K-ON! 11

Excited about their live performance at the upcoming school festival, Azusa eagerly counts the days and asks her fellow club members about last year’s performance.

Remembering the pantsu incident, Mio is quickly embarrassed while Yui and Tsumugi whimsically smile as they recall the fun time everyone had.

Showing Azusa a recording of last year’s light music club’s performance, Sawako smiles at the twin tailed guitar player’s shy reaction to seeing Mio’s now infamous tumble and its quite exposing aftermath.

Interrupting the animated laughter, Nodoka reminds Ritsu she still needs to submit the club request papers to perform at the festival, which the drummer had forgotten all about, as usual.

Helping out by filling in the form, Azusa asks for their band’s name and is taken aback when the girls all reply different names, for they haven’t even decided on a band name after all this time.
Debating over which name to use, the girls get nowhere.

Focusing back on practice, Yui says her guitar hasn’t been sounding so good lately, so when Azusa inspects it, she’s shocked to see what dire state it is in.
Although Yui loves her guitar, really doting on it, she has never performed any basic instrument maintenance nor changed the strings out for new ones.

The keion-bu is in a pinch! If Yui’s guitar cannot be restored back into playing shape soon, their performance at the school festival is threatened.

Heading to the music instrument store, the store clerks are flabbergasted at the state of Yui’s guitar, almost thinking it’s an old vintage one. They nonetheless repair it, so Yui’s Gibson Les Paul is soon sparkling as new again, like the day she originally bought it, causing the guitar player to lovingly hug her instrument.

Learning there’s a sizable maintenance fee to be paid, Yui is forced to admit she has no money on her. What will the girls do now?
Overhearing this, Tsumugi starts to look for her wallet to pay the bill, but the clerks then intervene and say she isn’t obliged to pay because they will offer it off as normal service.

Puzzled at the clerks’ reaction, Azusa hears from Ritsu that Tsumugi is in fact the store owner’s daughter and seems to be treated like a princess by the employees, causing the twin tailed girl to be quite awed.

Ready to head back, the girls discover Mio is still glued to the display stand that features left handed bass guitars on sale. When Ritsu tries to drag her away, Mio reacts quite coldly, much to Ritsu’s surprise.

Discussing their plans after this, Yui excuses herself for she has an rendezvous with Nodoka. Mio says she’ll tag along as she has been getting closer to Nodoka who’s the only girl out of of her class that she knows, no longer being in Ritsu’s class this year.

Piqued with jealousy, Ritsu drags Azusa and Tsumugi in pursuit and they observe the other three girls have a fun time at a cozy café. Ritsu even ends up heading over to Mio, Nodoka and Yui’s table and makes a rather embarrassing scene.

The following days during practice, the atmosphere in the light music club is heavy and there is obvious tension between Mio and Ritsu, causing everyone else worry as they had always seen the two childhood friends get along great.

Having her bento lunch together with Nodoka in their classroom, Mio and the bespectacled student council member are rudely interrupted by Ritsu who drags Mio to the music room for practice in light of their upcoming live performance.

Unlike her usual cheerful self, Ritsu is obviously depressed and when she wryly teases Mio about what they’ll have her dress up as this year, Mio’s comebacks are tangibly more cold, both girls seem mutually frustrated at each other.
No longer able to bear with it, Ritsu throws a few snide and childish remarks at Mio about her becoming friends with Nodoka, which only causes Mio to become more peeved.

Trying to defuse the situation, the other girls spur them on to practice but when they start playing, Ritsu’s energetic drum playing style sounds weak and sluggish.
Her gaze downcast, Ritsu drops her drumsticks and heads out of the music room.

Worried about Ritsu but stuck due to her own pride, Mio dares not seek out her childhood friend the next day, even when the drummer uncharacteristically doesn’t show up at the light music club in the afternoon.
Sensing this bodes ill for their performance, Sawako tells Mio to go find Ritsu and make up with her.

Ultimately heading over to Ritsu’s class, Mio learns from Yui and Tsumugi that their club president is absent due to a cold.
Mio goes to visit her childhood friend who’s stuck in bed with a fever.

Uneasy at first, the two girls quickly make up and forgive each other for their silly behavior without even having to say much, as their bond is deep enough for such mutual understanding.
Begging Mio to stay with her a bit, Ritsu swiftly falls asleep while clutching her friend’s hand, creating a heart warming scene that greets Yui, Tsumui and Azusa when they come to visit as well.

Back in school once she’s recovered, Ritsu and her fellow club members seem to be in trouble because Ritsu never did submit their application to perform due to having fallen ill.
Thanks to Nodoka’s efforts and plea with the student council president, the keion-bu is exceptionally allowed to turn in their application late, causing Ritsu to realize Nodoka is a good person.

What a great episode, it had some nice humorous scenes but it excelled in showing off every girl’s main character traits and gave welcome and even surprising depth not only to Mio and Ritsu’s bond, but to their characters as well.

We’re shown that the two girls are still fallible with definite flaws, and that regardless of how many years they have known each other, they can still misunderstand one another and quarrel.
The added depth they gave Ritsu was especially appealing since she’s not merely an energetic brat having a jealous fit, but we see that Mio growing away from her destabilizes her own self which actually has always relied on Mio as a pillar of support that would always be there, even if they may not have realized it consciously.

Yui and Tsumugi also got some nice character moments that further emphasized what we already knew of them and how their characters were presented in the prior episodes.
Too bad we haven’t really gotten the same deeper exploration for Tsumugi who remains a bit more generic as the rich princess type character. There’s more potential there too, I’m sure of it.

Azusa was still cute as ever and this week distributed the character focus more evenly instead of focusing only on the twin tailed guitar player.
Also feel this episode showed a few very nicely animated scenes, more than the previous ones even.

Next week, Yui seems to have caught Ritsu’s cold, with the live performance mere days away, what will happen?