K-ON!’s Mono No Aware

“All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
- Roy Batty, Blade Runner

One late evening, while discussing the finite nature of anime series over coffee and muffins (which is a classy way of saying that we were bumming around a donut shop), a friend of mine said: “Nobody’s going to remember K-ON! in a few years.”  It was just an off-hand remark in a very long conversation, but as time goes on and the rest of what we said fades away, that particular moment sticks in my memory.  Phenomenal sales aside, I believe it’s pretty much true.  K-ON! will be forgotten.

I was talking with someone else on the train ride to work, not about anime but about philosophy.  According to him, the difference between western and eastern philosophy is that the former attempts to explain the nature of existence, while the latter is concerned with one’s capacity to intuitively “feel” existence.

For example, consider the Japanese artistic concept of mono no aware. We can try to explain it as the warm bittersweetness of life, a nostalgic sadness for the way everything eventually ends…  But such phrases have zero emotional impact.  The best way to understand mono no aware is to experience it in life, and from there to see it reflected through art.

There are some very good books that I could recommend, which will have a greater effect if you’ve been through college, the first years of your twenties, or what-have-you.  Or you could save yourself some time and just watch K-ON!

I recall some people being unhappy that the series ended the way it did, on a normal winter day with everyone doing their own thing.  On the contrary, I thought it was brilliant.  The previous twelve episodes tell us explicitly again and again that the light music club is special—as long as they’re playing together, everything works out.  But episode thirteen takes off the rosy glasses and reminds us that they won’t be together forever, even if they eventually meet up at the end of the day.  Next year’s school festival is probably the last the world will see of “After School Tea Time.”  In all likelihood, the girls will graduate and go their separate ways, perhaps once in a while looking back fondly on their days in high school.

The magic is that they never have to SAY so.  There’s no sad graduation episode, or even any acknowledgement like we saw in the final episode of Lucky Star. It is simply understood.

I hear there’s an extra episode coming out with the DVDs.  But unless Kyoto Animation surprises us, that’s probably the last we’ll see of K-ON! For the people who really liked the show, of course it’s a little bit sad.  But I think that’s okay.  We’ve enjoyed it, and now it’s over.  That’s just life.  It’s the transience of things.