Lucky Star

Title:Lucky Star
Raki Suta
らき☆すた (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - KYOTO
ENDO Aya
FUKUHARA Kaori
HIRANO Aya
KATOU Emiri
R1 License - Bandai (Defunct)
Having fun in school, doing together homework, cooking and eating, playing videogames, watching anime. All those little things make up the daily life of the anime- and chocolate-loving Izumi Konata and her friends. Welcome to the sometimes relaxing but more than often simply funny lives of four friends!

Based on a 4-koma manga by Yoshimizu Kagami, serialised in Comptiq.

(Summary from ANIDB)

Animation by Kyoto Animation
R1 Licensed by Bandai
24 Episodes

Also see sequel - Lucky Star OVA.

Winner of the 2007 Anime-Reactor awards
Best Comedy Anime and
Best Slice-of-Life Anime

1:23min Series Opening - YouTube Video
Episode Details 
99A
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 6 5 5 6 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:1586#1552]
(Watch-/ Avoid+)

Watching Lucky Star must have been the biggest test of tolerance for me since I was going through Texhnolyze from three years ago. I was warned that the series wasn't for everyone and in my case, I felt like I wanted to go nuts after going through each episode of the show. The series tends to mostly rely on its otaku references and moe character archetypes to push along its laughs, which is no surprise considering Konata's a rabid otaku, the animation's very simple with the characters being moe personified and enough nods are made to plenty of anime, manga, video games and other mediums of the lifestyle. Not to mention that many of the other female characters tend to follow specific character archetypes one would find within the moe genre like Tsukasa being the ditz, Kagami a tsundere and Miyuki a walking moe target to get lightly teased by Konata.

The big problem with the show doing this however is that it tries passing itself off as a slice-of-life series yet it dumps all this moe and otaku-related nods where it overbears the slice of life element and the show relies too much on moe and the otaku pandering to get its laughs. Mundane moments tend to get over saturated with mentions of otaku related subjects and traits found from moe character archetypes as I wasn't too surprised at what to expect from the character antics. Because of this, I couldn't really get too many laughs out of the show where I wouldn't get anything getting me a chuckle for episodes on end and the few occasions where I got some laughs save me just barely giving the series an Avoid rating.

Similar mundane episodic short titles like Azumanga Daioh and My Neighbors the Yamadas knew how to maintain their mundane feel while mixing in comedic moments and not going overboard with its more absurd elements (Chiyo-chichi and fantasies for Azumanga Daioh, dream scenes for Yamadas). Unfortunately for Lucky Star, overuse of moe and otaku pandering had pushed me to my limits just to finish the series because it didn't have me laughing and the moe/ otaku overload was driving me nuts. I don't plan on watching this series again and wish to repress it in the darkest reaches of my mind where I will never recall having watched it.

Last updated Tuesday, November 16 2010. Created Tuesday, November 16 2010.
Rent 8 9 10 8 7 9 Silence [series:1586#2939]
Comedy: Med/High (this is a comedy series no doubt, but as stretch says it takes some getting used to)
Action: None
Drama: Low
Sci-fi: low (only kanata's ghost)
Ecchi: low (some references in convo)


This is a series that needs a lot patience. and you've got to like conversation. because that is what this anime offers most of the time. Skip this show if you seriously cannot stand all conversation... if you just think you can handle it a little, do watch and you will not regret it.

A friend recommended this series to me, but warned me about its conversational style. At first i had some reservations about such an anime because i do love storylines, but soon the first episode interested me a little(the first 2 epis are not that exceptional compared to the rest of the series, so do bear with them). After going into the third, i am completely and irrevocabbly hooked. If you can read fast enough (or if you can understand jap well) you will be smiling and laughing 70% of the time.

This anime has a lot of fan service. By that i do not mean ecchi scenes (lucky star almost has none) but instead it refers constantly to other animes. In fact what really got me going was at the end of the second episode (or is it the third?) konata sang the op from fmp fumoffu... A fumoffu fan like me is bound to be excited. Yeah, and the DVD store character is Gouda the Baka from akane maniax (kimi ga nozuomu eien ova). Really gave me a shock. The major plus in the series is konata's part time job the cosplay cafe (shall not spoil it here). Did i mention, references to Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu keeps appearing, maybe because they are produced by the same company and the seiyu for konata is the same for suzumiya haruhi.

The characters are lovable; no complains about the animation, art and music; the episodes are addicting, but the only complain is of course a lack of a very good plot, but bear in mind that this is a slice of life show, a light respite from normal hardcore drama and action, so a very high rent for me... had it just a bit more story and drama, it would have been a buy.

Last updated Thursday, November 19 2009. Created Tuesday, July 08 2008.
Unevaluated chibi [series:1586#2380]
Sort of a Pani Poni Dash meets My Dinner with Andre. Not my cup of tea, but cute characters and nice animation.

Last updated Saturday, September 08 2007. Created Saturday, September 08 2007.
Buy Stretch [series:1586#628]
(All episodes watched--twice):

Some anime series take me a long time to watch because they are mediocre, and watching them is almost a chore; and, paradoxically, some anime series take me a long time because I love them, and I want to stretch the enjoyment out as long as possible, I consider each episode to be precious and I won't watch them unless I'm in an ideal mood. Such a show is Lucky Star.

I like this show! I went into the first episode of Lucky Star having very little idea what to expect, but found myself pleasantly surprised. The first thing to catch your eye is the lively and energetic OP sequence--it's a blast. At first Lucky Star didn't seem all that funny as the characters talked a lot but did very little; but somehow this technique works. Before long I was smiling, and there were a couple of good jokes before the episode was over. Lucky Star is almost entirely verbal comedy with no slapstick or fanservice. I believe it's based on a four-koma (frame) newspaper-style comic strip, which explains the many quick jokes in different settings. The majority are not LOL funny, but are reliably entertaining nevertheless. Having read a number of other reviews, some viewers couldn't stand the girls-talking-without-any-real-plot motiff while others (like me) were delighted; ratings at AnimeNfo ranged from 2.5 to 9.7 out of 10. Episodes (sometimes) take a long time to watch as there's a lot of subtitles to be read (and my TV would crop part of them off!). It took me nearly 45 minutes to watch episode three (and I was using my PC so I didn't have to guess what the cropped subtitles spelled out). At first I got a little impatient as I had to invest more time and concentration than usual in exchange for my comedy, but in the end the return is well worth it. A fun feature of this show is that it sometimes parodies other anime series; a common subject is Haruhi Suzumiya, which makes sense since both shows are Kyoto Animation productions. HIRANO Aya stars in both, and it's hilarious to see her in one guise making fun of the other. The parody of a certain CGI-heavy series in episode six totally cracked me up. Likewise, the characters Konata runs into in a DVD store (episode ten?) were hilarious--I have no idea what show they are from, but they are animated in a radically different style. Lucky Star kind of reminds me of Azumanga Daioh, minus the slapstick that was fairly plentiful in that series. However, I'd say this show has a commendable style of it's own. For one thing, it caters to the otaku, and I think I now prefer it to Azumanga. The principal characters are four girls--the serious, responsible one, the brilliant but shy one, the ditzy one, and best of all, the otaku one. Blue-haired Izumi Konata, an anime and video game fanatic, was fun, especially her laziness and "May Sickness". I was surprised to be told that she's supposedly 17 years old; the characters look and behave more like middle-schoolers than high schoolers. Episode 12, in which Konata cons her friends into helping her shop at Comiket, was great. Another gem would be episode 16, in which her friends pay a visit to the MoHS-themed "cosplay cafe" where she works part-time (the voices doing the trailer for the next episode cracked me up yet again). Each episode concludes with a bit called "Lucky Channel", in which an uber kawaii host girl shows her true colors. Just thinking back about the last episode I watched leaves me with a grin on my face. For awhile I would still feel a little mentally exhausted at the end of an episode, but this show steadily grew on me, getting easier to enjoy, and taking a lot less time to watch. In fact, in it's second half this has become my favorite comedy of the summer 2007 season. It's hard to resist the temptation to watch the next episode of Lucky Star rightaway, when I'm trying to keep pace with a number of other less attractive series. I wanted to stretch the enjoyment out as long as possible, because I didn't want this series to ever end! The final episode left me with a distinct sadness at saying goodbye to these loveable characters. This is one show which I'll definitely be rewatching, probably more than once. In fact, I already began rewatching it from the start, even though new episodes were still being released. Try it, maybe you'll like it!

A show which takes some getting used to--but when you do, lots of fun and very educational about life in Japan as well!

P.S: I was curious about the English dub of Lucky Star by Bandai. I didn't expect it to be better than the subtitled version with Japanese VAs, and indeed the English voices seemed too high pitched and childish to me (maybe they were selected based on what the characters looked like). Perhaps I'm already addicted to this shows' original form. The music seemed too loud relative to the voices, which was annoying and made it hard to understand the lines spoken by the English VAs. I had to turn the volume up very high to catch everything. Wasn't this funnier in Japanese, I thought to myself? Still, once I got used to it it was fun and took far less time to watch. The thought occured to me that I ought to rewatch the series yet again.

Last updated Friday, January 16 2009. Created Tuesday, April 17 2007.

Other Sites
NameURL
Japanese Language Series Web Site http://www.lucky-ch.com/
Bandai's English Language Series Web Site http://lucky-star.bandai-ent.com/

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