K-On! - Q & A

[ronelm2000]

idk...maybe they'll all take a major in music or something lol XD

but seriously...i can't think of anything...

[bloppyblue]

Ricchan will continue her role as Club President until she becomes Club President OF THE WORLD!!

[gowfan05]

Where can I buy a Mio Fan CLUB card??? anyone know? I want it to look exactly like the show

[winhlp32]

This is a rant that is incoherent, and doesn't really answer any questions...I don't even know how much of it is true since it's just stuff I heard here and there...

Naoko Yamada and Reiko Yoshida are credited as K-On's series director and series composition respectively. These two probably have the most say in the creative process of the series. They're also the two people who usually gets interviewed in anime magazines such as Newtype, Animage, etc. about the show.

Out of the two, Yamada is the brains behind the series and is the one who determines the direction the series is going to go, such as the running themes of transience, the emphasis of the second series on school life and less 'moe moe kyun', the added emphasis on the Yui-Azusa Relationship. Any character development that wasn't present in the K-On manga is her doing, especially for the more personality-ambilvalent characters such as Mio, Ritsu and Azusa.

People who didn't like how season two has been 'meaningless' and thought that season 1 had more of a plot should know that the direction Season two has been taking is totally intentional on Yamada's part. Any anime-original episodes are also her ideas.

Yamada, being the director of the 'Listen!!' ED, had also confirmed that the girl in black is indeed Mio, and that the meaning of the video is reflected in the lyrics, that the girl is trapped and wants to come out of her shell, etc. It's meant to be symbolic.

Reiko Yoshida, being the series composer, does pretty much what the name says: Deciding what chapters of the manga to animate and what order to animate them in. Taking Yamada's direction, she constructs a rough storyline for the entire series.

She, along with three other writers(it was two others in the first season, this season Masahiro Yokotani made his/her scriptwriting debut for K-On with episode 7) all write screenplays for each episode. The four scriptwriters rotate throughout the series, with Reiko Yoshida writing most of the more important episodes in the series(episodes 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 17). But according to 2ch, the fan favorite writer for K-On is Jukki Hanada for obvious reasons(episodes 2, 5, 10, 14, 18).

People have been saying that K-On has been an revamp of Kyoto Animation, and in a way it has; A new series director, and the first female series director for any Kyoani series(In fact, with people such as Yamada, Yoshida, and Yukiko Horiguchi, K-On has a largely female staff, meaning the very girl touches in the series are their doing, and not Kakifly's, whom I'm pretty convinced by now is a male, not a female). For a Kyoani non-key work, this is also their first series without any involvement by Yamakan(whose influence were pretty heavy in Haruhi, especially the Live-Alive episode, and in Lucky Star where even after he was fired, Kyoani still used his scripts for the later episodes, meaning it's unlikely that he alone is responsible for the infamous first four episodes). The writers enlisted for the show has all never written for an Kyoto Animation series before, and I think that is the show's weakest link, to have none of the writers who wrote episodes for all those Key works, Haruhi and even Lucky Star seems to be a reason people agree to as the cause of what many people thought the first season of K-On was; generic, mediocre, run-of-the-mill, etc.

People say Kyoto Animation now is not the same as Kyoto Animation before K-On(cause everyone knows K-On is the cause of Endless Eight), but the episodic directors for K-On are the very same people who brought us FMP, Air, Haruhi, Kanon, Lucky Star, and right before K-On aired, Clannad After Story. The idea that Yasuhiro Takemoto, Tatsuya Ishihara, the series directors of FMP and Haruhi series respectively brought out this 'moeblob' slice-of-life is pretty incredible but is ultimately the truth. The K-On episode 20 everyone watched the other day was storyboarded by Ishihara, who also brought us episode 17, episode 2, the K-On OPs, and the latest Haruhi movie.

I heard from sakuga anime fan Raito-Kun that apparently Ishihara and Yukiko Horiguchi had a minor dispute over how many frames to use per second for the 360 degrees spinning in the first K-On! OP Go!Go!Maniac. So what am I really trying to say? Really, I've lost track and this may all be incomprehensible. But maybe it's somewhere along the lines of the fact that Kyoani may have this new series director and series composer, and all these new things that the fans of the pre-K-On! Kyoani may hate and have felt alienated. But in fact Kyoani is really in many ways still the same-old OCD obsessed with minute details in animation, gives unnecessary scenery p0rn and hand movements and likes to give its characters ponytails, and so on. The only thing I really miss from the pre-K-On Kyoani, is the dancing OPs and EDs. People should really try to appreciate Kyoani more, especially in this age where budget is a big problem in TV anime series production...

[Afternoon Tea]

^nice writeup

[Kev-kun]

^^ AIYA!! so much typing.. or is it C&P? lol nvm very interesting though

[evangeline88]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

text

nice information about KyoAni

[Vexx]

Just to be clear, I'm not pouncing on you , just responding to the information you've rounded up.

Originally Posted by winhlp32

People who didn't like how season two has been 'meaningless' and thought that season 1 had more of a plot should know that the direction Season two has been taking is totally intentional on Yamada's part. Any anime-original episodes are also her ideas.

Who are these "people" and what literary coursework did they fail to have that idea?

Season 1 was basically a retelling of the manga's mostly daily life in a club. Season 2 has an overarching theme of transience and coming-of-age.

Yamada, being the director of the 'Listen!!' ED, had also confirmed that the girl in black is indeed Mio, and that the meaning of the video is reflected in the lyrics, that the girl is trapped and wants to come out of her shell, etc. It's meant to be symbolic.

I think its kind of sad that the director has to get that explicit in meaning as if it wasn't pretty clear to begin with.

People have been saying that K-On has been an revamp of Kyoto Animation, and in a way it has; A new series director, and the first female series director for any Kyoani series(In fact, with people such as Yamada, Yoshida, and Yukiko Horiguchi, K-On has a largely female staff, meaning the very girl touches in the series are their doing, and not Kakifly's, whom I'm pretty convinced by now is a male, not a female). For a Kyoani non-key work, this is also their first series without any involvement by Yamakan(whose influence were pretty heavy in Haruhi, especially the Live-Alive episode, and in Lucky Star where even after he was fired, Kyoani still used his scripts for the later episodes, meaning it's unlikely that he alone is responsible for the infamous first four episodes). The writers enlisted for the show has all never written for an Kyoto Animation series before, and I think that is the show's weakest link, to have none of the writers who wrote episodes for all those Key works, Haruhi and even Lucky Star seems to be a reason people agree to as the cause of what many people thought the first season of K-On was; generic, mediocre, run-of-the-mill, etc.

1) I think the emergence of female creative input in manga and anime has been a positive influence on anime - particularly slice-of-life and rom-com genre.
(Toradora!, Kimi Ni Todoke, Kannagi, etc) They've pushed the envelope on archetypes and forced some people out of their comfortable decaying ruts.
2) Although Yamakan appears to be a tool in some ways, those four episodes still stand for me as quintessential L*S. The rest of the series was plagued with anime-only "how many references can we jam into this ep".
3) The series is based on the 4-koma a simplistic 4-panel comic strip, the other works are based on light novels and classic software works. Its rather odd for "people" to be comparing the two.

People say Kyoto Animation now is not the same as Kyoto Animation before K-On(cause everyone knows K-On is the cause of Endless Eight),

That is an interesting theory "everyone" has ..... cite? Endless Eight can be said to be artistically genius even it might have been a commercial flop.

...
But in fact Kyoani is really in many ways still the same-old OCD obsessed with minute details in animation, gives unnecessary scenery p0rn and hand movements and likes to give its characters ponytails, and so on.

Some people call those "quality moments" rather than "unnecessary". The difference between assembly line crap and feeling like the creators care.

The only thing I really miss from the pre-K-On Kyoani, is the dancing OPs and EDs. People should really try to appreciate Kyoani more, especially in this age where budget is a big problem in TV anime series production...

Most of KyoAni's pre-K-On works did not have dancing though they did have excellent artwork. K-On has very active OP/EDs so I don't really see what is missing here other than perhaps the fad "flash mob" dance of the season. If anything, the amount of technical quality and art styles in those pieces just continue to ramp up.

[ronelm2000]

Lol...this is K-ON...what would they dance on a music themed anime.

[blooglah24]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

-snip-

Indeed, that was a quite an incoherent rant, haha. But I see what you mean. I'll go head and give my thoughts on what you're trying to say. You also seem to have some small errors in information so I'll correct what I can.

To start, I'll go head and say I have no idea how K-ON! had anything to do with E8. Now with that out of the way, I'll start, haha.

First off, I think that saying that kyoani has been "revamped" or is different since working on K-ON! is ridiculous. (I'm not saying that that's what you said, but you mentioned that some people may feel that way.) You could say they're going in a different direction (but even that claim is a stretch), but many of the people working at kyoani have been there since the beginning. Kyoani is unique as an animation studio in that they keep pretty much everyone who works for them on their payroll, as opposed to hiring freelancers and outsourcing, which is what many other studios do.

You're correct in stating that this is Naoko Yamada's directorial debut, but she isn't exactly new at kyoani. She's been with them since AIR starting out as an animator before being allowed to direct episodes herself. This is where you start to make some errors though. As the director of the series, it is indeed 'her show', but that does not mean that all the ideas in the show are hers. The anime production process is very much a group effort, meaning that ideas come from everywhere. Most of the work on individual episodes is left up to the individuals who happen to be storyboarding/directing/scripting that episode. Yamada's main role as the director of the series is to approve what ideas are brought to her. Everything must be approved by her, which means that if she doesn't like something, it will more than likely be axed. Her most direct contributions would be on the episodes she actually works on, but she of course still has a large influence on the series as a whole just by having the final word.

You're also right in saying that K-ON! is Yoshida's first work with kyoani, but this isn't very unusual. If there is one type of staff member kyoani doesn't have much of, it's writers. Because of this, many times the directors will script and screenplay some of the episodes themselves (Ishihara; Takemoto). But for series compositions and the bulk of the writing, kyoani brings in outside help. In fact, the series composer for Lucky Star (and several of the writers for that series) had no prior experience with kyoani, and haven't done any work for them since. The only two dedicated writers kyoani seems to keep on staff are Fumihiko Shimo and Katsuhiko Muramoto. Muramoto in particular has worked on Haruhi, Lucky Star, and K-ON!(!). Also, the only writer for all the Key adaptions was Fumihiko, who wrote every single episode of the three series himself. This means that there aren't any other writers from those series not working on K-ON!.

As for Yamakan and the other kyoani expatriates (Shinobu, Kadowaki), I don't think it makes much of a difference they're not at kyoani anymore. Indeed, they were some talented people, but if anything, they were influenced by the system at kyoani more so than any affect they may have had on kyoani. One only has to look at Ordet's works to see the influence kyoani's philosophy has had on them.

Pretty much all the staff members working on K-ON!(!) right now have been with kyoani for a long time. Many since Fumoffu and AIR, and even some from since they were a sub-contracting studio working on shows like Inuyasha and Crayon shin-chan. Because of this, I think it's wrong for anyone to claim that they are all of a sudden a different studio just because of what they may choose to adapt.

I don't really know how to end this as you kind of just seemed to trail off, but I hope this post has been informative.

[winhlp32]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Just to be clear, I'm not pouncing on you , just responding to the information you've rounded up.



Who are these "people" and what literary coursework did they fail to have that idea?

Season 1 was basically a retelling of the manga's mostly daily life in a club. Season 2 has an overarching theme of transience and coming-of-age.

I think its kind of sad that the director has to get that explicit in meaning as if it wasn't pretty clear to begin with.

1) I think the emergence of female creative input in manga and anime has been a positive influence on anime - particularly slice-of-life and rom-com genre.
(Toradora!, Kimi Ni Todoke, Kannagi, etc) They've pushed the envelope on archetypes and forced some people out of their comfortable decaying ruts.
2) Although Yamakan appears to be a tool in some ways, those four episodes still stand for me as quintessential L*S. The rest of the series was plagued with anime-only "how many references can we jam into this ep".
3) The series is based on the 4-koma a simplistic 4-panel comic strip, the other works are based on light novels and classic software works. Its rather odd for "people" to be comparing the two.

That is an interesting theory "everyone" has ..... cite? Endless Eight can be said to be artistically genius even it might have been a commercial flop.

Some people call those "quality moments" rather than "unnecessary". The difference between assembly line crap and feeling like the creators care.

Most of KyoAni's pre-K-On works did not have dancing though they did have excellent artwork. K-On has very active OP/EDs so I don't really see what is missing here other than perhaps the fad "flash mob" dance of the season. If anything, the amount of technical quality and art styles in those pieces just continue to ramp up.

Oh my...there are some very sad K-On threads out there in cyberspace that just consist of a few people bashing on the show every single week, talking about how the AMVs are better than the show itself, and that K-On is such 'boring s..', among other profanities. Please don't ask for names, because some people don't like K-On and that's the way it is.

Regarding Yamada on the ED, that was from an interview in Newtype magazine(July 2010, which had a 10 page special on K-On for those interested and can interpret Japanese). She was asked. She answered.

On the whole comparison between Kyoani works, it's the over lasting argument of 'Where is my Little Busters/FMP3/Terminator 5', etc. Out of all the series Kyoani has adapted, it could arguably be said that K-On had the weakest source material(despite its obvious high potential), and with the whole 'Kyoani is god' thoughts that were prevalent, it's inevitable that people would ask why Kyoani won't animate something that's thought-provoking and oozing with substance(or otaku references) and are instead nurturing an slice-of-life comedy.

You'll see that towards the end of my rambling, my personal opinions started to slip in, sorry about that. It'd probably never happen but I really do want to see the K-On girls dance something like the Hare Hare Yukai. hahaha.

Long story short, why listen to me when you can listen to what blooglah24 above has to say.

[bloppyblue]

Wows. I have nothing to contribute but reading this conversation sure is interesting.

[ronelm2000]

I guess KyoAni did change after the Rage of e8...

But still...I'm really hoping for a Lucky Star continuation...or a K-ON 3. ='/ maybe a Haruhi S3. Y_Y

[GMT]

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

I guess KyoAni did change after the Rage of e8...

But still...I'm really hoping for a Lucky Star continuation...or a K-ON 3. ='/ maybe a Haruhi S3. Y_Y

They'll probably get around to doing more Haruhi sometime next year. But it's going to be rather hard to do a K-ON!!! without more source material to work from. The manga ends in September, same as the anime and if there are any plans for Kakifly to do a "the girls go to college"/"K-ON: The Next Generation" series, he's not talking. And even if he did, we wouldn't see more anime for at least a year or two. As for more anime Seinfeld Lucky Star . . . eh.

[MeoTwister5]

I cannot for the life of me understand how in the hell it is claimed that season 2 has a lot less substance and plot than season 1. Unless Moewhoring and Miowhoring are the end-all standards for substance and plot and the then I fear for the medium and its future.

[blooglah24]

Originally Posted by GMT

They'll probably get around to doing more Haruhi sometime next year. But it's going to be rather hard to do a K-ON!!! without more source material to work from. The manga ends in September, same as the anime and if there are any plans for Kakifly to do a "the girls go to college"/"K-ON: The Next Generation" series, he's not talking. And even if he did, we wouldn't see more anime for at least a year or two. As for more anime Seinfeld Lucky Star . . . eh.

I doubt were gonna be seeing any Haruhi for at least another couple of years. There have been a couple of signs that Kadokawa is planning to put the Haruhi anime to rest for a little bit. I'm also not expecting anymore K-ON! or Lucky Star either in the near or far future.

It seems like after Nichijou, kyoani's next Kadokawa work is gonna be FMP. Takemoto (director of Fumoffu/TSR) is mysteriously absent from Nichijou's staff list, which many people expected him to direct, and he did hardly any work on K-ON! so he must have been busy with something. Take into account that him, Shoji Gatoh (author of FMP), and a Kadokawa exec were recently pictured together at what looked to be a FMP pachinko game, and you've got a pretty good case that they're in the planning stages for more FMP. Another interesting thing is that Ishidate Taichi (probably kyoani's best effects animator) is listed as the Assistant Director to Tatsuya Ishihara on Nichijou. It would appear that he's getting some extra training in preparation for something big, and kyoani is sure as hell gonna need him in top form if they are planning to do more FMP.

[winhlp32]

For Nichijou, Jukki Hanada is credited for the series composition. Looking at the series premise and the staff list I can tell Nichijou is going to be one crazy mess(in the good ol' Kyoani/Kadokawa way).

K-On to this date still remains the only Kyoani adapted series that isn't Kadokawa or Key. So I guess I'm wondering how they decided to animate K-On...I had heard somewhere that Naoko Yamada and her team had to fight very hard for K-On to be greenlighted as otherwise Kyoani were going to animate another serious drama series after Clannad After Story, and Yamada thought it would be good to animate something more 'casual'(The first season of K-On did indeed had an kind of Indie look).

[Ithekro]

K-On will end in just over a month on television, though I suspect they will have one more OVA episode plus they will have more of those shorts on the DVD/Blu-Rays.

As for KyoAni and Haruhi...well the Haruhi movie is still in theaters (though it will end there shortly in Japan) with international showing going on in October in at least three countries (Taiwan, United States (New York) and the United Kingdom (Scotland)). So they have time to made a new season since they still have time to string out movie sales and international distribution if they wanted.

More K-On would require the mentioned source material, which doesn't exist at this time. Fans await a surprise, but I have a question regaurding the recent death of one of the staff members. Was that the main song writter? If it was then K-On would be hard pressed to fulfill their music style again in future series.

[krko]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

but I have a question regaurding the recent death of one of the staff members. Was that the main song writter? If it was then K-On would be hard pressed to fulfill their music style again in future series.

Bice (Kijima Yuko) was only involved in the rice song and even only on composition. Most of the OP's are done by Tom H@ck (the guy on Yui's guitar) and the ED's are by 前澤寛之. The inserts were done by a variety of people. As sad as her death was, she played a relatively small part in the show's music so it shouldn't affect the future of K-On's music too much.

[GMT]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

K-On will end in just over a month on television, though I suspect they will have one more OVA episode plus they will have more of those shorts on the DVD/Blu-Rays.

As for KyoAni and Haruhi...well the Haruhi movie is still in theaters (though it will end there shortly in Japan) with international showing going on in October in at least three countries (Taiwan, United States (New York) and the United Kingdom (Scotland)). So they have time to made a new season since they still have time to string out movie sales and international distribution if they wanted.

More K-On would require the mentioned source material, which doesn't exist at this time. Fans await a surprise, but I have a question regaurding the recent death of one of the staff members. Was that the main song writter? If it was then K-On would be hard pressed to fulfill their music style again in future series.

I strongly suspect there won't be any surprises with K-ON!! The plan seems very much to end the series with the original four girls riding off into the sunset, followed by "THE END." They've been setting up this ending for the entire season, what with the little (and not so little) reminders that childhood dreams and aspirations are transient and often unrealistic, and that the girls are going to graduate and move on, and grow up. And just in case the viewers were too dense to get the little hints, the Tear Jerker Hammer dropped at the end of the three-episode school festival arc should've dispelled all doubt.