I Watch K-ON So You Don’t Have To
Just how boring is K-ON? Let’s put it this way: I paused episode 10 to rewatch an episode of Akikan.
Akikan: Crappy animation, original jokes
K-ON: Uncrappy animation, unoriginal jokes
Winner: Akikan
The jokes in K-ON are so stale that I’m forced to make up my own jokes to survive each episode.
See 1:39-1:45
I’m the king of the world, on a boat like Leo
If you’re on the shore, then you’re sure not Mio
Mio is a terrible character, though she’s not really a character so much as she’s a prop. Props change depending on the nature of the scene. So does Mio. Whatever the scene requires, that’s what she is. Responsibility? Mio. Carelessness? Mio. Optimism? Mio. Fear? Mio. Violence? Mio. Submissiveness? Mio. Is there a personality trait she doesn’t exhibit?
Rather than her character driving the show, the show drives her character. Face it, Mio is nothing more than a pander machine. The only flaw in her design is that she’s too developed for the truest of pedophiles, which is why mini-Mio (a.k.a. Asuza/Asu-nyan/Asu-nomalocaris) was spun-off.
But Baka-Raptor, pandering isn’t necessarily bad!
First of all, x isn’t necessarily y counterarguments against non-absolutes are toothless. Congratulations, you’ve discovered that two different words exist to express two different concepts. Give yourself a pat on the back. Now, instead of trying to explain why pandering isn’t necessarily bad, stick to the point—explain why Mio’s pandering isn’t bad. You can’t. At least the other K-ON characters pander without continuously contradicting their supposed core character traits. Consider Mugi. She panders to the lesbian-loving audience (a.k.a. the world at large). She digs women—that’s her story and she’s sticking to it. (UPDATE: Upon closer inspection, Mugi only displayed lesbian tendencies in one episode.) At no point does she run off and start liking men, tables, or anomalocaridids. Besides, she’s gay for Sawako-sensei, which is totally believable.
Sawako-sensei panders with her costuming, but as with characters other than Mio, her pandering never conflicts with her personality. She’s supposed to be a bit unbalanced, which is totally understandable since I rejected her.
I did not Photoshop this image
Sorry, Sawako. Even in high school I wasn’t into underage girls. Don’t take it personally. But hey, that’s in the past. Now we’re both 23. Get over it and shoot me a comment.
I’ll give credit where credit is due: Episode 5 was good (but only because of Sawako-sensei). Every other episode sucked. Even Sawako-sensei’s stock has taken a nosedive since episode 5. At first she seemed like she’d be the unchallenged best female character of the season. Now she’s fallen to somewhere in the 20′s.
1. Alice* (Pandora Hearts)
2. Selvaria (Valkyria Chronicles)
3-20. Every character on Queen’s Blade*
21. Nobunaga’s wife (Sengoku Basara)
22. Winry* (FMA II)
23. Sawako-sensei
*Rankings are not based on sexual attractiveness (otherwise characters under 18, such as Alice and Winry, would have no place on this list). Think of this list as my order of preference for donating a kidney.
I’d stick my organ inside her
Anyway, now that I’ve established in an objective manner that K-ON sucks, you may be wondering why I’m still watching it.
Hey, and I thought you had dropped K-ON! (you had taken quite a hard stance on that one in your previous article)
I don’t know whether I should be relieved that you are watching it anyway or disappointed that you went with the stream rather than assuming your ideas and refusing to watch more ^^
— neothoron
Unfortunately, I cannot drop a giri category show from my lineup for sucking. Each category of my lineup has specific dropping criteria:
Must Watch
| Purpose | To ensure I’ll be watching at least one great show |
| Qualifies if | I have high expectations before watching |
| Can drop if | It sucks |
| Cannot drop if | It remains watchable |
| Example | Cross Game |
Sleeper Hit
| Purpose | To flaunt my great taste and non-conformity |
| Qualifies if | I have high expectations after watching |
| Can drop if | It sucks and grows in popularity |
| Cannot drop if | It sucks but remains underground |
| Example | Pandora Hearts |
Guilty Pleasure
| Purpose | My viewing pleasure |
| Qualifies if | My subjective rating is substantially higher than my objective rating |
| Can drop if | It subjectively sucks |
| Cannot drop if | It objectively sucks |
| Example | Queen’s Blade |
Sequel/Adaptation/Remake
| Purpose | To ride out my investment in a franchise |
| Qualifies if | I’ve seen a previous season, read the manga, light novel, etc… |
| Can drop if | It deviates extensively from the original work (e.g. filler) |
| Cannot drop if | It’s watchable |
| Example | Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood |
Giri
| Purpose | To stay in touch with the common otaku and criticize his shitty taste |
| Qualifies if | It’s hyped up yet I see little potential (opposite of Sleeper Hit) |
| Can drop if | It loses popularity |
| Cannot drop if | It sucks |
| Example | K-ON |
The Swooping Descent of the Dark Emissary! The Propagation of Malice
| Purpose | To wash out the pedophilic taste of giri |
| Qualifies if | Its badassery knows no bounds |
| Can drop if | It goes tame |
| Cannot drop if | It sucks |
| Example | Sengoku Basara |
Shot in the Dark
| Purpose | To broaden my horizons |
| Qualifies if | I know absolutely nothing about this show |
| Can drop if | It sucks once given a legitimate chance |
| Cannot drop if | It sucks before given a legitimate chance |
| Example | Valkyria Chronicles |
Clean-up
| Purpose | To keep my anime diet balanced |
| Qualifies if | It covers something (preferably many things) not found elsewhere in my lineup |
| Can drop if | A better show covering at least as much clean-up ground comes along |
| Cannot drop if | It sucks but no better clean-up show comes along |
| Example | Asura Cryin’ |
If I weren’t a blogger, I’d have no need for the giri category. However, as a blogger, it’s my duty to stomach the popular crap so I can warn you not to. Does this make me a hero? Absolutely.
PS: One of you will get Comment #3000. Free comments for 24 hours.
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baka-raptor@baka-raptor.com
[...] will rape you if you don’t rape her first, unless you come across her during the 95% of the K-ON she spends being a useless [...]
[...] years ago, I’ve leveled up like a Shonen hero, watching shitty anime like Lucky Star and K-ON until I developed a tolerance for low-grade bullshit. If I could finish all those crappy shows, [...]
[...] K-ON: Boring, pedophilic [...]
[...] is well above average, especially considering the genre. And no, don’t blame my cynicism on K-ON; I’ve been underwhelmed by bunch-of-girls school-life comedies for a long time. Lucky Star, [...]
[...] use in the series and so on, but they only did so because their moe goddesses played them. K-ON, although failing in many aspects, was not all that bad of a show, it just wasn’t really what it probably should have [...]
I try to watch K-On! so I can properly criticize it. I am in an opinion that one who cannot cook has no right to complain about bad cooking, and in the same vein; one has not survived the pos known as K-On! has no right to complain about it either. I have yet to rise to the occasion, I stopped at episode 2.
It was a weird kind of show for me, it was balancing on that line of average/below average but I still bothered to watch it and mildly enjoyed it, not as much as the mountain of fans, but more than people who hate the show.
Mio is still a horrible character.
[...] can accept that some people like K-ON, so long as they admit it’s 13 episodes of trashy, repetitive, uncreative, pedophilic fanservice, but TOP FIVE ALL-TIME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Why not pick a GOOD show with moé fanservice, [...]
[...] be about. And in the space of about a minute. I say this, but then she reverts back to her “prop” status almost immediately. That’s right, KyoAni, undercut any of the insightful parts [...]
[...] Working! Episodes seen: 2 Initial impression: B- If Baka-Raptor’s vision actually allowed him to read this, he’d be annoyed by what I’m about to say regarding this show. It is what it is. There’s really not much else to say… it’s a standard slice-of-life moe comedy with a quirky collection of characters who all have their small set of gags. There’s a crapload of similar shows in anime, and this one doesn’t look like it’s going to deliver anything particularly new. I like the OP… the sequence seems to be channeling Azumanga Daioh. If I get a couple of chuckles out of this an episode, then I’ll be satisfied. It’s, at least, not as blatantly manipulative as K-On!. And the characters’ actions are generally consistent with their personalities as well… another one of K-On!’s more noticable shortcomings. [...]
[...] the way, she likes K-ON, the worst anime ever. Why am I not [...]
[...] I mention he likes K-ON, the worst anime [...]
[...] arguably violates the Third Commandment. He also likes K-ON, the worst anime [...]
[...] slice-of-life moe series have been criticized for inconsistent characterization, but this is something that Working! has got pitch perfect. In large part, this is because Working! [...]
Here’s my story before and after reading this review:
Well I found out about k-on from some internet fad and decided to look around for an english dub (which I always do because I want to do voice acting). I found this guy reviewing it and saying that it was legit and actually pretty good. I then was able to find the episodes on youtube uploaded by a user (not going to name him), and even though it wasn’t very high quality audio, I thought the dub was….not bad. Being a big dub fan, it wasn’t any better or worse than most of the dubs I’ve seen, but what really got on my nerves was the fact that they didn’t dub the songs, which I guess is because they can’t sing or something.
Anyways, onto the plot:
Well I had gotten through all the episodes and could not stand criticizing the band because I was in one. Most of it revolved around the fact that none of them really showed moch stage presence, and the fact that none of them were interested in playing music, which I could not understand, but then again it IS just a story and it doesn’t always apply to everyone. Anyways, I got done watching it and decided to do what I always do: search the phrase “k-on sucks”. I do this out of curiosity as to how many results I get or how many people think that certain thing sucks. I assumed I wouldn’t get many results, but I found about 30k. Very surprised, this one was the first result, and I decided to read it. At this time I didn’t really think K-on sucked, but after reading this, I now realize what’s wrong with it. I had that “hey yeah. I guess you’re right haha” feeling.
I thank you very much for enlightening me to this boring and predictable anime.
Dear Baka-Raptor,
There’s a second season now. There will be 23-26 episodes in it.
Have fun.
Well people can say K-On is crappy because english translations can turn alot of jokes flat and boring especially the subs. If you had any experience in translating a language to another, you know this very well. If you guys see the translated version of K-ON as different product than the original Japanese version, then I can understand and its ok to troll about this anime. In fact, I noticed that American and Japanese have different taste of jokes, and animes are made for Japanese audiences any ways. I love K-ON and Japanese people love this too, so have fun trolling you guys.
[...] backwards in fandom when you’re considered a troll for saying you love Umineko and hate K-ON. Umineko is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The red-letter concept alone was more creative than [...]
[...] keine vorgegebenen Maße, ihr Charakter passt sich der Situation an, das ist doch mittlerweile ein offenes Geheimnis. Die Frage, die sich mir primär bei solchen Aufgaben zur Findung der eigenen Identität stellt, [...]
Tbh this is site was made just for the purpose of trolling k-on. With anime its not the same as it is with music. Most of the time it has a reason that an anime is popular and if you dont like it you cant say “Everyone else has a shitty taste but my taste is great! You should drop this anime because it sucks too hard!” Then the have having a shitty taste would be you( in the eyes of the majority) so you would have at least a different taste. Furthermore i think you should give arguments why K-on is so shitty instead of just saying:
Akikan: Crappy animation, original jokes
K-ON: Uncrappy animation, unoriginal jokes
That is your own opinion and lots of people think differently about it(lol at your: estabelished in an objective manner)
Mio is a terrible character because she is everything they need her to be in different scenes(if you put it like that then EVERY CHARACTER is a terrible character because every character is what they need him to be in the situation and it is also like this in real-life. In a happy situation: when the situation around you is good you tend to be optimistic when its not you tend to be pessimistic). Well Mio’s character traits are that she is a seriouse girl with alot of backbone on the outside and a cute scaredy catgirl inside. And btw every human has pretty much every characteristic just more or less of that and in the right situation they tend to show it. Oh and you cant forget that K-on is also meant to be in the comedy genre so alot of these things are to be expected.
And i had to lol at:”now that I’ve established in an objective manner that K-ON sucks”
too bad it isnt the least bit objective since it cant even be. All of this is and will ever be based on opinions so it is subjective as long as there are no specified rules to opinions. Even if there were rules to opinions it would still be subjective since the rules were made by man and would be biased(if you can suddenly prove that god made rules for it it is another story but that wont happen).
So please never write something like estabelished in a objective manner when you talk about opinions.
If you want to flame something do it with lucky star since it just sucks ass too hard but well thats just my subjective opinion
Hope i defended K-on well.
[...] put off watching the second season because I hadn’t watched the first season. Then I watched K-ON, the worst anime ever, and learned two [...]
[...] a stupid, useless, hedonist who people only like because she’s moé. Basically, she’s a K-ON character. People tell her to get her shit together; she tells them to eat cake. Her blind [...]
[...] my existence (~~~) and peaceful coexistence (~). Rare, but memorable. Applies to shows like K-ON and the Fushigi Yuugi [...]
I’m aware that this is an ancient post (probably about… 30 years old in internet years), but I cannot praise you enough for tearing apart this uninspired buttfuck of an anime while everybody else still adores it and endorsing underrated shows that really deserve attention. I salute you on your crusade for quality anime.