Hello again, ye ol’ Mythical Readers. Yes, yes, I know you don’t exist, but please allow me my personal peccadilloes. It soothes my old man heart to pretend I’m not talking to myself (or perhaps speaking to possible but wildly improbable future digital archeologists).

My anime watching has dwindled of late. In the long period of my anime “fandom”, there have been years where I didn’t watch anime at all. In early times it was because anime shows were but minimally available outside Japan, and quite expensive. I didn’t have the cash to get them, or the time to hunt them down.

But every few years, I’d come back and play catch up on things that had been released during my periodic interregnums. It was in the latest period of returning, that I discovered “K-On!”. It was a couple of years or so after it had been completed, actually. Hence I missed all the fan uproar over the show while said uproar was actually occurring.

“K-On!” is in my mind of late, because it’s in my ears of late. That is, I’m listening to the music from the show more often. What I’ve noticed is that the music from anime shows and/or music is more accessible to me than the video of it is. I listen to music while doing other things, while video requires dedication of attention. So I listen to the music from the shows I like, far more than I rewatch the actual show.

So I actually get more entertainment minutes from shows where I like the music but not the show itself so much. A particular example is “Brynhildr in the Darkness”. The show was just so-so — great characters, but the pace of the show was really off. Reportedly, even the workers on the show told the director that he was ruining the show. Shoving half the plot into the last two episodes will tend to do that. But the soundtrack was absolutely wonderful.

But to get back to “K-On!”, I’ve been listening to its music more often, specifically because I’ve noticed that my mood is much better when I do so. With the world apparently deciding now is a good time to destroy itself, a mood lift now and then is increasingly required.

If music soothes the savage beast, perhaps mad admin fall within that category as well.