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Originally Posted by Pathfinder4k
What seems strange to me is this season could be the last. Several points of interest. From the japanese forums - there is no K-On Season 3 so it will be ending. From Anime News Network, TBS just sold over $20 million dollars ( US ) in the past three months from K-ON merchandise a lone ( not DVD sells.) The K-ON ending and opening music selling like hotcakes in Japan. Blu- Rays and DVDs of the series are in the top 10 every week. This doesn't make sense to me. K-on is a money making machine and they will end it with only 2 seasons because the manga ended?
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Well, yes. It'd be like Warner Brothers making a ninth Harry Potter film (yes, I'm counting the last one as two,) to cash in on the franchise in spite of the fact that J.K. Rowling has put the Potterverse down and is moving on to other things.
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I'm not sure if there is a different between Japan and American when it comes to series. If a series had this much success in the US, you can guarantee a third and fouth season without blinking an eye. I guess this is the difference in our culture.
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Clearly you've never heard of a little-known shonen anime called "Dragonball" have you?
Or "Naruto" or "InuYasha." All of which dragged on longer than the history of the universe itself.
With that being said, "milking the cash cow" has a habit of backfiring. For example, many popular shonen series. As an example from the West:
Star Trek. Little three-season campy sci-fi expy of the well known Western "Wagon Train" made in the late '60s. Produced eleven films and
five four spin-off series. With a few exceptions, all the films ranged from mediocre (ST:1,3,4,7,8) to "Who writes this crap?" (ST:5. Every Trek film after the 8th (
First Contact.)) The TV shows seemed to lose something with each iteration.
If Kakifly wants to move on from K-ON! and do something else, he's well within his rights to do so. He might come back to it someday. Which may, or may not, be a good thing. For example, the five or six fans of
Tenchi Muyo are still debating the merits of the third OVA.
And besides that, what would a third season of K-ON!!! revolve around? Azusa, Ui, and Jun and their quest to find a fourth member before the light music club is disbanded due to lack of members, and suffering from the attentions of their cosplay-happy advisor, while trying to emerge from the shadow of such illustrious light music club bands as
Hokago Tea Time and
Death Devil? Or the original four in college . . . the drama of picking majors, the wild sorority parties, the grind of coursework, the terror of finals, and the girls discovering . . .
men?
One seems like it would run the distinct risk of recycling plot lines, and exposes itself to endless comparisons to the original girls and Hokago Tea Time. The other . . . would be difficult to strike the right balance of credibility and appeal to otaku. Both would run the distinct risk of fan backlash when they go "You changed it, now it sucks!"