K-On! Shuffle

I'm a simple person, I'm willing to admit when I misjudge something. In around March of 2020, shortly after chapter 14 was translated into English, I initially read K-On! Shuffle and didn't think it was bad but just fairly... average compared to the K-On! I already knew, but there was a problem; my judgement was completely unfair. Why? Because I had never read the original K-On! manga, I had only watched the anime. Only after reading the original manga did I come to a conclusion, the manga is actually... pretty bad compared to the anime. I was setting my standards far too high by comparing K-On! Shuffle to the anime rather than the original manga. So now, after a reread up to the most recent chapter (18, as of writing this), I based my expectations on the original manga, and now it's given me a different perspective, I think... I actually love K-On! Shuffle.

Story - 8: I'm sure we all know that K-On!'s story, as a CGDCT series, was never that big of a thing. The anime makes a better impression in terms of storytelling, but it's still not the strongest point, and it's weaker in the manga. Two girls, Yukari Sakuma and Kaede Shimizu (best girl <3), decide to form a band in their first year of high school after seeing a certain light music club's first live concert at a certain high school's festival, roping in another girl, Maho Sawabe, in their chatter of disappointment about their school's lack of a light music club. However, Maho helps them discover that there is, instead, a light music appreciation society which the three join after some complications and discovering Riko Satou, a second-year member of the society. The story then goes into a situation of the girls obtaining instruments, and then following that, the story goes it's own route, which gives it a bonus point for originality to me.

Art - 9: The quality of art is one of the most interesting things to me about K-On! Shuffle. To be absolutely honest, back in 2007, Kakifly definitely had places to go in terms of the art quality in the original K-On! manga, it was good at best, but it was inconsistent and even below average at a lot of times. However, K-On! Shuffle leads me to believe that Kakifly did take KyoAni's success with the anime to heart and improve his own art skills, and if I'm right... that's kinda beautiful. It's hard to explain. It almost feels like he based his improvement on Yukiko Horiguchi's art style so he could make Shuffle look more like the anime. This is a great thing, it's not a lack of originality, all artists improve based on inspiration from others. I know what I said about comparison to the anime, but it's different when it seems like it's intended to be like the anime. I'm very glad that Kakifly took all these years to work on his skills.

Characters - 10: Do you ever see such detail in a manga's characters that you can picture them having a particular voice actor if the manga was to get an anime adaptation? That's exactly how I feel about most of the characters in K-On! Shuffle. I can imagine Kaede being voiced by Yui Ishikawa, Yukari being voiced by Inori Minase (mainly because she reminds me of Kimari from Yorimoi), Maho being voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki, Karin being voiced by Eri Kitamura and Kano being voiced by Ai Kayano (because her kuudere voice warms my heart every time I hear it). Riko, Shinano and Kurumi are the only ones I couldn't put a voice to, not because I don't like them. I genuinely love these characters, their unique designs and personalities, and, most importantly in a series like K-On!, the chemistry established between them in only 18 chapters. I feel like this connection between the characters is another of Kakifly's major points of improvement, especially after K-On! High School's characters felt kind of lifeless outside of Azusa. If Kakifly had taken inspiration to follow along with the anime a bit earlier, High School would have been better for Jun and Ui due to the characterisation they got in the anime being absent from the manga.

Enjoyment - 8: I mean... it's K-On!. If you enjoy music/CGDCT/slice of life like I do and most of K-On!'s fanbase does, this will be an enjoyable manga for you. Not much else I need to say that I haven't already said.

Overall, I'm rating K-On! Shuffle with a 9/10, as of chapter 18. I hope Kakifly keeps up this quality. I know your standards must be high because of how good K-On!'s anime is, but please give K-On! Shuffle a chance. I hope we get an anime adaptation of this with the same care that the adaptation of the original manga got. There were so many moments in the manga that I could imagine seeing animated with some of the genius direction work we saw under Naoko Yamada in the anime. If it does ever get one, there's two scenes that I know will be beautiful, a bit like Yui's inspiring moment in episode 4 of the anime.