When Bandai Entertainment shut its North American doors several months ago, K-ON! fans were a bit worried what would happen to the series second season. Bandai had just completed their archaic four volume season 1 release, but now the fate of the Sakura High Light Music Club was in jeopardy. Sentai Filmworks quickly answered the call, picking up the season 2 and packaging it in a more reasonable two volume set. Do the girls of HTT survive the transition intact or would we all have been better off if the license was left to die? Let’s see what’s under the shrink wrap.

K-ON!! Season 2 Blu-ray Collection 1
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: June 19th, 2012
MSRP: $69.98

Main Feature: If you’ve somehow avoided anything K-ON! related in the past three years, it is basically the story of five high school girls starting a pop rock band. Rather than practicing and honing their craft however, they procrastinate and sit around drinking tea. At it’s best, K-ON! is amusing, feel-good escapism with an occasional dash of genuine heart. At it’s worst, it’s a painfully slow grind through the most mundane things I’ve ever seen animated. I’m assuming if you’re interested in the season 2 collection you’ve already seen season 1, so you probably know what’s up.

This particular release covers episodes 1 through 13 which is, unfortunately, the worst stretch of episodes in the series. To give you some idea of how time passes in K-ON!, season 1 covered the girls first two years in high school in 14 episodes. Season 2 covers their last year in 27.  Needless to say, there is a ton of filler and this is Slice of Life filler, so there are some painfully lengthy stretches of absolutely nothing to sit through.

That’s not to say all is lost however, as there are a few standout moments. Fun episodes like Mio’s fan club and the return of Death Devil entertain while the trip to Summer Fest and Azusa’s lazy summer daydreams paint a few lovely vignettes. But when you balance those out with entire episodes devoted to organizing the club room and being hot (temperature wise, not the good way), this is definitely the worst section of the series.

Technical Quality: This being a Kyoto Animation production, K-ON!! looks, moves and sounds superb and needs to be viewed in as high definition as possible. I’ve always liked the natural aesthetic of the show, fighting the urge to give the girls pink or green hair and using lots of soothing, organic color palettes.  The production values are considerably higher than the first season, with more frames of animation and characters hardly ever straying off model. If you want a quick way to see the difference, go ahead and compare “Don’t Say Lazy” with “Listen!!”, the season 1 and season 2 endings respectively. KyoAni may make a lot of yen, but you can’t deny they put a good chunk of it back into their work to make it look fantastic.

One positive in the transition from Bandai to Sentai is the dub cast has remained intact from season 1. The original Japanese K-ON! cast is fantastic, so it’s a little jarring switching over. The English dub is solid though, and you won’t be disappointed if you prefer dubs. None of the actresses seem miscast and they all depict their character’s personality well, although to be honest K-ON!! does not exactly require a lot of acting range. The girls’ high and squeally voices do overlap a bit, an issue that was discussed in the season 1 bonus interviews, but once your ears adjust you can sort them out just fine. And in case you were wondering, the songs remain undubbed and are still in Japanese on both audio tracks.

On a more negative note, there are a few bits of the translation I didn’t care for, or at least seemed a bit odd. Certain words like “kouhai” remained untranslated in the dub, and I refuse to call Summer Fest “Natsu Fest”, which also remained in the dub. I suppose that’s a matter of preference, but I’ve always been of the opinion you should translate as much as you can.

Bonus Features: SPEAKING OF THOSE SEASON 1 INTERVIEWS, Sentai is not known for including much in the way of extras with their releases and K-ON!! is no exception. No fancy box, swag or commentary tracks to be found here. The only extras are the clean OP and ED and while that is possibly more important for K-ON!! than any other series, it’s not exactly a disc seller. To their credit Bandai’s season 1 release did have interviews with the cast and fun little English dubs of the songs that went unused. Of course they also no longer exist, so it’s hard to argue with Sentai’s decision from that perspective.

Overall Value: Sitting between Season 1’s higher energy and the emotional payoff of the final stretch of episodes, this particular collection of K-ON!! is a tough sell. Fans will no doubt grab it to complete the series, which I do think overall is worth watching if you like lighthearted slice of life shows. But for those with a more casual interest there’s not much else to offer. The dubbed version of season 2 is also available for streaming on The Anime Network, so unless watching on Blu-ray or with the Japanese audio is a necessity for you, that may be the more reasonable option.