Review for K-ON! - Volume 3 (Review)
Wednesday, 23rd November 2011, 17:16

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Introduction
A single volume, full-ish price release, with just three episodes on, and nominal extras. I'd be in the middle of a full-blown whinge right now, if I wasn't eagerly awaiting the arrival of K-ON! Volume 3 with a Pavlovian reflex. Quality makes everything worthwhile, and K-ON!'s is oozing with the stuff. The cute girls doing cute things antics, the charming and heart-warming stories, the likeable characters, and the toe-tapping music, it all adds up to a very appealing package, and even if it is coming in small doses, at least the final three volumes are coming decently spaced at only a month apart.

Yui Hirasawa has spaced out her way through elementary and middle school, and history looks set to repeat itself when she starts high school. Even though she is eager and excited about her new life as a high school student, after a few weeks pass, and after every extra-curricular club in school has courted her, she still hasn't decided on which one to join. It's when her friend Nodoka gently informs her that she's on her way to becoming a NEET that she finally picks a promising flyer and fills in the form. She chooses the Light Music Club, inspired by some happy memories of playing the castanets in nursery school. She isn't quite ready for what membership entails.

Now she's lead guitarist in a rock band, although learning to play, after she has bought a guitar comes surprisingly easy. On bass is the seriously minded, and seriously shy and easily spooked Mio Akiyama, while Mio's best friend, the brash and outgoing Ritsu Tainaka is the drummer. On keyboards is fellow surprise recruit and warm-hearted rich kid Tsumugi Kotobuki, and together the girls aim to hit the big time.

The next three episodes of K-ON! are presented on this single layer disc from Manga Entertainment.

9. New Club Member!
Following on from the previous volume, the Light Music Club has a new recruit in the shape of Azusa Nakano. As a nervous young first year, she looks up to the older club members, but as a beginner, she's had a whole lot more practice, and plays a meaner guitar than Yui. She's also got a whole lot of motivation and a desire to succeed, inspired by the live performance that the girls gave at start of the school year. But in the Light Music Club, she encounters four fun loving girls who spend more time eating cakes and drinking tea, than they do playing music. She's also a little discomfited when they adopt her as some sort of mascot. And then she meets the club advisor, Miss Sawako, who in Azusa has found her cosplay muse. Soon Azusa is beginning to forget why she even fell in love with the Light Music Club in the first place.

10. Training Camp Again!
The summer holidays arrive, and once more it's time for training camp, where courtesy of Mugi's rich family, the girls take off to one of her summer houses, by the beach, where they can play, and sunbathe, and kick off their shoes and relax. I mean they can get down to some serious practice and further hone their musical skills. This time, Azusa is invited as their newest member, and hoping to practice and gel with the band, she finds that she's complaining more than most at their lack of commitment. But it's funny who winds up with the deepest suntan.

11. Crisis!?
As before, the conclusion of the summer holidays heralds the coming of the school festival, and it's even more exciting for Azusa, for whom it will be her first chance to perform with the band in front of an audience. But there's trouble looming. Once again, Ritsu has forgotten to fill out the appropriate application form, and this time they realise that the band doesn't have a name. Worse, Yui learns that she really needs to take better care of her guitar. That doesn't mean dressing it up in girly clothes and sleeping with it. Worse, it looks like the band's first 'creative differences' are about to appear, when Mio starts spending more time with Yui's friend Nodoka, and best friend Ritsu gets jealous. Then her drumming starts to suffer. Then she starts ditching the club altogether.

Picture
K-ON! gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which as usual is filtered through Australia's Madman Entertainment, who have deigned to give it a native PAL conversion. The animation is excellent, detailed and fluid, while the show is replete with bright, sunny colours, and very pleasant character designs, character designs that served as inspiration for the characters in the Sound of the Sky anime. This is another high-end anime production, and it shows on the screen, with some very imaginative animation, and thoughtful character study. I noticed no problems with compression or judder, and the image looks fine, even when scaled up on a high definition display.

Sound
You have the option here of DD 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, along with the usual translated subtitles or a signs only track. The audio is fine, the show's splendid light pop music comes across with great effect, while the dialogue is clear throughout. As usual I opted for the original language track, but from what I sampled of the English dub, it's one that follows the original pretty closely in terms of character voices, style, mood, even to the point of using Japanese honorifics.

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