Yesterday a friend mentioned how Bakuon ripped off from K-ON rather blatantly. Supposedly they used the exact same colors for the covers of manga volumes. Okay. But unfortunately, this is a case of history repeating itself twice, first time as a tragedy and second time as a farce. The comparison occured to me too, but if anything, Bakuon a pale imitator of the accidential masterpiece, and here's how.
The writing for Hane is unbelievably stilted, and she makes me cringe. Hijiri is just as bad, especially when compared to Tsumugi. Her obsession with exploring the bad-girl persona is treated crudely. The way the rich heiress stereotype is played out gets progressively more irritating, too. Although it happens in manga only thus far, the aime follows manga slavishly, without any improvements. Onsa's character flaws cause her to clash with Suzunoki for no other reason than to create artificial tension. In fact this whole frenemies thing is just as crude as Hijiri. Adults are no better. It is so bad that the only serviceable character is Raimu-sempai, and that is a character playing the official role of a silly gimmick!
K-ON received deserved criticism for lionizing the "retard moe". It succeeds in spite, and not because of Yui. Bakuon is 4 to 5 times worse, by laddling the retard moe thick upon everyone.
Finally, K-ON was not a show about Les Paul or Fender (or Korg). The marketing success for $2,500 guitars was entirely a side effect. But Bakuon is trying to whip up excitement and throw references to bikes on purpose. It is a part of its theme and identity, and it completely fails to work. And I know that because I watched Initial D, which does the same thing and succeeds briliantly at it. Who can forget the impassioned declaration by Ko-chan "I'll drive GT-R until I die"? He makes the brand loyalty — ordinarily a very dumb idea — to look well-grounded and even a noble position. Here, Rin completely undermines this by the idiotic circumstances in which she received this loaylty.
Untl the yesterday's meeting I dragged myself through 4 episodes or so, but the conversation completely pulled into focus just how bad Bakuon is. I don't think I'm going to continue.