I Have Caught K-ON Fever… And There’s Some Mio Bashing Too
Posted by: Noirsword in Anime
Yui shredding some wicked riffs on her equally wicked axe.
K-ON is simply said, moe crack. All the cool kids are doing it, it’s addicting, and it gives you a good high…
Okay, so maybe talking about crack on this blog isn’t a good idea, so let’s try another analogy. K-ON is much like the plethora of sweet little desserts of which the lovely Tsumugi has a seemingly endless supply. As Meu would say, K-ON is a big giant eclair. You know you should stay away from the sugar because it’s not good for you, but once you get a taste, it’s so damn addicting you want more and find yourself with withdrawal symptoms once the hit is over. Such is the power of this giant moe eclair.
The heart of the show is the casual slice of life aspect where the days casually stroll by for the girls as they do whatever it is teenage girls in a band do. Characterization in slice of life is key as that’s the main focus of this genre, and K-ON has not disappointed. Three episodes in, we can safely say K-ON is a casual comedy that’s easily accessible and fun to watch, more a Hidamari Sketch than a Lucky Star. Not great by any stretch, but still solid and quite fun to watch. The comedy has been mostly played it safe, stemming from the interactions between the girls, particularly Ritsu who acts as the catalyst and glue of the group. For better or worse, the comedy is conservative, ensuring less hit or miss jokes at the expense of lower intensity laughs.
My only beef with K-ON so far has been too much focus on Mio. It feels like she has been unfairly getting the most screentime. More often than not she’s the most prominent character in the foreground when all the girls are shown together. Most notably the star of the ending song “Don’t Say Lazy” is Mio, featuring brief shots of the other K-ON girls. Now feel free to call me out on this, but I thought K-ON was supposed to feature all the girls more of less equally with a slight slant towards Yui as the “main character”.
Yes yes, since Mio is the most popular girl it’s only natural that her screen time will be accordingly adjusted, but it shouldn’t be this obvious. Three episodes in and we can already tell Mio has a lot of sway in the show. She’s a lot like Lucky Star’s Kagami, who took over a lot of screen time in her respective show, in regards to personality and role, only less interesting. Mio is for all purposes and intents, the Mary Sue of the group, the perfect girl that everyone loves.
We can look at Mio this way, from a musical standpoint. Mio plays the bass, the guitar’s musical wingman. The bass is a second banana and stays in the background, strumming along to the lead guitar’s main melody. Just as the bass is supposed to compliment the guitar, Mio should be in a more complimentary role. I personally think she’s the least interesting core character, and her only real chemistry with the group is to act as the tsukkomi (straight man) to Ritsu’s boke (funny man). The role is very similar to Kagami, but Kagami’s dynamic was much more interesting at Lucky Star’s third episode. Thus far, I just don’t see that special spark from Mio. I don’t hate her by any means, but if she’s going to eat up so much screen time, her character needs to step it up and fully embrace the spotlight. I don’t feel that Mio’s increased screen time has been warranted at this current juncture.
Random Tsumugi picture because all the cool kids are doing it.
Tsumugi is a Mary Sue too, but there’s something about her that makes her more endearing to me. If I had to pinpoint a reason… It would have to be the eyebrows… Oh, and I tend to like the gentle ojousama archetype. But oh, those eyebrows…
Yui has been all around entertaining and is a good lead character. Then again I may have a slight bias towards her archetype in general. Very often in comedies, it’s the stupid characters that produce the best laughs, and you can’t help but love the trouble the idiots get themselves into. From our limited exposure to K-ON, I’ve seen a strong dynamic between her and Tsumugi. They compliment each other quite well with Tsumugi’s gentle levelheadedness and Yui’s carefree spacey nature working in harmony.
Ritsu is hands down the most interesting core character, and like I said earlier, the catalyst and glue of the little group. She makes things happen, and without her the girls wouldn’t even be together in the light music club. In a lot of ways, Ritsu fits the drummer image as she keeps the beat steadily going. The drum is both the most and least important instrument at the same time. You don’t really notice the drum when it’s there, but you would definitely notice if it wasn’t there. That’s pretty much how I feel about Ritsu in a nutshell. The girls need Ritsu, and Ritsu needs the girls for the show to keep going. Without her, K-ON just wouldn’t be interesting. Spread the Ritsu love comrades!
So yes, I’ve caught the K-ON Fever that’s currently making its rounds around the anime watching masses. It hasn’t blown me out of the water or anything, but a cast of cute moeblobs has made it fun to watch. The Mio-centric focus needs to be toned down, but otherwise I’ve enjoyed the experience so far. Something about K-ON is just so addicting, and I eagerly await each new episode for the next moe overdose.
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Being bass doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be the main vocalist. And no, it doesn’t matter that she might be getting a stronger emphasis than the rest of the group, because I fell in love with Ritsu instead.
My only beef with K-ON so far has been too much focus on Mio. It feels like she has been unfairly getting the most screentime
Unfairly? So how does one go about fairly getting more screentime? Is just being awesome not enough?
@Ipsod: Meh, bass… But at least you’ve got your priorities. As a Ritsu fan, you should demand she get a boost in screen time. She’s the de facto captain of the ship after all.
@Roy: I just feel Mio doesn’t deserve the boost in extra screen time, because like I said, I don’t think she’s earned the right yet. She hasn’t earned her keep to the same extent as the other core members. It wouldn’t be so bad if Mio’s exposure was gradually increased as the show went on, but she got a lot of screen time out of the gate without earning it yet.
The way I look at it, which character can you remove with the least impact on the show? Yui is the main girl that’s learning guitar on the fly, Tsumugi is sort of a benefactor/snack lady, and Ritsu is the glue that keeps the group together. Mio is just sort of there to play off Ritsu, and her bits are mostly reactive to Ritsu’s proactive nature. If it came down to removing Mio, I think the plot could slide Tsumugi to Mio’s role with little consequence.
The way I look at it, which character can you remove with the least impact on the show?
Puni Puni Mio and Parka Mio made episode 3 for me. So, no, I would have to disagree with your analysis.
I’m not sure if I can agree with you about Mio getting more screen time than she deserved. In the first episode, she didn’t get that much screen time (or is my memory really that horrible?) since all the girls are equally introduced. The second episode- okay quite a bit. The third, Mio did get more screen time than the first episode but isn’t most of episode 3 just Yui procrastinating? How does Mio get that much screen time?
Now, if we’re talking about someone sorely lacking in screen time, it’s Mugi. I can’t say that Mio has more screen time than Ritsu or Yui though. It might seem like Mio has more screen time because whenever she’s on screen, I remember her.
XD And I believe others do too.
As for the ED *nods in agreement*, she is the lead singer so she has a lot of screen time there but for that, I argue that since KyoAni made the ED since episode 1, they didn’t do it because Mio is popular. They didn’t adjust to her popularity. They might have done it, hoping that Mio is the most popular though.
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@Roy: Blasphemy. Yui’s procrastination and Ritsu’s studying hijinks made the third episode. While she was cute, Mio wasn’t all that and a bag of potato chips.
@Minnie: Agree that Mugi doesn’t get enough love. Whenever there’s a group scene with Mio, it just feels like she generally becomes the focus of the scene for the sake of “Hey look it’s Mio being moe”. It’s not like I think her screen time is significantly more than the other girls, but her presence seems to overshadow the other girls.
I compared it to an eclair because an eclair is filled with nothing but empty fluff. Therefore, Keion! is nothing but empty fluff. It’s hollow and has no value in it’s content.
BUT YOU EAT IT ANYWAY. EVERY LAST BITE.
I can’t bring myself to personally complain about Mio’s screentime, deserved or not, but it’s definitely important that all of the characters play an equally important role. The chemistry is working, and whether or not the show is actually good, even the fans won’t like it if the balance is ruined. Or at least, some fans won’t >_>
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@Meu: Mmm… Eclair.
@Eternal: We must unite all the Tsumugi fans under one banner and have our bushy eyebrowed girl claim her rightful screen time!
VIVA MUGI!
Serious response, the characters are clicking just fine. The Yui/Mugi and Ritsu/Mio pairings work well, and I’ll even tolerate the blatant Mio pandering as long as she becomes more interesting and her chemistry with Mugi and Yui increases. Still, I’d rather see more Ritsu and Mugi taking the helm to steer the K-ON ship.
I’ve probably abused the
Mio takes the focus? I think it’s already been said but the reason there’d be this sort of thought isn’t because Mio’s actually being granted more attention. If you look at the scenes, they tend to be about Yui, Ritsu, even Ui more often then about her, but at times you get Mio pushed into it. Example, the puni puni. It’s more about Yui saying that and being Yui than anything about Mio. The problem you Mio naysayers run into is that when Mio is just on-screen, you notice and so you make her the focus and take it away from the other girls. Don’t you just love it when that happens? Besides, she serves a very important role to the anime, too. Out of all the original four girls, she’s the only one that actually takes rehearsing, being a band, their purpose of being a club seriously. There, wingman role filled. None of the others have anything near a personality to do that. Maybe you guys just secretly love a take charge girl that’s very stereotypically girly on the inside, but just don’t want to admit it.
To be honest, when I was watching the series, I always hoped for less attention on Yui being Yui or Ritsu being Naruto. I also say Ritsu and Yui are twins and Ui’s adopted. X3 Mugi doesn’t get as much attention because that’s her character. Her voice is toned down and never excitable. Her appearance is soft set and she carries herself calmly at that. Again like Mio, you just want more Mugi because that personality is attractive, too.