Interest

K-On!! Album to Ship on Audio Cassette Tape (Updated)

The Japanese music label Pony Canyon will release Ho-kago no Tea Time II, the second full album from the K-ON!! anime's fictional band, on October 27 on CD and cassette tape. The album will officially ship on two CDs: a "Studio Mix" with 10 standard studio recordings, and a "Cassette Mix" that recreates the 12-song tape that the Ho-kago no Tea Time band records onscreen in episode #23 of the anime. Plus, the limited first edition of the album will bundle an actual, pink cassette tape, complete with a "deluxe case," with the same "Cassette Mix" on it.

K-ON!! is the second television anime series based on kakifly's K-On! four-panel comedy manga about a group of high school girls who form a band. Voices actresses Aki Toyosaki (Yui Hirasawa), Yōko Hikasa (Mio Akiyama), Satomi Satou (Ritsu Tainaka), Minako Kotobuki (Tsumugi Kotobuki), and Ayana Taketatsu (Azusa Nakano) perform as their respective characters in the anime's soundtrack and best-selling CD releases. Episode 23 "Ho-kago!" ("Afterschool") aired in Japan last week, and the final episode of the main storyline just aired on Tuesday. Two more side-story episodes will air later this month before the anime actually ends on September 28.

Buyers of both the Ho-kago no Tea Time II album and the anime's fifth Blu-ray Disc/DVD volume can enter to win one of 10,000 special "Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss" #1 "Kō3!" Version CDs. The CDs will have a recording of the character Yui humming the song "Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss" ("My Love is a Stapler"), as heard in the first episode of K-ON!!, "Kō3!" ("High School Seniors!")

Bandai Entertainment announced at Anime Expo in July that it licensed the first K-On! television series, and Yen Press licensed the original manga.

Sources: Natalie, Nojitetsu

Image © kakifly, Houbunsha/Sakuragaoka High School Light Music Club

Update: Tuesday's airing of the final episode in the main K-ON!! storyline prompted musician T.M. Revolution (Gundam Seed, Rurouni Kenshin, Sengoku Basara Two) to post on Twitter, "Azu-nyaaaaaaaaaan! .. (´口'*) Uwaaaa~n." [Via Gadget News]