Sitcoms are essentially slice-of-life narratives, so the correlation struck me while reading this.

I got it, she blushes at cute things.
I got it, the cat bit her finger.
I got it, the GIANT sweat drop makes it clear how awkward it is.

In all cases, it would take 3-5 more seconds (feels more than that) to change to the next scene. Budget considerations?

@Kaioshin Sama

Well if it’s as simple to review as gauging whether one finds it funny or not then I’m thankful and will just go right ahead and give it a thumbs down.

This kinda goes back to an article I wrote earlier, in that, the initial or subjection reaction forms the contention of a review, but the more important part of it is when you try to justify it. It’s all well and good to say “I enjoyed this anime”, but it’s probably more valuable to say “I enjoyed this anime because…” It’s kinda hard with slice-of-life comedy, though, since what comes after that “because…” is probably more individual than it is with other genres.

@Snark

To be completely honest, I have difficulty in reviewing any all girls slice of life moe shows given the fact that the only way to get me to like any show in that genre is to have all the girls have hot lesbian sex with each other.

Do you really want to watch the girls of K-On! in a lesbian orgy, though? You see, I wouldn’t find that too hot at all. If it was just Mugi and Mio, that’d be a whole different story.

@kadian1364
I’m not going to attempt to predict the future, but that’s an entirely plausible possibility. The worrying thing about K-On! is that it shows that, if you have an adept handle of moe and what the audience wants, you can phone it in and still have a hit. I’m not asking for every entry into the genre to be as unique and creative as Hidamari Sketch. I just want them to have good jokes.

@ghostlightning
I’ve always thought of Azumanga’s slow pacing as one of its strengths. It’s very meticulous with how its jokes are built up, with great care and attention of detail given to a lot of little things (like where the characters stand) to make sure the jokes work, and off the top of my head, only Haruhi rivals it in that respect. There’s probably a bit of a “Seinfeld is unfunny” effect going on here (as kadian1364 suggests) but from what you say, I suspect that expectations are playing a part as well. Expectations probably helped in your enjoyment of K-On!, but I too had fairly low expectations, and got pretty much what I expected.

@zzeroparticle
It’s not like K-On! was bad all the time, though, there were some moments that were quite chuckle-worthy, but too much of it was simply boring. After reading ghostlightning’s response, I’m starting to think expectations have a role in K-On’s reception. No one who’s serious about slice-of-life comedy would have had high expectations for K-On!. It’s much easier to enjoy something if it exceeds your expectations.

@TheBigN
I didn’t really want K-On! to do anything new. One of my favourite slice-of-life moe comedies is Minami-ke, and it didn’t really do anything new. I just didn’t think it had enough funny moments for me to think much of it as a comedy. But again, that’s a subjective gauge. I just found it too stale to be constantly enjoyable.

For me, as long as a show’s entertaining (and I found K-On! to be so), it doesn’t matter if it’s the same things over and over again or if it lacks that “something more” that it seems that many people want.

As far as my evaluation of K-ON! goes, if it were in a vacuum, it would fall in that not-good-but-not-bad kind of category, watchable and sometimes enjoyable, but to me its the unfunniest SOL-comedy I’ve seen. Which in the context of this article, fails.

With regards to Keion, I liked it more than I expected it to. I didn’t expect to laugh much, only that I laughed a lot. Characters I wanted to dismiss I became rather fond of.

Now, I don’t think this comment will ‘settle’ the issue of how ‘good’ a Sol show is, and I don’t mean to do so. I do see it as a moe fanservice show that gives some choice treasures for those who want to see it as such.

I suspect most fans who are old enough to remember when Azumanga Daioh was new will have the same sentiment. The situation actually reminds me of Super Mario 64 and how it defined the genre of the 3D platformer in video games. No one has really done anything new in the genre since then, and it took over a decade of time and the migration since of the whole industry towards “dark and edgier” hardcore games like your GTAs, FPS games, or generic MMORPGs for something like Mario Galaxy to seem fresh again.

So, are slice-of-life comedies doomed to a similar cycle, where it suffers through years of stagnancy, then unpopularity, until again it comes around and seems innovative again?

To be completely honest, I have difficulty in reviewing any all girls slice of life moe shows given the fact that the only way to get me to like any show in that genre is to have all the girls have hot lesbian sex with each other. All the time.