2012-10-14, 12:00 | Link #2101 | |
He Without a Title
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The land of tempura
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2012-10-15, 14:24 | Link #2103 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
|
Ordered the japanese release ... I've gotten to where I can't depend on english distributors to *finish* what they start. Downside is my library is about 1.8x shelf space with holes still left for ARIA, Moon Phase, and a few other series.
However, Yen *seems* to be avoiding the stupidity other publishers suffered.
__________________
|
2012-10-15, 15:21 | Link #2104 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
|
An unfortunate danger in collecting manga in English, but I don't think it applies in the case of K-ON! now that Yen licensed the final two volumes. 'course, it's always nice to have the original version. (Although, the English version of K-ON! scores extra points for having more color pages than the Japanese version, oddly enough).
__________________
|
2012-10-15, 16:41 | Link #2105 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2012-10-16, 18:27 | Link #2107 | |
Operation sneaky sneaks
IT Support
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Hic et ubique
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2012-10-21, 20:52 | Link #2108 |
Paper-Fan of DOOM!!
Join Date: Jul 2010
|
Has Kakifly come to hate his own creation?
On a slightly more serious matter.
Having read the Final University Chapter, one gets the sinking feeling that Kakifly has come to hate his own creations, and is deliberately punishing the fans for pushing him beyond his vision/ability. Think about it; K-ON was his first mainstream work, an (admittably warm hearted yet) everyday life story about five kids growing up. Then it was Kyoto Animation that turned it into the Cultural TITAN that it was, pushing the story above and beyond its intended scope; into pop-music stardom and even International Adventure. Something Kakifly could NEVER have done alone. When all he wanted was a laid back slice of life story. It must be quite humbling an experience for someone whose previous work was a To Heart 2 Doujinshi, and just wanted to get by. Spoiler for Speculation on Kakifly's anger at fans:
All this just reeks of a CALCULATED slap-in-the-face for fans who asked too much of one man to do what it took an entire studio to accomplish. For pushing you too hard, Kakifly, we apologise. We can only hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive us and Hokago Tea Time, and one day in the far future, we can meet again in happier times.
__________________
|
2012-10-21, 21:17 | Link #2109 |
Operation sneaky sneaks
IT Support
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Hic et ubique
|
I don't really get those vibes from the final chapters of the manga myself. I do have some speculation as to why such elements were observed, though, so bear with me while I gather my thoughts and explain what might be an alternative account for some of the things we see.
Things change considerably at the post-secondary level: I considered engineering in high school but my path has since diverged. The same likely holds true for the band and can be seen as a minor allusion to reality: that making a band successful is an endeavour that is out of scope of HTT despite their high school aspirations and have since become more realistic about what they wish to do in the world. The introduction of Akira (who is my least favourite character in the series) is harder to explain, but I think it has to do with the new cast introduced in university. Depicting a larger number of characters simply means that Mio et al. make fewer appearances. With this in mind, the manga depicted most of the characters evenly for the most part. Kakifly himself stated that Mio was a favourite on the virtue of being left-handed. Calling back to the idea of changing character maturity, perhaps both Yui and Ui have matured slightly in the year that elapsed since Yui went to University. It is possible to maintain a close, cordial relationship without the degree of intimateness (read "lots of hugs") that was depicted in the TV series. All in all, I cannot definitively say whether or not Kakifly is giving the fanbase a take-that. Granted, some of the things the fanbase does can be seen as excessive and even somewhat offensive, but I don't believe Kakifly intentionally hates the fanbase. Perhaps, he merely wishes to reinforce his original intent and ideas for the manga over the decidedly more-well known TV series.
__________________
|
2012-10-22, 06:42 | Link #2110 |
Orthodox Haruhiist
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Making metal ... for fish
Age: 44
|
Eh?
None of that reeks of "ZOMG, AUTHOR RAAAAAAGE!!!11" to me. In a way, they've always known that their little high school garage band was something that they were going to have to put down someday. What was it that Yui said? "Houkago Tea Time will always be . . . after school?" That's a theme that's hammered on over and over again in both the comic and the anime. The girls acknowledge that Death Devil shreds their faces off . . . but where is Death Devil now? The women of Death Devil are all friends, or still acquainted, at least. But their band is something they left in the past; to the extent that Sawako wanted nothing to do with the wedding gig, and had to be shamed into doing it by Yui's deliberately bad performance. You have to have a certain hunger to make it in the music business. The author seems to paint it as something you have to choose: Music is something you do for fun, so it takes a backseat to having a normal life and normal friends. Or music is the center of your life and you're prepared to do everything you can to make it. Yui has seen both sides of the coin. She has friends who view music as a hobby (the girls in HTT with the possible exception of Azusa,) and friends who view music an end unto its own (Akira and her friends, and possibly Azusa.) I felt it very mature of her when she makes the pronouncement to the effect that going down Akira's path is not something that's really for her, and that she's just in it for the fun factor. As ForwardUntoDawn said, things change when you leave high school and get into post-secondary education. In the college series, the girls pick different majors; just as friends tend to do in real life. Your social circles change, often dramatically. When you're first dropped into that big pond known as college, you may stick close to people you knew in high school; but eventually you make friends elsewhere. Not to mention that not even "college prep" courses in high school really prepare you for how much like beating your face into a brick wall college coursework can be. Because of that, your hobbies and interests can change too. Nothing in the college series came as a real surprise to me, because, having gone through the whole college experience I'd "been there, done that," as it were. Not even the change in Yui and Ui's relationship. I see it as a mark of Yui's maturity that Yui and Ui's relationship grows past the "co-dependent cuddlebug" phase, because Yui has learned to stop leaning on her sister so heavily (you see hints of this when she pens U&I, when she acknowledges that things won't always be the way they've been.) So . . . no, I don't see any "take that!" from the author here.
__________________
|
2012-10-22, 08:20 | Link #2111 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
|
I'm going to admit that some of the expectation that I'd be seeing a band try to "make it big" is from the animated series ED "music videos". It planted a huge notion in my head that this was a path the story might take. That may have been an error on my part but I'm always keen on any story that actually moves into college and into professional life - that is, grows past the high school scene.
There are anime series that do that and I'd like to see more. It seems to me like Kakifly's motivation may have a little of Forward's speculation and more of GMT's speculation -- there's too strong a sense of "yeah, it was fun now get back in the rut of society" in K-On! and a lot of anime. Stories about the *outliers of society* tend to be more appealing to some of us, though.
__________________
|
2012-12-19, 06:32 | Link #2117 |
Senior Member
Author
|
I decided to read up on this thread since I was interested in seeing how the K-On manga was doing. I was pretty surprised to read that it's apparently completely finished. Some further comments in spoiler space below.
Spoiler for Manga thoughts, some spoilers:
__________________
|
2013-04-30, 03:45 | Link #2120 |
Princess or Plunderer?
Join Date: May 2009
Location: the Philippines
|
It's four months too late, and I finally finished the manga series.
After reading the manga and the reactions in this thread, I feel quite confused. What did I just see? The college members of Houkago Tea Time undergoing changes in their personality, or an author whose interest in his work is wilting away like a tree past its prime? I may have been too used with how the production team of the anime handled the story, so I felt that both the story of the high school and college sides are very weak, it's simply the fact that the 4-koma is not an effective way in delivering a well laid-out story. In the high school side, we see roughly the same formula with new faces. Sumire is a remnant of Mugi's presence, Ui and Jun were mostly there due to Azusa's influence, and Nao is a chance member. Aside from this, there's the same story format that's in the first season. Meanwhile, the college side focuses on how the HTT handle their interests in the midst of college lessons and simply growing up. It felt that the story after HTT left high school was weak. There's simply too few chapters to expand on the relationships of Wakaba Girls and we have seen too little of the college life of the HTT. On the college side, everything lacked impact, especially how HTT lost to OnnaGumi, while the high school side ended in a very cruel cliffhanger. I'd really like KyoAni to be given a chance to handle the final stretch of stories as I really loved how they improved the flow of the story. Right now, kakifly may have decided to give K-ON up for good. 'Tis a shame, really.
__________________
|
Tags |
comedy, seinen, slice of life |
|
|