K-On!

けいおん!
Keion

Manga7.817954 votes4 volumes · 57 chaptersFinished

ComedySlice of LifeCGDCTMusicSchool

to add this manga to your library.

About this title

Synopsis

The Light Music Club indulges in easy and simple activities, or that is what the carefree Yui Hirasawa first believes. When Yui goes to formally quit the club, she finds out that if she leaves, the club will not have enough members to continue its activities. This puts Yui in a sudden dilemma. However, its members—the mature Mio Akiyama, the playful Ritsu Tainaka, and the ladylike Tsumugi Kotobuki—decide to perform an instrumental piece to try and keep Yui. The song not only fills her up with excitement, it also leads her to decide to remain in the Light Music Club. While the sounds of cheerful girls fill the clubroom of the Light Music Club, the members juggle both schoolwork and their love for music. They may play around once in a while, but that makes the high school life in K-On! even more exciting! [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Publication notes

K-On! was published in English by Yen Press from November 30, 2010, to December 13, 2011. The publisher later released the manga as a 4-in-1 omnibus volume. It was also published in Polish by Studio JG from April 24, 2015, to February 26, 2016; and in Brazilian Portuguese by NewPOP Editora from July 2011 to October 2012.

Published

Apr 9, 2007 to Sep 9, 2010

Authors

Kakifly

External links

MyAnimeList page Wikipedia

MAL rank: #1603
Members (MAL): 38,233
Favorites (MAL): 1,925

Related titles

Sequel

Adaptation

Spin-Off

K-On! Shuffle

Other

Main characters

Yui Hirasawa14518 fan favorites
External profile
Height: 156 cm Weight: 50 kg Blood Type: O Sign: Sagittarius Birthday: November 27 Age: 15-18 Favorite Music: Yui doesn't follow any particular style, and isn't picky. As long as she likes it, anything is OK. Experience with musical instruments: Castanets Family Structure: Family of four, both parents and younger sister (Ui). Father works for a trading company, gets a lot of overseas assignments and tends to be absent. Because the mother often travels overseas too (helping the father), the daughters have many opportunities to spend time alone together. Dwelling: Single family detached home. Commute to school: Walking. Preferences in clothing: Pants over skirts. Yui is relatively fashion conscious and likes styles featured in teen magazines. She also wears casual clothes such as shorts and T-shirts at home. Her room: Clean, because Ui cleans it. Yui likes small cute things, and keeps stuffed toys and such in her room. The room is painted in girly pastel and pink tones. Favorite food: Anything, as long as it's sweet and delicious. Subjects she is good at: Between low and average and can rarely pass test easily, but has a hard time with questionnaires. Subjects she is bad at: All of them Physical exercise: She can do it, but hates getting tired. Way to pass time when alone: Lazing around at home. Weaknesses and dislikes: Studying. Main character, guitarist, lead vocalist. Having misunderstood that "light music" equals "easy music" (like whistling), she joined the Light Music Club and picked up guitar with absolutely no prior experience. She is the type of person who doesn't read manuals and relies on her own intuition and self-taught approaches. Yui is the lead guitarist and split vocalist of the Light Music Club who plays a Heritage Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar that she nicknames "Gīta" (ギー太). Before she learned how to play the electric guitar, the only instrument she knew how to play was the castanets. She gets poor grades in school (though when properly coached, she can achieve astounding results), spaces out frequently, and is easily distracted by trivialities (mainly those she deems cute). Yui is a kind and friendly girl who holds no ill-will towards anyone. Yui has shoulder-length, brown hair (a little longer than Ritsu's) which she accessorizes with two yellow hair clips, and brown eyes. She has a huge liking for sweets and consumes them frequently (though she never gains weight, which is greatly envied by Mugi, Mio, and Sawako). She has a younger sister named Ui, who is very mature and acts as the "older sister" of Yui, taking care of her while their parents are away on business trips. Despite her difficulties with distractions, Yui works extremely hard to get better at playing guitar. During performances, Yui plays with amazing energy and joy which usually results in great response from the audience. As a musician, Yui has absolute pitch—she can tune her guitar perfectly without a tuner, which greatly impresses Azusa, who possesses far more experience with playing guitar than Yui. She has a very easy-going nature, but has incredible focus and retention when she has a clear goal in sight. Yui is still devoted to her band and will always practice hard enough for the club. At school, she has become quite admired for her great voice. However, she has been shown to forget her lyrics mid-performance on at least one occasion and exert herself too much, making her unable to perform sometimes. Mio was the lead vocalist at first, since Yui could not play the guitar and sing at the same time. (Source: Wikipedia)
Mio Akiyama13659 fan favorites
External profile
Age: 16-18 Birthday: January 15th, 1992 Height: 160 cm Weight: 54 kg Blood type: A Sign: Capricorn Favorite Music: jazz, moody instrumental music Experience with playing musical instruments: Started playing bass in middle school after Ritsu suggested it to her. 3 years of experience. Family structure: Family of three, both parents. Typical household of an office worker. Dwelling: Single family detached home. Commute to school: Walking. Preferences in clothing: Pants over skirts. In summertime she likes to wear sleeveless clothes, such as tank tops. Her room: Clean and tidy. Chic room with simple door. Actually Mio wants to decorate her room with cute things, but she does not have any because she is self-conscious about them not suiting her and because she does not want to be teased when Ritsu comes over. Favourite food: Gateau au Chocolat (rich layered chocolate cake). Subjects she is good at: All subjects. She is always in the top 10 among all students of her grade. Subjects she is bad at: No subject in particular. Physical activity: Good at sports. Way to pass the time when alone: Studying. Weaknesses and dislikes: Scary stories. Stories about pain. Mio is a shy girl who is in the light music club. She plays a left-handed, 3-Color Sunburst Fender Jazz Bass with a tortoiseshell pickguard, though is shown playing a Fender Precision Bass in the first manga volume. She uses D'Addario EXL160M medium bass strings. Her bass is given the name Elizabeth later in the anime. While she originally intended to join the literary club, she was forced into the light music club by her childhood friend and the club's president/drummer, Ritsu. She gets excellent grades in school and is often mature and strict especially where Ritsu is involved; her weakness is the macabre and horrific, and she is often incapacitated with fear when stories involving ghosts, blood, injuries, haunted houses, barnacles or other disturbing topics come up. She also has a fear of being in the spotlight and gets embarrassed easily, and is often subject to teasing from Ritsu and Sawako, their club adviser and eventual third-year homeroom teacher. Mio has long, straight black hair and gray eyes (that are angled slightly more than the other characters). She cites that she chose bass since it is not the center of attention in the band, unlike the guitarist. Mio is more technical when it comes to music, and Yui often comes to her when she is in need of more guitar tutorials. Along with Yui, Mio is one of the band's main vocalists, though given her dislike of being center stage, she tries to avoid taking the lead vocal if possible, generally singing if Yui is unable to. She writes most of the songs, although they usually feature some odd and overly girlish lyrics like "Light and Fluffy Time." As she is left-handed, she becomes entranced whenever she sees left-handed instruments, because of their rarity. After their first live performance, the attractive Mio gained a huge fan following (in no small part due to an unfortunate accident that occurred at the end of the show), led by an infatuated former student council president. Also resulting from her sudden popularity, most of her classmates voted that she portray Romeo in their class play. Mio comes to greatly enjoy her time at university as she encounters many new experiences. She is also able to overcome some of her shyness and make new friends such as Sachi and Ayame.
Azusa Nakano6957 fan favorites
External profile
Age: 15-17 Birthday: November 11 (Scorpio) Height: 150 cm Weight: 46 kg Blood type: AB Favorite music: western music, jazz Favorite food: cakes Subjects she is good at: above average in all subjects Subjects she is bad at: no subject in particular Athletic ability: above average. Hobbies: guitar practice. Weaknesses and dislikes: lax atmosphere of the Light Music Club. Azusa is a new student who joins the Light Music Club as a rhythm guitarist. She plays a Fender Mustang MG69/MH/CAR electric guitar which she eventually names Muttan, but is also in possession of a Gibson Les Paul Custom 50th Anniversary Gold Top (as seen in episode 13). She is a self-proclaimed novice guitarist who has been playing the guitar since the fourth grade and whose parents play in a jazz band. She is in the same year and class as Yui's sister, Ui, and has quite a mysterious demeanor. She often finds herself bewildered by the tea parties and cosplaying aspects of the club when she would rather just practice, and is struck by how good the club's music sounds despite their problems and lack of practice. However, she has a certain weakness for cakes and can be calmed down rather easily, sometimes by just being petted. She is more serious than the other girls, and does not like to admit how she really feels; she could be described in part as a tsundere. She is constantly hugged by Yui and is nicknamed Azu-nyan after trying on a pair of cat ears and meowing. In the band, she looks up to Mio the most due to her maturity and the fact that she is an experienced musician, even trying to give Mio chocolate on Valentine's Day. However, she sometimes unintentionally makes remarks concerning Mio's weaknesses, such as her weight. She also finds Mugi very beautiful, and envies her hair and large eyes, and later starts teaching her how to play guitar when the two are alone in the club room. Since joining, Yui comes to her for advice on playing guitar, as well as maintenance. She gets a tan extremely easily, once during their time at the beach and another during a music festival (even after applying sunscreen). As a result, she frequently gets sunburned as well. She gets lonely very easily, and often worries that everyone in the club will leave her, as they are one-year-older and eventually will graduate. Due to this, the rest of the girls buy her a turtle to look after, naming it Ton-chan. She is interested in a wide range of genres without limiting herself to anything in particular. She started playing instruments in fourth grade of elementary school, which makes it about 5 years of experience. Her parents both play in a jazz band. Outside of the band, she often hangs out with Ui and Jun whenever the other girls are busy. When the others graduate, she becomes the new Light Music Club president alongside Ui and Jun, who decide to join her. Together with two new members, Sumire and Nao, they form a new band called Wakaba Girls. During the Wakaba Girls' first summer training camp Azusa reveals to Sawako her belief that she is unable to act like a proper president for the Light Music Club; however, Sawako suggests that there is no proper way to define what it means to be a president and that Azusa will do just fine. While on that same training camp Azusa is convinced by the others to become the band's vocalist despite her prior reservations on the issue, and eventually overcomes her weakness to sing in the school festival. Her preference in clothing includes pants over skirts. Short pants are among the things she likes to wear. Her room is very tidy and not excessively cute. (Source: Wikipedia, K-On! Wiki, Blu-ray book page)
Tsumugi Kotobuki6661 fan favorites
External profile
Birthday: July 2 Sign: Cancer Height: 157cm Weight: 53kg Blood type: O Age: 16-18 Favorite Music: Classical music. Experience with playing musical instruments: Started playing piano at age four. Picked up keyboard upon joining the Light Music Club. Family structure: Family of three, both parents. Father is a president of a company. There is a butler at the house. She is being treasured as the only daughter. Dwelling: Single-family home, a rather stately mansion. Commute to school: By train (she lives two train stops away from the school). Because being driven to and from school by car is embarrassing for her, she avoids it. Preferences in clothing: Skirts over pants. High society lady styles, such as elegant one piece dresses. Her room: Canopy bed, antique furniture and such, as expected of a rich girl's room. The room is decorated mostly according to her parents' tastes. Favorite food: She prefers traditional sweets such as daifuku (rice cakes with red bean jam filling) because she worries about calories and because western sweets are brought to her house all the time and she is tired of them. Subjects she is good at: If anything, humanities, though she is also above average at science and math. While she is a little weaker than Mio when it comes to math, her math skills are certainly above her grade level. Subjects she is bad at: No subject in particular. Physical activity: Tsumugi is gentle and quiet and as result she is not good at ball games and track-and-field athletics. However, she has a lot of arm strength and amazing hand grip. She is a very strong girl. Way to pass the time when alone: Elegant teatime Weaknesses and dislikes: She is a little worried about her predisposition to gain weight easily. Tsumugi, often referred to as 'Mugi' by her friends, is a wealthy girl with a gentle and sweet personality who plays a Korg Triton Extreme 76-key keyboard, though she is also seen playing a Korg RK-100 keytar in the closing credits of the first season. She originally intended to join the choir club, but joins the light music club instead after receiving an invitation and encouragement from both Mio and Ritsu.Tsumugi is considered a piano prodigy since she has been playing the piano since she was four and has experience in winning various piano contests. Mugi has long, pale blonde hair, blue eyes, unusually large eyebrows, which apparently run in her family and a fair complexion that the other characters do not have, but she does not get sunburned. She is the daughter of a company president, and her family has several villas in various places around Japan (and even one in Finland). Since her father also owns a maid café, she often brings confectionery and an assortment of sweets and pastries to the club room, and she diligently makes tea with a tea set which is kept in their club room. Despite her wealth, she is fascinated by and finds joy in "normal" activities, such as ordering fast food, sharing french fries with her club mates, holding down part-time jobs and haggling over prices. Tsumugi displays a rebellious streak occasionally, diverting from her normally well-behaved and mature demeanor to the surprise of the others. She also displays a childlike eagerness from time to time, and possesses unusually high strength, being able to effortlessly carry around her own keyboard, Ritsu's drums, amplifiers, and at one point beating an arm-wrestling game in an arcade. Tsumugi is often entranced by the sight of two girls interacting closely together, sometimes imagining something more risqué in her head. The series sometimes indicates that Mugi has a crush on their teacher, Sawako Yamanaka. While a lot of things do not bother her, she is fairly conscious about her weight (just like Mio), and she gets a bit anxious when her family's staff start spoiling her friends during villa visits. She later begins learning how to play the guitar from Azusa. Tsumugi has a childhood friend several years younger than her named Sumire Saitō who is a daughter of the family that serves the Kotobuki household. Tsumugi grew up home schooled, and therefore spent very little time in the outside world. Because of their close friendship Sumire would purchase everyday items like manga for Tsumugi that she was not normally allowed to see. Tsumugi was rather taken by some of the yuri manga she received which may have influenced her later perceptions about relationships. When Sumire started high school, Tsumugi wanted her to experience the light music club on her own, but due to Sumire's shyness Tsumugi came up with the excuse to send her to the club room to pick up the tea sets that had been left there and told Sawako when Sumire did join that it was okay to leave the tea sets there. (Source: Wikipedia)
Ritsu Tainaka5505 fan favorites
External profile
Birthday: August 21 Sign: Leo Height: 154 cm Weight: 48 kg Blood Type: B Favorite Music: Rock in general. Metal, punk, and other aggressive music is okay too. Beat is what counts. Experience with Playing Musical Instruments: Started playing in Middle School. Three years of experience. Family Structure: Family of four, both parents and a younger brother attending middle school. Average household of an office worker. She has no reservations about hanging out together with her brother. Dwelling: Single-family detached home. Commute to School: Walks (her house is in the same neighborhood as Mio's). Preferences in Clothing: Pants over skirts. She likes to wear polo shirts. Her Room: Messy to the point that there is no place to stand. Half-finished manga and snacks are scattered around. She tidies it up before it becomes a full-blown disaster, but it immediately becomes a mess again. Favorite food: Rice. Rice comes before snacks. She values food that fills the belly. Subjects She is Good at: Physical Education. Subjects She is Bad at: Everything else. Physical exercise: Her strong point. Way to Pass the Time When Alone: Reading manga. Weaknesses and Dislikes: Work that involves minute details, complex and fussy tasks. Ritsu (or Ricchan, as nicknamed by Yui) is the self-proclaimed president of the light music club and plays a yellow Rick Marotta Signature Yamaha Hipgig drum kit with an add-on floor tom (in the opening credits only) combined with a cymbal set from Avedis Zildjian,though is shown playing a white Yamaha Absolute Series drum kit in the anime's closing credits.She has an ambiguous yet upbeat personality, much like Yui, but often has trouble remembering important club activities and announcements and gets constantly rebuked by Mio and Nodoka for forgetting to send in important forms concerning the club. Ritsu is cheerful, often likes making jokes and is sarcastic most of the time. She is skilled at brainstorming ideas that earn money for the club. Ritsu has shoulder-length, brown hair, with her bangs pulled back with a yellow hairband, and gold-colored eyes. She wears her school jacket open. She says she chose to play the drums because they are "cool," but she then admits that she has trouble playing instruments which involve intricate finger movements, such as the bass, guitar and keyboard. She is a childhood friend of Mio and will often take the opportunity to tease her whenever Mio is cowering from something. She is also known to become easily jealous of Mio's other high school friends, even going as far as spying on Mio when on outings with them. Ritsu is always on the go and will stop at nothing for the success of the light music club. Despite her rough mannerisms and speech, she gets cast as Juliet by the majority of her classmates in their class play rendition of Romeo and Juliet and, in the end, manages to act like a proper girl. In the anime, she states her favorite drummer is Keith Moon of The Who. She is skilled at cooking. She has a younger brother named Satoshi. (Source: Wikipedia)