Anime Expo 2010 yielded the first in what will hopefully be a fruitful harvest of industry news yesterday with the announcement at Bandai Entertainment's panel that the anime adaptation of K-On! will finally be making its way to American shores. Unfortunately, the company wasn't much more forthcoming with details such as who the voice cast will consist of or whether or not there are any talks for licensing K-On! season two, which is still airing in Japan. (Season two has two exclamation marks, actually. Get it? Season two?) They have, however, confirmed via Twitter that the series will be available on both Blu-Ray and DVD (thanks metalsnakezero!).
K-On! started as a four-panel comic in publisher Houbunsha's monthly seinen anthology Manga Time Kirara in 2007. If four-panels seems like a tiny amount of space to build a manga from--let alone a title that's become as spectacularly successful as K-On!--remember that such powerhouses as Azumanga Daioh and Sazae-San are also both four-panel affairs. The comic follows the story of four high school girls who form a band, Ho-kago Tea Time, and their travails as they learn to perform and juggle school pressures. Only time will tell if this simple premise and the show's adorable moe art style will cause the stampede of popularity here as it did in Japan.
Anyway Bandai has confirmed that it'll be on DVD and Blu ray so I super hype for a HD K-on at my house :D
http://twitter.com/bandaient/status/17523864515
@metalsnakezero: Thanks for the update!
I am totally behind this idea!
Oh god no, I didn't think about the songs until now, K-On! characters speaking English would be bad enough, but SINGING!? NO! NONONO! NOOOOOO!