Yui is now lazing around at home as she doesn't like the heat or the air conditioning. Azusa can already imagine her to be lazy, but she prefers to have Mio as an older sister. Azusa, however, finds Ritsu to be irresponsible and sketchy, but the person in question is directly behind her, which shocked Azusa.

Ritsu said saw the both of them entering, and joins them. Azusa then wonders that her having her own tea set and a summer house would make her to be from some rich family. Ritsu isn't sure, so she decides to call her up to hang out there. Mio doesn't seem to answer her mobile phone, so she calls her house. Someone did answer it and Azusa decides to overhear it. Ritsu asks if he is her father, but instead, says to be the family butler. That shocked the both of them. Still shocked, she asked him if Tsumugi is available. Turns out that she is with the family at a summer resort in Finland.

When they got out, Ui invites Ritsu to her house. At the Hirasawa household, Ui calls around for her sister and that Azusa and Ritsu are there. Yui appears to be in the same state as what Azusa imagined her to be earlier.

At the staff office in school, Yui and Ritsu invites Sawako to the training camp, but gave the look of not wanting to go. So the two girls decides to leave. Upon Sawako hearing Yui saying something about looking forward to barbecue and swimming pool as they left, she regrets her decision.

On that day, they were shock as to the size of the house being larger than the year before (episode 4), but Tsumugi reveals that she still has an even larger house.

In a 3-2 vote (with Tsumugi being the tiebreaker), they decide to play first before practicing. Azusa wonders what Tsumugi's idea of fun would be: she imagines Ritsu and Yui at the front of a boat while the other two are lying in deck chairs at the back. She thought that it would not be possible, but she did saw a boat and the deck chairs, with the latter being on the beach instead and came along with a large umbrela and a bowl of fruits. Azusa and Mio overhears Tsumugi behind them on the phone about not wanting those though.

Azusa got suntanned at the end of the day.

CM

They opened the door (sounded like that of a spaceship) to see a large room, large amplifiers, and a new set of drums. At the end of practice, Ritsu and Tsumugi got hungry and can't practice more.

They had fun preparing the food and barbecuing and played with fire sparklers when it's dark and soon head into the dark forest for the test of courage.

In there, Mio pairs up with Azusa. Along the way, something came from behind them and becomes all scared. It turns out to be Sawako who happens to be lost and wanted to give everyone a surprise. Ritsu wonders why no one came to where she is.

At night, where everyone was sleeping, Azusa was heading off to somewhere. She saw one of the rooms having the room lights on and saw Yui practicing her guitar. Azusa joins to help her. Yui hugs her when she finally manages to play those notes.

Still in the hot summer holidays after the camp, Ui meets up with Azusa again at the same spot but doesn't recognize her with her tanned dark skin.

Sitting at the same spot, they talked about how the camp went. They only practiced a little and wished that they had more intensive training instead.

ED