K-ON! The Movie

An animated film that continues a television series. Four girls are in their last year of school. They had formed a music club and graduation is coming. Azusa is a year below. She will stay; the others are leaving. The girls want to give her a farewell present. They cannot decide. There is the question of a graduation trip as well. Where to go? They draw lots and London comes out. From there the film takes place in London. The girls have planned nothing. The hotel is in the wrong area, the train tickets get confused, and nobody speaks English. They end up having to play in a sushi restaurant. Then a band at a club calls them on stage. None of this was planned. Each time it is a misunderstanding. At the same time they are trying to write Azusa's song. The words do not fit, the melody will not come, and they keep postponing it through the trip. What the narrative is interested in is not music but ending: its idea is that four people are looking for a way to say goodbye and never dare to say it directly. Instead they write a song. The narrative builds no dramatic event. No fight, no crisis, nobody falls ill. That is deliberate. It is the whole understanding of the series and the film does not break it. London was drawn from real locations. The team researched in the city and the backgrounds are based on photographs. The last section returns to the school. The song is played in the music room to five people only. The images are in Kyoto Animation's craft; everyday movement, hands, hair and light are detailed. Naoko Yamada directed, as she had the series. Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hikasa, Satomi Sato, Minako Kotobuki and Ayana Taketatsu are in the voice cast. Who it is for: anyone who watched the series and likes quiet, uneventful animation. Who it is not for: anyone who does not know it; the narrative introduces no character and all its emotional weight sits in the series' accumulation.