Rock On

K-On! - Kakifly  (Volume 1)

        My recent reading list of late feels fairly heavy towards somewhat-serious non-fiction: a book on the Holocaust, the Ongoing War in Burma, a semi-fluffy yet still infuriating memoir about parenting.  Yes there have been lighter ones here and there, but its felt as if I've been reading some fairly heavy stuff.    With my local Borders closing and a friend online having talked about this series in passing a few times online, I decided to check out the manga section.

       K-On! revolves around four Japanese high school students trying to save their school's keiongaku (literally "light music" but in reality "pop music") club.  The fact that the girl they've found to be their guitarist doesn't own a guitar....or know how to play one hinders the group's resolve to save the club and form a band in the process. K-On! is a manga (essentially serialized Japanese graphic novel/comic), partly in color but mostly in black and white.

       However, what I really liked was that, unlike any other mange I've previously looked at, K-On! actually included short "translation note" part which helps with any cultural differences which an English-language reader may have, such as the importance of clubs, the use of honorifics, etc.  This came in very handy when the club made a trip to the local shrine after the New Year and I found myself going, "Huh?" before checking the translation note to realize why this was normal to the culture.

       Mindful that this is just the first of apparently 4 issues, the characters of K-On! can sometimes seem a bit  stereotypical: the shy one, the rich one, the outgoing yet lazy one, etc.; however, this is the first book and it's very possibly that the characters will become much more developed over the next few issues. 

       As with any series of books, the question is whether after reading the first one I'd be likely to check out another volume.  It's light and shows promise and I unexpectedly learned something from reading it.  In short...a potential win.

Rating: An enjoyable 4 out of 5, for volume 1.