K-ON!! 27 extra

When the light music club girls meet on a summer afternoon after Tsumugi brings them souvenirs from her yearly overseas trip to Finland, Ritsu proposes they should all go on a holiday overseas together.

Telling Azusa about their plans, the twin tailed guitar player is concerned her upperclassmen are getting sidetracked now that finals and entrance exams are creeping near. Ritsu suggests it’s more of a celebratory graduation trip, and Yui surprises Azusa by inviting her along.

Heading to a travel agency, the five girls dream away as they browse through the many travel brochures. Hoping to travel to New York, Azusa’s idea of visiting famous sights of music history are cutely misinterpreted by Yui who imagines bringing her guitar to its birthplace.

Mio seems more interested in visiting England though, the bass player imagines herself walking on Abbey road. Ritsu surprisingly chooses Hawaii, suggesting it’s the classic first overseas trip destination and Tsumugi states she’s fine with any destination as long as she can be together with her friends.

Running into Nodoka at a nearby bookstore, Azusa sees the bespectacled girl buying travel brochures. Hearing about the light music club’s travelling plans, Nodoka reveals she’d like to visit Kyoto once more with her friends from the student council as they were so busy during the school field trip they didn’t get to enjoy much of the sights.

Saying she’d also love to travel overseas to destinations like Machu Picchu, Nodoka confuses poor Azusa who twists her tongue on trying to pronounce the Inca city name.

Later spotting Ui at the bookstore, little does Azusa know that the dutiful girl is there to buy a book teaching self defence, worried her older sister Yui might fall prey to men with ill intent abroad.

Meeting her upperclassmen at the park, Azusa’s unsure what to think when she sees them practicing the self defense moves and is even less sure what to do when Tsumugi all too happily pounces on her to enact one of the book’s scenarios, the blonde keyboard player definitely enjoying the situation a bit much.

Relaxing in the cool shade of the trees, the girls discuss their voyage plans and soon give in to instigated by Yui when the aloof guitar player starts practicing English.

Running into Sawako at a photo booth, Yui teasingly inquires if she’s trying to loose weight when their teacher reveals she’s only getting photos for her gym club membership application.

Waiting in line to submit their passport application forms, the girls run into trouble such as Ritsu having forgotten her student identification and Mio having to retake her passport photo. Alas the poor bass player falls prey to Yui and Ritsu’s shenanigans while she sits in the photo booth, resulting in multiple botched attempts before she finally gets a suitable photo.

Treating themselves to ice cream after their applications have finally been turned in, the girls ponder where to go for their voyage for they still haven’t decided yet. But Yui says it doesn’t really matter where they go as long as they all go together, because they will always be ‘Houkago Tea Time’.

Thoughts on this episode~

This extra “K-ON!!” episode had almost slipped under my radar! Included on the second season’s final DVD/BluRay release, it was an excellent bonus episode showing us the light music club girls’ typical shenanigans when they decide to go on a celebratory trip abroad after graduating.

With the previous news of the manga starting up again to showcase the girls’ university years and the movie announcement by Kyoto Animation, this episode was not only a nice intermediate teaser but really rekindled those feelings of joy of watching the pure, innocent fun show “K-ON!” really is.

Being a fan of the slice-of-life genre, have loved this fluffy series since the beginning and tremendously enjoyed this episode, much like I did the previous two full seasons.

A shame we didn’t get to see the rest of class 3-2 as I would have liked to see more of Himeko, Ichigo and the other girls, but the episode luckily did feature some key scenes with Ui, Nodoka and Sawako. Where in the first season Sawako was sometimes used for comic relief that reflected poor on her character, do like how this episode while providing some comic relief through the girls’ cute teacher does so without ridiculing her.

Animation by KyoAni was excellent as always and it is a real treat to see this series in high definition. “K-ON!!” is always a feast for the eyes in terms of contemporary fashion too, the various modern, stylish outfits the girls are rendered in are fabulous.

After this new episode, can hardly wait for the move and manga continuation!