Opening Impressions/ Season 1 (and some of 2) Review: The Batman: Why? Because he's the Batman

Even before the Nolan films had come out, I highly doubt I’ll be able to go up to anyone, ask them if they’ve heard of Batman and not get a Yes in some form. While this may not be recent, it’s a great way to introduce the other aspect of Opening Impressions, it’s not limited to currently airing seasons, just what I’m currently watching and I’ve got something to say on the matter, so... The Batman.

Opening Impressions: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 5. Horses, Cults and repetitive arcs.

I did put this up as a Strawpoll, something that will be a common thing for stuff like this. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 5. If you’ve read the review of the last four season, then you’ll know what I’m going to say, nothing much has changed. But to be fair, by the fifth season, the only thing that’s going to change is the situations. At time of writing, all I’ve seen is the first three episodes, a two parter that introduces a new villain, and a world building episode.

Opening Impressions: 5.4.3.2.1 Thunderbirds Are Go

You see, I would add in some sort of witty title and the name of the material that is the subject of this post. But, this already does it so well for me. So...

Opening Impressions: Digimon Fusion Season 2: "We finally realised 'we're stronger when we act as one'... kinda...

So, with more news coming out for Digimon Adventure Tri, Digimon Fusion Season 2 decides to make its appearance (why it took a year is beyond me, seeing as it was first aired a few years ago in Japan). Jeremy and Angie (two people I didn’t bring attention to in the Season 1 review) take their leave, and we now focus on all three of the Digi Destined, who actually have Digivices.

Opening Impressions: Transformers: Robots in Disguise 2015. "In this world (His world) Where one is all"

Transformers Prime Seasons 1-3 and Predacons Rising: This was your f%$@*($ job Bay!

Its surprising how much the Bayformers films can drain from you when you watch them in a row in the space of a week. Fun fact: This was going to be the final review of the Transformers Marathon.

If you were to ask me "What was the best thing to come out of the Bayformers films?" the only thing I would say is "The Aftermath". New takes on the stories came to the TV shows, bringing back aspects from previous generations. The first was Transformers Animated, almost a direct sequel to Generation 1 and then came the subject of this review: Transformers Prime. A fresh reboot for a old story, time to delve into the world of Transformers Prime.

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Fusion. Dr Frankenstein would be proud

It pains me to conclude the Digimon Marathon so quickly, but sadly schedules can be a pain sometimes. There is however, one last completed season to review, and with both Season 2 and the upcoming Digimon Adventure Tri to look forward to, I guarantee this won't be the last time Digimon makes an appearance here. Time to delve into the world of Digimon Fusion.

Video Games High School: The ultimate training grounds

This was a wired bit of curiosity for me. I first saw this at a gaming event, gave it a look... one week later I was caught up waiting for the next episode of the second season (bypassing my old school's proxy in the process as it had some stupid limitations...). I don't usually watch High School Drama's as when I think of those words in the same sentence, bad memories of some of my sister's favorite shows and movies return... But unlike those, this does have some actual effort in it, especially considering it was just a small cast and crew working on it. But for now, with the final season completed, time to review Video Games High School.

Rescue Heroes: Thunderbirds are... wait... you're saying there's a difference?

You know the saying "with age comes experience", with it also comes confusion. Have you ever re-watched a show that you used to love when you were a child and go "I used to watch this?" It's a weird feeling isn't it?

When I was working on the schedule for content uploads, I had a spot free to which I offered the choice to my mother as today is her birthday. After several weeks of changing her mind, she "chose" this (by that I mean she suggested it and I said "I have to start working on it, no more changing your mind"... Of course there's another one which I turned down for now so... one review at a time...), forceful padding aside, lets see how this not Thunderbirds holds up, Rescue Heroes Season 1+2 (I'm having trouble finding season 3 somewhere I can obtain it to review).

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Seasons 1-4... This is going to be a long week...

When I started this reviews site, I knew this would come up sooner or later. This is one of the reviews that I’m not sure how it’s going to be taken, not by fans of the show or by you who read this, but by people I know in real life. This is also something that I have quite a bit to say so this is one of the reviews that are going to be spread over several posts (five to be precise). I am willing to review other aspects of the franchise at a later time if I get the request for them, especially while I look to see what sticks and what doesn’t. But until then, let’s get this underway, to whatever it gets, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Seasons 1-4.

Disclaimer: No, I am not a Brony and I'm definitely not a Pegasister (though I'm hoping that last one is obvious...)

I would insert a cover here, but I couldn't find a good one so...

Transformers Marathon: After 30 years, how is this franchise still alive and popular?

I have one last part of the Transformers Marathon. It’s not a review this time (though I’ll need a break from those as I said in my Transformers: Prime review), it’s a editorial. One of the things that crossed my mind as I’ve been going through the franchise is this, “How has the series survived this long and is still going strong?” There were series of the franchise that I didn’t look at in this marathon, I barely scratched the surface when it comes to the games and I haven’t even looked at its other mediums including the comics and the toys themselves, and even with those, the question still stands, how did the Transformers survive the test of time?

It would be too easy for me to say that the fan base kept it alive, and as such I won’t mention it until the end of this piece. There are other elements that kept this tale alive, one of which I mentioned in my first review for this marathon. One of the reasons I think that it survived is its overall simple plot. The classic Good vs. Evil stories have been around since the creation of the story. However, as time has gone on, the classic plot has developed, very few stories nowadays have that clear distinction of good and evil, the line has been blurred as there is always another side to the story, it’s a reflection of the world today. There’s no longer a clear villain in society as everyone could have dark intentions and it’s actually because of that, the classic tales of good and evil have kept alive. People want to believe that it’s just black and white, that there’s always a clear villain, so they cling to the stories that have that clear distinction. It’s a reason why the Harry Potter books became so successful (not the only reason, just a reason) and why they would likely survive the test of time and why some reinterpretations of older stories won’t. At the same time though, the story has to have differences to the concept and the way the Transformers franchise has done this is by moral choices, the reason why the plots of the episodes are more complicated then what they seem. Do you sacrifice a world, a civilisation, a race of sentient creatures just to save yours?  Do you protect creatures you’ve never met, that are probably afraid of you and will kill you just to protect themselves and risk the safety of your own race, or do you destroy them so that your race can thrive?  When is something going too far? These and other questions kids wouldn’t pay attention to when they first see the show, its something for the parents to see and the kids to notice when they are older and can understand the concepts and the consequences of the actions. The story that has always been a part of the Transformers Lore (not including Rescue Bots...) is a story that will be told in some form for years to come, because it’s a story that everyone will hear somehow. It’s a story that will never be dated due to human nature.

Every story needs its characters and while I might not agree with the decisions made with some of them, the personalities of each of the characters are distinct and memorable, even if sometimes they were poorly written. You remember Gears, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Bumblebee, Perceptor, Cyclonus, Demolisher, Override and many more. You even remember the Human characters: Spike, Rad, Alexis, Kicker and Coby, and I’m only mentioning the humans from the seasons I’ve reviewed here. And its actually for that reason why I hate the direction the Bay films are going. While I will openly admit that I like the first one (see review for why people wouldn’t like it) but from Revenge of the Fallen onwards, this includes what I’ve heard of Age of Extinction, the characters are turning into more emotional versions of the character in a M. Night Shyamalan film, bland and boring to watch.

The cartoons have always been a promotion for the toys, and the toys have helped in the popularity of the show and the franchise as a whole. The Transformers toys have been, and always will be, the fusion of a puzzle and a action figure. As time’s gone on, the toys have developed, become more complicated, harder to transform but does more in both vehicle and robot mode while still maintaining the core design of the character (some more obvious then others). I could show you 3 different versions of the Optimus Prime figure and you would be able to tell that they were all Optimus Prime because they always keep the core features of the original (they always have a red truck transformation, the head design is always the same and when the trailer is included, the trailer always has a transformation of its own (this isn’t including his Beast wars design but some of these also apply to Optimus Primal)) Megatron would be harder to distinguish but all of his designs have been offensive (a gun, to a cannon, a tank, a fighterplane, a batmobile esque car along with a plane ect), Starscream has always been some sort of fighter plane, Red Alert and Ratchet have always been ambulances as just a few other examples but over time, they’ve become more complicated. It would take less time for anyone to transform Optimus’s Generation 1 design then it would to transform his Evasion mode from the new Age of Extinction line of toys, even though they’re the same truck. As a result, kids still love playing with the toys and they watch the show to add to the experience, to use their imagination to make new stories for the characters.

The Michael bay films might be making more money in a week then most people will ever see in their lives, but its the cartoons and the toys that will keep Transformers going. It’s the Generation 1’s, the Unicron trilogies’, the Animated’s and the Prime’s that will keep the franchise alive long after the movies have finished. On top of that, it’s the fans that have grown up with the franchise since Generation 1 exposing their kids to the newer seasons and playing with their kids’s Transformers toys that keeps the name alive. It’s the lessons it teaches with characters that you want to be. It’s been 40 years, and let’s hope it lives for 40 more, or until all are one.

Transformers Marathon: My Top 10 Best Transformers Moments

Yes, the second last post for the marathon is a top 10... don't judge me...

The rules for this is simple. All of these are strictly my opinion and all the entries can be found in a series (I will specify which one) and scenes I've found online

10: The death of Optimus Prime (Transformers Armada): Yeah, Optimus dies in Armada, turned into dust because of the combined power of the Star Sabre, Skyboom Shield and Requiem Blaster. This is one of the few times in Armada that you see just how far Optimus is willing to go to protect the humans. So why is it so low? The episode after this event (Episode 40: Remorse) is one of the weakest episodes in the season in my opinion and because it revolves around this event that Optimus's death is so low.

9. The many personalities of Starscream (Transformers Animated): I haven't seen Animated, I've yet to sit through the pilot of it, the reason being is because it looks like its trying as hard as possible to replicate Generation 1 (but I'll leave this point until I do a review and can actually formulate a opinion). So why is there a scene from animated here? Because I genuinely find it hilarious. I don't know the context of it but Starscream has made a number of clones of himself that have a specific point in his personality including his cowardice, his tendency for lying, his ego, the suck up side (as in fuelling others egos)... and his feminine side... For those who don't know, Starscream was originally portrayed as a woman in the French version of Generation 1 and that clone was a homage to it.

8: The battle of Mission City (Transformers 2007): Hate Michael bay all you want, I give credic where credit is due and he does know how to make a good action scene (not including Egypt's filler and Chicargo's boredom) and the Mission city fight from the first Michael bay film is a good example of it. The fight was well paced, the changing of perspectives between Optimus, Sam,  Mikaela, and Lennox works well and the camera work looks great. The fight between the Autobots and Demolisher along with the fight between Optimus and Megatron look great.

7: The Powerlink of Arcee, Chromia and Elita One (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen special features): Ok, this one might be classified as cheating as it was cut from the movie. Its on the DVD special features so to me, it counts. During development, Arcee, Chromia and Elita One were planned to have a Powerlink and use it while "fighting" Sideways. That part of the scene was never finished but what was shown off looks great...

6: The creation of Galvatron, Cyclonus and the Sweeps (Transformers the Movie): Yes, the scene is trippy, yes this can cause seizures, but dam it this is awesome. I can't really explain why its good, its a scene where you have to see it for yourself to know what its like (if you haven't already)

5: The appearances of the Dinobots (Transformers Generation 1): The Transformers, while it had more animation errors then I could keep track of, did have some great scenes and episodes with this one being one of them. S.O.S Dinobot is the reason why so many fans freaked out when Grimlock was in the trailer for Age of Extinction and is a must watch from Generation 1.

4: The races for the Planet Cup (Transformers Cybertron): For all the race fans, Velocitron is the place for you. A planet that is built for racing as it has more race tracks then any country on earth combined and tripled. Now imagine these tracks, take the best ones of them and put them in a planet wide grand prix for the strongest trophy in the universe and you have the Planet cup in a nutshell. While it cut between Earth and Jungle planet a lot during the episodes the planet cup was using, the tracks were great and that final race was amazing. Can someone please make a game where you race in the planet cup and one the tracks of Velocitron?

3: The battle of Autobot City (Transformers the movie): Hands down, one of the best fights in the 80's cartoon era second only to that of the Unicron fight near the end of the movie. Like the Dinobots, I can't describe what its like, just go watch it.

2: The appearances of Unicron and Primus (Transformers the movie and Transformers Armada (Unicron), Transformers Cybertron (Primus)): The gods of Transformers, the two Transformers that turn into PLANETS (Primus transforming into Cybertron), one of them EATS OTHER PLANETS!!! While I would include Transformers Prime for Unicron as I know he appears, I haven't seen all of Prime yet and I haven't seen a appearance of him outside of the movie "Predacons Rising". You really do have to see these two to believe me when I say these two are awesome.

1: Savage Claw mode vs Dark Claw mode (Transformers Cybertron): Optimus's Savage Claw mode in Cybertron is powerful (which is what happens when you give a robot that can transform into a flying Fire truck a beefy arm made of a robot lion and have the claws ready to fight with. So how do you make this better? You clone the lion, give it to Megatron and make the two fight each other using those Powerlinks. It was a moral boost for Leobreaker (the Autobot Lion) and the fight itself was amazing. A multi episode fight and with all the other battles happening at the same time. Go watch Cybertron episodes 33-36 to see not only that fight, but others as well (and that's not even all of that part, the entire arc is great (which to me is episodes 27-40, the prequel to Gigantion)

This might as well have been a gush fest but these are genuinely my favourite moments from what I've seen of the Transformers franchise. Before I close out though, I am going to say that I'll be slowing down the production of reviews now because I will be starting back at University for semester 2 and I won't have as much time as I did in June to pump out reviews and impressions. I will be getting to the Impressions I promised after the next post which will be the conclusion to the Transformers Marathon, how I think it has survived for as long as it has. While the Impressions are being done, I'll try and get 2 a week done but then afterwards I'll be returning to 1 maybe 2 posts a week (something a bit more manageable). I do have some reviews planned including a return to game reviews in the form of Sonic Unleashed for the PS3 and X-Box 360 along with a game I just started so it'll be a while before a review is made, the fan game for the standard computer operating systems (Windows, Mac ect), Pokémon Zeta version and Pokémon Omnicron version. I'm always open to review suggestions so feel free to make a suggestion, it could be anything and will get it done as soon as I can. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day/night, Next week, How did the Transformers survive 40 years?

Transformers Marathon: Transformers: Cybertron. Why? Because "OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER" and we must protect them "Till all are one"

Now to a personal favourite of mine, while Armada might have been my first season of Transformers and this my last because they weren’t shown on Free to air TV here, Transformers Cybertron will always have a place in my heart. But does it still hold up when I look at it as a reviewer? This is my review of Transformers Cybertron. 

Transformers Maraton: Transformers Energon. Let's mine with Transformers

After the Unicron saga of Transformers Armada, the people at Hasbro, combined with the writers of the show believed that there was more that could be done in this continuity. It’s because of this reason, Transformers Energon is this review. Do note that it’s recommended that you see the finale of Transformers: Armada as this review will contain spoilers.

Transormers Marathon: Transformers Armada. Lets build up a army of robots that are smaller then our enemy to help take down said enemy when they could be crushed. GENIUS!!!

And now it’s time to look at the series that got me into Transformers, Transformers: Armada. This was a “return to roots” series for Transformers as the last English series was Beast Wars and its sequel. The issue it has however is that it retreads old ground with a new concept. I’ll be comparing Generation 1’s four seasons to Armada a lot in this review but not taking the movie into consideration (it’s unfair to compare a movie to a TV season, regardless of the age).

Transformers Marathon: The Transformers Seasons 3 and 4. "THE FACES OF oh wait, wrong franchise..."

Unfortunately, we’re not done yet with Generation one of Transformers as there were more episodes of the TV show based after the events of the movie, so if you haven’t seen the movie, well then you’re going to be lost as to what the hell is happening in this new episodes. Time to look at Transformers: Generation 1, wave 2. This review is going to be short as a lot of the issues I had with the first two seasons are still apparent for the most part with a few exceptions.

The plot follows on from Transformers the Movie, and like the seasons before it, it doesn’t do anything aside from that as each of the episodes are self contained. That being said though, the stories themselves are stupid a lot of the time, as if the writers ran out of ideas. In one episode, the Autobots have to deal with a Zombie Optimus Prime and then, a few episodes latter, Daniel (Spike’s Son) and Grimlock are sent to the Transformers equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins. When the Decepticons (THE MAIN VILLAINS OF TRANSFORMERS) are the villains, most of the time they come off as pathetic or (in Galvatron’s case) outright insane. The reason why I say “When the Decepticons are the villains” is because a new threat is introduced: The Quintasons, the creators of the Transformers (and scrambling the nonexistent cannon of Generation 1). Are they good villains? Well they come up with good plans, but their still not good villains. The Quintasons are the Transformers equivalent of the Terminators, calculating but don’t do much (unlike said terminators). They come up with the plans, but even when they say the odds of sucsess, you know they’re going to fail so there’s no point. On top of that, they had a 5 part intro at the start of Season 3 called “The five faces of Darkness” (hence the joke in the title) which, in terms of story, is boring to no end. I criticised Season’s 1 and 2 for having fast delivery of its story and it’s ironic now that I’m saying that the delivery in those five episodes (six technically) was to slow because of the amount of padding in it.

Another big issue I have with Season 3 and Season 4 is the cast. While the cast from Transformers the Movie was good for the movie, they can’t hold a tv show, let alone two seasons with a combined total of 34 episodes. On top of that, the issues with the cast in the movie are increased here, like Blur and Wheelie (who I didn’t mention in the movie review because he was bearable).Wheelie is almost as annoying as Blur because his voice is so annoying and he says everything in rhyme with Blur becoming almost unbearable. Galvatron on the other hand, what did they do to you? Not only are you insane, but your new voice is awful. Rodimus Prime’s personality is bland and dry (like Ultra Magnus). It’s just awful. Is it sad when Grimlock is the best character in the main cast?

Season 3 and Season 4 are set in space, as the Autobots and Decepticons travel to other planets which, while good in theory, also brings up problems. Setting the fight in space means that the designers can have alot of fun with the design for the other races of other planets. WHEN THE RACE ISN’T MACHINE, THEY LOOK UGLY. It might just be my opinion but most of the alien races in these seasons look ugly and horrible and when their machines, they look almost exactly the same as Transformers, even having similar abilities (aside from the Quintasons) so what was the point? My other issue is their definition of the term “planet”. If by today’s standards Pluto isn’t a planet, then most of these shouldn’t be anything close to the term. For examples, look Up Quintessa, Goo and Junkeon (yes, those are the names of some of the planets).

It sounds like I’m on the attack when it comes to Season 3 and 4 and there are a few reasons to it. While the most likely is because I’ve been marathon’d all of generation 1 in the space of a week when its supposed to be taken at a slower pace and I’m just sick of it. The other, big reason is because they didn’t need to exist. Transformers the Movie was a great way to close the generation as it sorted out almost everything. While Season 4 is a better way because it sorts out everything, the process of getting to it is so bland and bleak that you don’t care by the time it comes. Season 3 and 4 loves to kill off characters; my only wish is that they KILLED OFF THE BLAND CHARACTERS INSTEAD OF THE GOOD ONES. Finally, Season’s 3 and 4 fall under the same category as the seasons prior, they have not aged well and the movie only made them worse as they went back to the style of Seasons 1 and 2 , animation errors and all. They essentially took the bad aspects of the movie, and turned them into two seasons. If you’re going to watch them, you can both watch them before the movie and ruin the movie, or after and have an awful time, you can’t win with them. I will admit though, there are some great scenes in all of generation 1 including the rise of the Dinobots, Tripticon's scenes and seeing Cybertron in its golden age again are just a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. In short, Seasons 3 and 4 didn't need to exist as the movie was the best way to end Generation 1. Up next in the Transformers Marathon, it’s time to leave the 80’s and move into the new millennium with the start of the Unicron Saga, Transformers: Armada.

The Transformers Marathon. The start of the war: Transformers Generation 1, the first wave

With the release of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction coming soon, I thought it would be fitting to countdown its release (and most likely finish past its release) in cinemas with a marathon of Transformers. What is there to say about Transformers? It’s a series to which its plot has never developed past your basic Good vs. Evil. So why is it still popular to this day? Why do the toys keep selling? I want to say I was around 7-9 (I’m not exactly sure but I do remember the first Transformer I ever got) years old when I got into the series and while I haven’t seen every season of Transformers (such as the Japan exclusives) or played every game, what I’ll be reviewing is still a decent portion of the franchise. With that said, time to start things off with the first ever generation, The Transformers (more commonly referred to as Transformers G1). This review will just be covering the first two seasons (what I will be calling “first wave”) with the last two seasons reviewed latter on in this marathon.

The plot of the first half of generation 1? Well for the first season at least: the Decepticons want to steal Earth’s energy to take over the universe (insert stereo typical “OF COURSE!” scene here) and the Autobots have to stop them... Doesn’t seem like a compelling story does it? The writers do however provide interesting stories that fall under this basic, overarching concept, such as multi planet stories, shifting from Earth to Cybertron and back again. The main reason why the story kept people watching was when they introduced new Transformers. Over the course of the seasons, new transformers would join either the Autobots or the Decepticons including Skyfire, the Dinobots, Constructicons, Astrotrain and more. The other aspect of the plot is this, while the overarching plot is bland, the individual episodes were quite interesting. There are times however where the story felt rushed, with one of the worst examples being the pilot episodes. There was a argument between Optimus Prime and Spike and Sparkplug about their help fighting the Decepticons. Spike and Sparkplug say that they know more about the planet then they do and Optimus just agrees then and there, it was poorly written and could have been better.

The animation on the other hand is... dated. The animation is quite nice considering other shows at the time, but doesn’t look good compared to newer animations. The fight scenes are slow and clunky. On top of that, there are several times where the animation and the sound don’t match up and scenes that just don’t make sense to what’s happening. It might be because of the versions I watched but these could be actual issues with the show. There are times where there were animation errors, mainly lack of colour in small portions of the shot, but these are forgivable as they don’t really matter in the long term... most of the time. There are rare cases of obvious miss colours of transformers, including multiple Starscream’s in the same shot. My big complaints with the animation are some of the transformations, with Megatron, Soundwave and Reflector being some of the worst when it comes to this. The sizes of some of the transformations don’t make sense. Megatron shouldn’t be able to transform into a gun that size, Soundwave shouldn’t be able to turn into a tape recorder (did I mention that it was a 80’s cartoon) and the three transformers that make Reflector shouldn’t be able to turn into a camera. A lot of the smaller Autobots also fall into this category but not to the same scale, I’m more likely to believe that Bumblebee, who’s only slightly bigger then a human, can transform into a normal size Volkswagen bug, then I am to believe that three transformers can turn into a standard camera (for the time).

The characters themselves do have distinct personalities, even if they are rushed some times (most of the time...). Optimus and Megatron’s personalities conflict in several ways, giving a subtle reason for the war, the human characters are distinct enough however they don’t really develop during the story (or if they do, it’s so slowly that you don’t notice). I would go into more detail regarding personalities, but because of the sheer number of characters that are in the story, it would be a review in itself. I will say however, the personalities of the characters don’t change from this generation if they appeared in this generation (for the most part).

It’s understandable for something like Transformers’ first season to have these issues; it was a 16 episode season with obviously low budgets, but what about the second season? The animation quality for the second season is better, as there are fewer animation errors (and the ones that are there are far between). The budget also shows a improvement as the backdrops are much bigger in comparison to the first season and the season itself is much longer. The plot still feels a bit rushed but its better then season 1. As for the soundtrack of the two seasons, most of the tracks are really forgettable and repetitive. There wasn’t any standout background track and after a while, they become ear grading as they just become annoying (though that might be because I watched the seasons in a week, with little distractions in terms of other entertainment). I will admit though that the theme song, like a lot of 80’s cartoons, is great with my personal favourite version so far (for generation 1) being the version for season 2. There is a reason why fans wanted the theme to be in the Bay films.

The first two seasons of Transformers did their job’s well. It introduced kids to the concept and it set the stage, standards, and lore of the entire franchise. If you intend to watch it, you have to switch your mind off and acknowledge that the shows are 30-40 years old now. If you’re a fan of the Transformers series, I would recommend watching them, just to see how far the franchise has come. For people new to the franchise, Generation 1 (at least seasons 1 and 2) isn’t the best generation to start in comparison to the latter generations. It’s flawed but the concept itself is still great to this day. But there are aspects to the first generation that I haven’t covered yet so up next: Transformers the Movie.

The First Season of K-On Anime... I got nothing for this...

It's hard to put into words what I think about K-On overall, there are aspects that I like but a big issue that I have...

I should explain the plot though, the story follows four high school girls Yui Hirasawa, Mio Akiyama, Tsumugi Kotobuki and Ritsu Tainaka with Azusa Nakano joining in around half way through the series (you can thank Wikipedia for the names) as they keep the light music club alive, including song writing, a few gigs, ect. The characters themselves are ok, their personalities and the way they behave are consistent but the big issue I have with the series is one thing: THE PERSONALITIES BELONG TO THOSE OF (Middle school???) (this is a Australian talking where the educational system is literally Primary School (Prep (5 years old) to year 6 (11-12 years old) and then High school which is essentially Middle school and High school in other places combined, from there its straight to University). I guess it should make sense in that regard but because K-On loves to shove it down your throat that it's set in Japan, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The story itself is mediocre at best. The day to day episodes are ok but there are a lot of gaps in a year. When they managed to fit two years in 13 episodes and then have enough material for a second, larger season, it comes off as a bit lazy to me. I get that their High school students but a Year is a long time...

Because the plot is based around the idea of belonging to the "Light Music Club", there are a lot of singing in the show. I watched the dub and while the non singing parts were ok, I was grateful that the dub kept the Japanese songs and subbed them. The songs have a nice melody to them but shouldn't be herd or read (if you want a good example, listen to the Lucky Star theme in Japanese and then English).

You'd have to be a specific target demographic to like something like K-On, it might be because I don't watch a lot of High School anime (this being my 3rd ever), it didn't keep my interest very well. I've started watching the second season to see if they improve but my hopes are low. If you like High School anime, then by all means watch it if you haven't already, but otherwise just skip it.