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Last week’s episode of K-ON!! had a rather solemn tone, making viewers teary-eyed as the HTT girls finished their final festival together. With this in mind, the next episode could have had any tone imaginable. It could have kept the serious, dramatic feel of the school festival, or shifted back to the lighthearted but ultimately pointless moe fluff that made this show so infamous.

Sad to say, they decided to go with the latter. It reminds me of a previous annoying filler episode a few weeks back. However, this episode was far more entertaining than that disaster, with the jokes being good and the interactions spot on. Of course, since I’m an evil hater critic who loathes all things good and pure, I still had some problems with it. My main complaint is that the episode doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table… just more predictable moeblobbery that fails to surprise anyone. With only five episodes remaining, can they really afford to be wasting time with this kind of filler?

Read more after the break.

It's like nothing we've ever seen before, Captain! Some sort of gelatinous life-form composed primarily of sugar!

The episode begins with Yui casually preparing for school and toying with her hair in the mirror. She asks her identical sister Ui for help, and basically uses her as a model to test out hairstyles. Shortly thereafter, the girls head to school. Later, Yui and the gang discuss their senior class photos that are to be taken soon. They worry about hair styles and even take practice photos to make sure their faces look good. Yui thinks that her bangs are slightly too long and–instead of simply going to a barber–decides to trim her hair by herself with a pair of scissors. She starts off doing well, but then unexpectedly sneezes while cutting. Good ol’ comedy gold is struck.

Wait for it...

Although I think everyone saw this scene coming, most probably laughed more than expected. The characters’ reactions to this were what really nailed the joke, with Azusa and Mio even fainting. And, of course, the long awkward pause had even the most tough of viewers giggling like 13-year-old middle school students. Anyways, back to the plot: Yui goes spasmodic with her hair being in such shape. Since the pictures are to be taken tomorrow, Yui eventually decides to just go with it… wait, what? She doesn’t try any ridiculous tricks or hairbrained schemes that end up making her hair even worse? She just goes with it? Doesn’t that ruin the whole point of her character? Aren’t they going to play this comedy bit for more laughs? That’s a slight disappointment to me, honestly. Oh well. Afterwards, the girls have their pictures taken, which… is pretty boring. Nothing hilarious or even abnormal happens.

The final scenes show Mio turning down an invitation to go to her college of choice, just so she can stay with her friends after graduation. Also, Yui and Ritsu finally turn in their college papers that we’ve been hearing the teacher admonish them about ever since season one. The episode pretty much ends there.

Ui strangely reminds me of Russia from Hetalia in this picture.

After watching this episode, I wasn’t really sure whether I loved it or hated it. It was enjoyable to a certain extent, but not great. It’s definitely worth 20 minutes of your time, I can say that. Just don’t expect a masterpiece. The main issue with it is the plot is a little too predictable. While it didn’t rely totally on moe cliches, it ended up being more boring than interesting. Of course, the episode also had jocular moments, with some great scenes involving the characters’ antics… in particular, Yui’s botched haircut. Not to mention there was an actual plot this time around to at least keep my interest.

When all is said and done, this episode wasn’t half bad. Sure, it doesn’t really try to do anything bold, but at least it did its job and made me feel like that was 20 minutes well spent. I just wonder what the outcome of last episodes of K-ON!! will be.