K-ON!! Episode Two – Mio Gets A Ponytail

• Author: Quen
• Categories: Anime, News
• Date: Apr 14, 2010 22:56 JST


• Tags: Azusa, Image Gallery, K-ON!, Kyoto Animation, Moe, Ritsu, Tsumugi, TV
  

The second episode of K-ON!! impresses yet again, with a combination of the Keion-bu’s schoolife antics and some of the best quality animation yet seen this year on TV.

As with the first episode, the episode is summarized below with plentiful screenshots and some commentary…

The show’s impressive OP and ED are covered in some detail here, and so need no further mention.

Instead, we can just get to the meat of the episode, which begins at the girls’ Sakura-kou classroom:

Poor Mugi is forced to take Yui’s turn at classroom cleanup duty, as Yui has been dozing off the entire afternoon:

They try to wake her, but more importantly, this gorgeous dark-blonde happens to be standing in the background during all of this:

What beautiful hair!

Sadly, her name appears to just be “Classmate”, according to the credits…

They try loudly whispering “Yui, there’s cake!”, which managed to rouse the drowsy Yui slightly.

Having Mugi, who’s on the other side of the room, also raise her hand to her mouth to “whisper” is a nice touch.

“There’s no cake…you liars…”

Yui cutely passes out again, while Sawa-chan drops by to ask about the costumes the girls borrowed last episode (the animal costumes they used while trying to recruit new members):

Goodbye, “Classmate”!

The Keion-bu’s clubroom storage closet:

It’s a bit messy.

After the OP, the girls get about to cleaning up the mess that’s mainly made up of personal items the girls have left at school.

Yui isn’t too glad about needing to move her Kero-chan (the Japanese onomatopoeia for “ribbit”).

Mio helpfully randomly puts her hair up in a moe ponytail while cleaning:

Kyon would definitely approve!

Ritsu tries to give this curious doll/figure/thing to Yui, but it turns out to be Mio’s:

More ponytail Mio, sadly the last we see of it this episode.

The Keion-bu’s finely appointed chinaware, presumably supplied by rich-girl Mugi:

They look inside one of the boxes left by former club members:

They find a guitar inside, which apparently looks impressive, although it merely looks like any random guitar to non-musicians:

Sawako-sensei eventually drops by, and recognizes the guitar as her own old instrument, from her time in the Keion-bu as a student:

A picture of Sawa-chan from her student days:

Sawako tells them they can sell the guitar for club funds, as it simply sits around gathering dust nowadays.

The girls head outside with the guitar, but get sidetracked by a pamphlet for some furniture at a home center that would help them keep the clubroom organized:

Mugi’s excited, as she doesn’t have much experience with the inside of such a proletarian store:

Mugi is aroused by some rolls of packing tape:

Yui tries her hand at a power tool:

That’s the guitar being lugged around in the box behind her.

Ritsu found a helmet-mounted lamp, somewhere.

The odd screenshot with the heart -shaped below is one of the show’s numerous scene transitions – KyoAni has been using a number of inventive wipes in this season of K-ON!!:

Azusa makes her way to the aquarium section and noticed one particularly ugly-cute turtle:

Yui seems to like it more, but remembers Azusa’s interest in the little pet:

The girls eventually finish touring the home center, and get to the old music store from the first season:

It takes a while, but the shop clerk ends up giving a buy price of 500,000 yen (about $5,300 USD) for the old guitar:

The girls react appropriately to the surprise:

This next group of screens is another one of those scene wipes mentioned earlier, changing from Mugi happily accepting the money for the guitar and Ritsu asking the clerk why the thing was worth so much.

The effect looks quite pretty animated.

The clerk gives Ritsu a short description of the guitar’s rare model, which doesn’t mean much to anyone uninterested in guitars:

The girls go out for a bite of food afterwards, still worried about what to do with the influx of cash:

Yui says this is a “special burger”.

Ritsu celebrates by ordering an American sized order of fries (click to enlarge), and tries to convince the others that they should just split the money and keep it for themselves:

Azusa seems to be weak for big wads of money, a risky interest for a young, cute Japanese high school girl if there ever was one.

The girls fantasize about what they might be able to buy:

Yui just dreams about being smacked on the cheek with a stack of bills.

Pure Mugi’s the only one not obsessing over the money, as she’s likely used to actually owning money:

A truck from the home center shows up in the next scene, delivering the furniture they bought earlier:

Mugi enjoys the room’s shininess:

Yui gets yelled at for trying to leave too much of her own things in the newly organized room, but doesn’t want to bring them home, as Ui gets upset:

Sawa-chan shows up, freaking the girls a bit as they haven’t told her anything about the money:

Ritsu’s puppy eyes are indeed cute, but they don’t keep Sawako from asking how much her guitar sold for…

The girls’ deer-in-headlight eyes below look strangely lovely!

Desperate, Ritsu simply lies and tells Sawako they sold it for 10,000 yen (a bit over $100 USD)

However, Sawa-chan asks for the receipt, as she would need it for the paperwork to put the money into the (school’s) club fund:

Ritsu tries a clever ruse to keep the receipt from Sawako…

The girls are relieved, but Sawako really wants that receipt:

Ritsu fans get a nice treat by way of gobs of Ritsu’s sweet bodily fluids here:

The girls apologize for lying, but Sawako doesn’t seem to mind much:

Azusa and Mio mostly blame Ritsu:

Sawako generously offers to let them use some of the money on one thing all five of the girls agree on, but not before Yui indulges her money slapping fetish:

The girls spend some time wondering about what they can buy:

Yui recommends more Kero-chan dolls, to help attract more prospective freshman members:

(The signs say “Welcome!”)

As the girls walk, they notice a sports club training some of their new freshman members on the field:

Ritsu notices Azusa’s pensive expression, remembering her worries about being left alone in the club next year once the other girls graduate if they can’t find any new recruits:

Poor Azu-nyan.

To help make Azusa feel better, Yui comes up with the less than brilliant plan of buying the turtle Azusa was looking at earlier:

The name of Azusa’s new kouhai (underclassman) in the club is Ton-chan.

Azusa is appreciative, but isn’t too thrilled, as she was merely looking at it earlier because of its odd face.

Still, Azusa finds it cute enough.

So do the girls.

Mio whips out a point and shoot to grab a blurry photo of Yui tackling Azusa and Mugi being cute:

Cue the ED, and the next episode preview:

Ritsu seems to become jealous of sexy Sawa-chan:

Yui tries to think of a way to help Ritsu “sparkle”:

Episode #3, “Drummer!”