K-ON!

I can wholeheartedly say that K-on! is my favorite show of all time, anime or otherwise. If I could only watch one show for the rest of my life, this would be the one. K-on! truly allows viewers to get to know all of the wonderful characters in this series as friends, and you end up feeling like you're growing up and going through high school with all of them. As creepy as that sounds, it's really not creepy, it's just the only way I know how to word it. It's honestly just heart touching and really wholesome.

There's really no story as is the case with most slice of life anime, and it's not a bad thing. There's a general foundation for why everyone is in the show and what they do, but after that, the show solely relies on characters to entertain the viewer. Looking back at it now, K-on! was one of the first slice of life anime I watched, and I think it's what really got me into the genre. Not all slice of life is great, but every episode of K-on! manages to be the genre perfected. If you haven't completely turned away from the genre yet and are interested to see the best of what it has to offer, look no further.

The artstyle of K-on! became somewhat of a standard for its time. Many other shows tried to mimic the style and get on the bandwagon of its popularity. It's really quite a nice style that manages to be distinct, stylish, and cozy. I'm no artist so I can't tell you exactly what's responsible for this, but the overall quality is just really nice to me. The animation itself is fantastic as well, and all the characters manage to be very expressive and alive. K-on! doesn't try to be artsy or anything, it's just good quality. And for that, it's a favorite of mine.

Sound is obviously going to be very important for an anime about a tight-knit band, and honestly, the music isn't really to my taste, but I still love every bit of it. The story leading up to the performance of the songs in-show make them so much more enjoyable, and a couple of them get the tears rolling just after hearing the first few beats. Aside from the actual performed songs, the background music is nice, but is repeated often. Even with the repetition, the music fits so well with the characters and their hijinks.

As I mentioned when going over the story aspects, characters are what fuel the slice of life genre. There's not a single dislikable character in K-on! Everyone is just so wholesome and cute, it really makes you wish real life would be this perfect. However, each episode strives to immerse you in such a world for twenty minutes or so. There's some minor character progression from a couple characters, but at the end of the day, slice of life is meant to portray everyday life of a character or group of characters. There's epic fantasy tales where heroes and villains do complete 180s and I'm sure some of them do this well, but slice of life just wouldn't be slice of life if it did that. The synergy between any two or more given characters really is flawless and great fun to watch.

I first watched K-on! earlier this year (late to the party, I know), and just finished rewatching it. I can very easily see myself rewatching this series every few months from now on. None of the enjoyment or emotional impact is lost through the second time around. That's a sign of a good show if I've ever seen one.

IMPORTANT: If you're going to watch the show, PLEASE do yourself a favor and watch Keikaku! and the movie before watching episode 24 in the second season. The storyline will make much more sense and I honestly don't know why this isn't more common knowledge :(