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After reading a review of this series while comparing it to Lucky Star, I couldn't help but twitch in all of my facial muscles used for frowning and decided to write my own review.

Story:
K-ON! is, simply put about a group of four high-school girls who join the schools light music club for various reasons and with various degrees of enthusiasm. However, as members of the light music club, great responsibility is put on them. As of episode 4, nothing seriously mind-bending has happened, but the individual characters drives the story forward in their own fashion, rather than some evil villain who pulls all the strings.


Art:
Rather ... than making overly complex drawings and animations for a light-hearted series like this, PONY CANYON made the right choice and keeps the drawing simple, filling out the expectations in regards to the theme and mood of the series.


Sound:
It goes without saying that an anime about music should have more than just the regular "run off the mill" music that other series uses. K-ON! does a great job at this, the opening and ending are addictive and stylized while the music they play themselves are rather crisp and somewhat matches what they do in the picture.


Characters:
From the very first episode, the characters are pushed onto the stage, one by one and they entertain you with nothing more than their own personalities and imagination. It hold together pretty well, especially since the whole lot is a blob of moe.

Each of the characters are archetypes and only moderately unique in terms of behavior and looks. However, the well-performed voice-acting gives the characters even more traits and distincts them from each other and other generic anime characters.


All in all, K-ON! is a great series for anyone who enjoys a good laugh, is attracted to moe and doesn't mind the fact that the series is just about a bunch of girls who wants to play music for some reason or another.

Summary -
Overall, I wouldn't recommend Okawari to anyone. Even if they loved the original series by all their heart. Okawari is a poor continuation of the orignal series and I wouldn't be honest if I said that its worth watching.

Story -
Okawari is a continuation of the original Minami-Ke series, which focuses on the lives of Kana, Haruka and Chiaki. Like the first season, there's no plot or greater goal for the main characters to accomplish. The Minami family has been normalized and you forget, occasionally, that you're watching a comedy anime. Okawari picks up where the original series left off and they rarely introduce anything ... new to the series and offers next to no variety which makes it very plain and boring. There's no reason for the audience to watch the next episode unless they want to know whether or not X will ever get along with Y sooner of later.

Art -
Okawari is superior to its predecessor in terms of quality. The animations are well-drawn and the lineart itself is rather detailed. However, the style doesn't fit the anime and those who have watched the original series will most likely frown upon it.

Sound -
Okawari has some nice, yet simple, sound effects which, inc comparison to the original series, is far less comical. Some might consider this to be good while some won't.
The background music often tends to be rather loud and pulls away the audiences attention from the dialogues.

Character -
Seeing as the original series already had fleshed out the characters. I'm rating the new series as to how the characters have been adapted.
The personalities are pretty much the same. Haruka has hardened a bit but is still the considerate host and 'mom'. Kana is still the hyperactive junior-high student which puts little, if any, consideration into her actions. Chiaki, however, has almost completely resigned from being the mix of an overly intelligent and violent sister and has taken the role of a victim that Kana can freely harass without having Chiaki saying more than 'Dumbass'.

Enjoyment -
The good sense of humor that I enjoyed in the original series is, in the lack of a better term, completely gone. Its a stretch to call Okawari a comedy. It's just a slightly romantic slice of life anime which resorts to fanservice by putting weird images into the viewer's head.
I found myself hoping,no -- begging, for something awesome to happen whenever Hosaka appeared but even here, I was let down. He simply appears, says something that doesn't make sense (Without being humorous in any way) and someone smacks their forehead and mumbles something along the lines of "Idiot", "Weirdo" or "Gross". I can't express my dissapointment enough. I watched the original series in a relatively short time and I loved it to the very last drop - Okawari feels like an angry sumo-guy stomping your crotch all the way through. It's a pointless anime with no common sense of humor and just a lot of odd references to japanese commercials and culture that few people will understand.