K-ON!! 18

Counting the votes cast by the entire class, Nodoka reveals that Mio has received the most votes and is elected to portray Romeo in the class play of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” for the school festival.

Distraught, Mio tries to refuse but finds herself cornered by her classmates. Laughing at her childhood’s friend predicament, Ritsu shivers when Nodoka tasks her to portray Juliet.

Protesting, Ritsu fails to enlist classmates like Tsumugi, Ichigo or Mika to play the part, the entire class soon bands together stating no one else would be more suited to play the part paired with Mio.

When Azusa hears about her upperclassmen being enlisted in the play, she can’t help but laugh at Ritsu being cast as Juliet. Gazing dreamily at the club’s pet turtle blissfully swimming around in its water tank, a reluctant Mio tries to get out of having to play Romeo but her pitiful excuses do not work on Ritsu.

Pleading her case with Nodoka and Tsumugi, Mio ultimately agrees when Nodoka points out how everyone in class is not only enthusiastically working on the play, but also hoping to see Mio star in it.

Rehearsing with their classmates, Mio and Ritsu soon question Tsumugi’s overenthusiastic behavior as play director, but their weak performances do need a lot of work.

Observing Ritsu isn’t acting feminine enough as Juliet while Mio isn’t confident enough while playing Romeo, Yui suggests they have the girls respectively behave more feminine and more masculine in their normal daily life as well. Fixing Ritsu’s uniform and loosening Mio’s attire, the girls are forced to switch looks.

Practicing their roles together in her room that evening, Ritsu and Mio are soon exhausted, no thanks to having laughed non stop. However the girls realize they’ve been able to get into character and deliver some lines well, which shows during rehearsals in class the next day.

While doing better, Mio is still too shy in front of a crowd so Tsumugi suggests some special training on their next day off.

Heading to a maid cafe owned by one of Tsumugi’s friends, the girls look lovely in the elaborate waitress uniforms, especially Yui, Azusa and Tsumugi quickly play the part to perfection while Ritsu is exasperated at such antics.

Trying to hide, Mio’s forced to serve customers but has a hard time compared to her friends, although the customers are endeared by the bass player’s shy behavior. Seeing Mio lament her inability at handling a crowd, Ritsu plots to put Mio in a tight spot, forcing her to overcome that shyness and the girls leave the bass player to handle the customers all by herself when they take a break.

While Mio ultimately masters the perfect smile thanks to the harsh day of working as a waitress, she still doesn’t feel confident enough about the play.

Thoughts on this episode~

After having focused more on other characters the previous episodes, this one which also marks the beginning of the school festival preparations was all about Mio and Ritsu, with the hilarious premise of the girls being cast to respectively portray Romeo and Juliet in the class’ play.

Quite happy to not only see Tachibana Himeko get some votes -although it was to play Romeo- and see her in the background a few times along with the light music club girls’ other classmates, hope we see more of her again in future episodes.

Another character I want to see more scenes of in each episode is Nodoka, I find her adorable. She has such lovely character design and the voice work by Chika Fujitou is just superb, it perfectly fits her gentle and caring demeanor as class representative.

Laughed quite a bit with the comedic intermezzo when the girls changed into their waitress garb, when Yui and Mio remarked their outfits seemed to be a bit small, Mio finding hers tight around the waist while Yui’s was tighter in the chest area, poor Mio.

Looking forward to see the play! Although as Azusa correctly remarked… it’s still the light music club right, so where’s the music?