K-ON! The reason why everyone gets nervous in the final episode is because it was shot in a suspenseful film style. Nostalgic Anime Retrospective No. 86

Broadcast of the TV animation "Heike Monogatari" will begin on Fuji Television Network. Speaking of Naoko Yamada's masterpiece, the director of this work, everyone would probably put "K-ON! (2009) at the top of the list.
(2009). The final episode of the first season, "K-ON! (2009) thrillingly depicts how the main character, Yui, arrives on stage at the festival after coming down with a cold and ends up performing with her friends in the light music club. Yui's goal of "recovering by the time of the festival and performing on stage" is kept from her as a result of her younger sister Yuu's careful attention and actions.

(1) Disguising herself as her sister

When she hears the seniors discussing the possibility of assigning Yui's guitar duties to another member of the club, she is troubled by the idea. After much deliberation, melancholy disguises herself as Yui and appears in the club room to play the guitar in place of her sister. The real Yui shows up, but her cold is still not completely healed and she has to rest until the next day's performance.

(2) Taking the guitar home

On the day of the festival, Yui recovers and joins her friends in the club room. However, her beloved guitar is not there. This is because Yuu took the guitar home and left it in her sister's room after the incident described in (1) above. Yui has no choice but to go home to retrieve the guitar and rush back to school in time for the stage.

At the time of incident (1), when Yui discovers her guitar, she says, "I didn't know it was here," so we know that the disguise operation was Yui's own idea. In (2), when melancholy brings back the guitar, Yui is lying down and almost asleep. Only Yui and Hitori are acting with a will.
A more detailed look at the scenes reveals the suspenseful aspect of these scenes.

Characters acting alone are made to appear mysterious by strong contrasts.

In scene (1), it is dusk when Melancholy visits Yui's room where she is sleeping. The setting sun is shining through the window, and half of Yuu's body is illuminated in orange. Melancholy mumbles anxiously, "Sis ......," and in the close-up of the scene, half of Melancholy's face is smeared in the evening darkness, while the other half is illuminated by the orange light.
(2) is a reminiscence scene, but Yui is asleep and the lights in her room are off. When melancholy comes in with her guitar, the light from the hallway shines into the dark room. Melancholy's figure is backlit and her face is painted a dark color.
When a character is alone and in the dark, strong lighting creates shadows and a mood of plotting something. ...... This is a common technique in suspense films. In Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), a scene in which the killer, played by Anthony Perkins, acts in a locked room, a strong light source is placed under and across the screen. It is pitiful to compare melancholy to a killer, but in the development of the drama, this role distracts from Yui's goal of "curing a cold and getting on stage. It makes sense to create a mysterious scene in which melancholy plays a dark role. If you only shoot cute characters in a cute way, you will not convey anything.

Shooting certain actions "right above" them amplifies their meaning and makes them more impressive.

And this episode of "Light Music! has other scenes similar to those in "Psycho.
In "Psycho," the killer disguises himself as a mother and commits two murders, the second of which involves stabbing a private detective to death with a knife as he comes up the stairs. Just before the action takes place, the camera is positioned on the ceiling, which creates an angle looking down on the entire staircase from above. The camera then moves to the ceiling, where it looks down on the entire staircase from above, and the killer is seen walking toward the detective with a knife at the ready, his movements in plain view. The bold and completely unconcealed movements of the killer leave a vivid impression on the viewer.
Almost the same angle is used in "Light Music! also uses almost the same angle in "Light Music!
Yui, recovering from a cold, surprises her friends by showing up unannounced in the club room. In particular, Azusa, a junior member of the club, is so worried that she accuses Yui of being "the worst" and turns her back on her, bending her navel. Yui hugs her back, and the action is filmed right above her. The fact that this act of gently comforting a cute junior student, which would normally be embarrassing and hidden from viewers, is shot nakedly from the ceiling is what makes this cut resonate straight to the back of the viewer's mind.
Whether it is a suspense film or a heartwarming, everyday animation, they all share the same goal of awakening the viewer's dormant emotions by catching them by surprise. The fact that they are not restricted by genre, but rather by any means necessary, makes their expressions infinitely richer.


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)