K-ON! 14
I'm starting to see where the the opinion, that the original episodes are better comes from, particuarly here. Even though episode 12 could be classed as the closing episode of the first season, I feel that this draws a much more comprehensive line under the proceedings. The school concert was certainly more reflective (at least in the case of Yui), but I felt that this was altogether more sastifying as a spectacle.
The prospect of their first genuine performance defenitely gave it the air of a proper finale, and I appreciate that they continually looked to bumble their way through the night. It was a nice touch that made sense, especially as this is the first time they have performed outside of their comfort zone, essentially having got by until now, as big fish in a small pond.
A slight bugbear of mine up until this point, had been that the show was all too aware of how unlikely that the band's ability seemed (something which Yui mentions at the beginning of the series). And It was conspicuous, precisely because you are are beaten over the head with the fact that the light-music club pretty much get nothing done, for the most part. Yet, they somehow manage to rise to the occasion. That kind of plausible deniability reminds of Haruhi, which simply made mention of many pre-existing tropes, seemingly so it could just invoke them, regardless. But I digress, as it was nice to see this episode actually reference it.
As a finale, I also just thought it worked better in pulling together the whole cast. The school performance felt like a backdrop for Yui's story, but this felt like it incoprporate the collective group much more effectively. Mio's realiziation that they have all grown since they all came together was a nice encapsulation of this, and actually serves to (neatly) underline the events of the series .
Maybe this is a pointless endeavour, but I fail to understand why some try to undermine the series by calling it pointless. I can see why some wouldn't like it, but its far from aimless, and it's the interaction of the characters that renders almost all of that irrelevant. I'm doubt I'm saying anything new here, but I just wanted to express why it is that I have ended up liking this series so much. It simply establishes a breezy pace, and from then on you are left to inhabit the world of the characters.
