Every genre has its entries that define how you should do a show of this genre. K-On! is the king of CGDCT/Slice of Life-Moe anime and shows what to expect of the genre, it gives a good idea of if the genre is for you.

Personally, I don’t need a great story of any story at all in a CGDCT anime or even basic things like character development. A good CGDCT-show can focus on its two main aspects: The cute girls and the cute things they are doing. Add some music of magic or any other fun thing, it should be fun, and you are on the best way to make an entertaining and light-hearted piece of animation.

In K-On!, we follow four girls and their teacher living their carefree lives with drinking tea, eating cake and sometimes actually practicing for their band. There isn’t any bigger plot or conflict, they just handle different everyday situations with their different characters. Just like every Slice of Life show you’ve ever seen.

Characters are the main aspect of any Slice of Life show, and K-On! Does a pretty good job here. Every girl has personality and are characterized enough to make them different from each other. We have the lazy, but caring girl, the adult, but shy girl, the over-energetic girl and the rich and calm girl. In my opinion, the teacher really stands out here, she tries to leave her wild youth behind and become the loved and respected teacher she wants to be, but she also wants to be friends with the girls and make daring costumes for them. The cast works well together and you end up loving them, not for a specific character, but for their interactions and friendship. Everything you could imagine them doing can be justified by one of the characters. They are having a training camp in a huge house at the beach? Mugi’s rich parents own it. Need some amazing costumes over night? Sawako can make them. Forgot to get permission for sleeping in school? Good thing we are friends with the president of the student council.

Music is always matter of taste, but I really liked it because it's light-heated and really suits the girls' personalities.

In conclusion, K-On! suffers from the same problems many CGDCT and SOL anime suffer from. If you the characters, the whole experience is ruined, because the whole show is focusing the characters. But if you start to like the characters and their quirks, you start enjoying every minute of the show, seeing their friendships develop and overcoming every problem they encounter. This season is in my opinion the weaker one of the two, in season 2 they do more interesting things and there is some conflict and character development.