Happy Birthday Sawa-chan-sensei!

Oh yes, it’s Sawako’s birthday today! She turns… actually, we don’t really know how old she is, do we? Ah, no matter. Happy birthday!

Watching K-On! Episode 8 – “Freshmen Reception!”

It's the start of a new school year, and the Light Music Club attempts to recruit new members.

It’s Mio’s birthday!

That’s kind of an awkward pic to use for the purposes of celebrating someone’s birthday, but hey; don’t blame me. Talk to the K-On! movie app.

But yeah, it’s Mio’s birthday. If she graduated from High School in 2010 (which she did, according to the manga), that would mean she started High School in 2007. If she was 15 at that time (which she was, according to the anime), that would mean her year of birth was 1992.

If the current year is 2012 (which it is, according to my calendar), that means Mio turns 20 years old today. Happy Birthday!

Movie Band Score release announced

Well, how’s this for timing – the same day I was going to post my review of the first K-On! Band Score release, TBS goes and announces the last one. The first season had two of these, the second season had four – and now there will be one for the K-On! movie as well.

Release date is set for February 29^th, and the score book will contain the following songs (Warning, movie spoilers!):

CD review: “Band Yarou Yo!!” Band Score CD

There’s been a lot of K-On! CD releases over the last couple of years. There’s been a lot of songs on those CD’s. There’s been a lot of fans wanting to play those songs. So, releasing a series of band score books with those songs in them is an obvious choice for merchandising.

But as it turns out, each one of those band score books also comes with a CD attached – or in the case of the first volume, two CDs – which means they are also attractive for an obsessive completist collector of K-On! CDs like myself.

Complete season 1 DVD set coming to US – Blu-Ray release cancelled in UK

So, there are good news and there are bad news. The good, and surprising news considering recent developments, are that Bandai Entertainment will release an “Anime Legends” version of K-On! on DVD – in other words, a 4-disc set of the complete first season. Release date is February 7^th, and list price is $39.98 (though it shouldn’t be hard to find it for significantly less).

This should be welcome news indeed for K-On! fans who have been wanting the series on DVD but weren’t willing to buy the single volumes. A Blu-Ray equivalent does not appear to be in the cards, however.

Today’s bad news item is the announcement that Manga UK’s planned complete series release on Blu-Ray has been cancelled, along with the planned Blu-Ray release of “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya”. A complete season set on DVD is still planned for an April release, but the Blu-Ray version has, unfortunately, proven economically unfeasible for the company. This leaves UK – and otherwise European – fans without any release of K-On! on Blu-Ray.

There are options, however – the US release is easily imported, though one would need a region free Blu-Ray player to play it in Europe, as each disc is locked to region A. Otherwise, there is Madman’s release from Australia, which should be region B and thus perfectly playable on any regular European Blu-Ray player. The discs are otherwise the same as the US release.

So, about Bandai…

The recent news about the downsizing of Bandai Entertainment is of course very sad, firstly for those who are losing their jobs and secondly for fans seeing another American anime distributor ceasing operations (or in this case, no longer releasing manga or anime on DVD/Blu-Ray).

What does it mean for K-On!? Well, according to Bandai their catalogue titles will remain in print, so the first season should remain available on DVD and Blu-Ray. But obviously, any hope of them releasing the second season or the movie is now dead.

That doesn’t necessarily have to mean the second season or the movie won’t ever be released in the US, however. As far as we, the fans, know, there’s nothing to stop another American distributor from picking them up and releasing them. Whether this will actually happen is impossible to tell at the moment. If recent rumors are true, and K-On! underperformed in the US market, it probably won’t look like a very attractive property to other anime companies.

About the only thing we know for sure right now, is that we really don’t know anything about the future of K-On! in America. But with Bandai pulling out of the home video market, things are looking kind of grim.

Upcoming releases

Okay, first off: A belated Happy New Year! to everyone. Now, then – it’s the second of the month, which for whatever reason has become the day I always post the list of upcoming K-On! media releases (English and/or Japanese language ones). With the movie and most of its related CD’s already out, and the US versions of the manga and the first season completed, there isn’t a whole lot of K-On! left on the schedule. If come next month I don’t do an “Upcoming releases” post, it’ll be because nothing new has been announced.

January 9^th – “K-On! Vol. 4” anime DVD (UK)

January 11^th – “K-On! Vol. 4” anime DVD/Blu-Ray (AUS)

January 18^th – “Ho-kago Tea Time in MOVIE” (K-On! Movie insert song album) CD (JP)