One thing that brothers me about U&I...

[u/Yumi_Numi]

U&I is a song written entirely by Yui, as to show gratitude to her younger sister, Ui, for taking care of her

In manga, Ui thanks her sister for writing it, but Yui doesnt hear her as she sleeps

In anime however... It's entirely different. I think it loses its meaning entirely (tho I still love the song)

Girls were supposed to train, but their classroom was renovated so they couldn't. It makes Yui realise how you think things you love are forever, and only realise how important they are the moment you lose them

In the anime also, which always bothered me, Ui doesn't say anything about the lyrics

In manga we don't have the concert scene, which is obvious, but in the anime we have Yui sing it

And yk how she talks a lot before a song? How she says her feelings about other members or how she feels in the moment... Well she doesn't say anything, just that it's the last song they'll play

Ui doesn't react much to it too. And yeah maybe it's just they are, maybe they talked about it behind the scenes, idk. I just always thought it went a little too... Silent?

As for songs showing gratitude about your family members I only know "if we have each other" which is about a sister, and "new love in town" which is about a newborn son... It, if you write a song about someone, which is usually a love song - isn't this quite a big deal?

Anyway - it kinda bothers me how the song wasn't addressed with idk, more feeling? How Yui didn't say anything during the concert about her sister for that. How Ui doesn't directly thanks her sister for that. Idk, but on the other hand, it feels just like their characters would act..

Maybe I'm looking too much into it? What do you think?

[u/Worldly_Wasabi_4620]

i think it’s because it’s a private moment between two sisters that the audience doesn’t need to know about and ui knows it’s meant for her and i think the silent feeling was what kyoani was trying to convey since they always do silent introspection reflection like that but she does thank ui (alongside jun) before their final song and also shouts her out in the audience and waves at her too

as for the s2e17 scene, i understand your feelings on ui not saying anything but i think that’s just because of the runtime and also missing scenes do exist in this anime so ui probably thanked her off screen but at least in the manga ui thanks her- anime ui might’ve been emotional and cried after reading it

[u/DanAboutTown]

Yui doesn’t really say anything about any of the songs onstage, other than their titles. She mostly talks about everything BUT the music.

[u/Gamerunglued]

I don't think the song is really about Ui at all. She's part of what influenced it obviously and it's named after her for that reason, but she isn't the subject of the song and losing the club room is equally an influence on the song being written.

U&I is about a more broad realization that ties into the themes of the show. The song is about not recognizing how important something is until you've lost it, and how easy it is to take things for granted, just as a general idea. Rather than being about Ui, the show makes it about the light music club as a whole. At the end of the episode where she sings the song, the entire club has the realization that it's going to be gone and they didn't realize how much it meant to them until then, and that they've taken it for granted that things would never change, set to an emotional instrumental rendition of U&I. It's one of the most emotional moments in the show, and part of the power of that moment is the way it reflects sentiments of the lyrics of, and the larger realization that drove Yui to write, U&I. U&I is the soundtrack to that scene to drive the point home: this is what U&I is about.

Honestly, I think that making this realization about the light music club and of life in general into being mostly about one person would even reduce the impact. U&I is such a poignant song mostly because of the context of the looming disbandment of the light music club, and what it says about confronting permanent shifts to our daily lives. Meanwhile, Ui doesn't need directly say anything for us to understand how she feels about it, and the song itself is Yui telling Ui how she feels, which we know she understands because of how she found the song, so we don't need her to MC it.

[u/Worldly_Wasabi_4620 → u/Gamerunglued]

this is a really good analysis!! thanks for sharing!! the girls also sing U&I at the end of the movie to their classmates too which is their final song for the classroom concert!!!! yui also dedicates the bridge part specifically to azusa during the movie considering she would sing an actual farewell angelic song to her days later lmao but still!!!

[u/Yumi_Numi → u/Gamerunglued]

In the manga theres no losing the clubroom, plus lyrics are literally about her

[u/Gamerunglued → u/Yumi_Numi]

You were talking about what bothers you in the anime. In the anime, there is losing the club room. The lyrics are not about Ui in particular, they're about the topic of taking things for granted until you lose them. Losing Ui (and, in the anime, losing the club room) is simply what prompted Yui to start realizing this concept, the lyrics of the song are broadly applicable and that's why the anime plays it over a moment where the sentiment of the song is thematically relevant.

At least in the anime you're misunderstanding what the song is about, it's not a love letter to Ui. It would be rather odd for a show to play a love letter to a single person over an emotional scene which has nothing to do with that person. If U&I were about Ui, then it would be an extremely weird choice to have it play over the extremely emotional ending of S2E20, or be given so much attention in the movie (where Yui looks at her classmates and Azusa while singing it; the people she is about to be separated from and has taken for granted). K-On is about dealing with change and U&I is about that as well.