I didn’t blog any of the episodes, but I watched the whole season of Lucky Star. As an amalgamation of a slice of life comedy, an infomercial for The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, and a quiz of otaku culture, Lucky Star was a lot of things to a lot of people. Overall, I found the series to be very entertaining, and consistently so, but I’m not sure how well the series will age.
The characters are (for the most part) not all that deep, and the introduction of various younger characters midway through the season prematurely ended any chance to really get to know any characters really well. A few of the characters are really under-utilized, with the most notable example being Miyuki. I’m not sure that the cast needed to be so large, but the new characters did inject new life into the series, because many of the jokes are reused over and over (especially when Konata and Kagami tease each other).
With that said, the characters are pretty appealing, and very likeable. My favorite was definitely Kagami, with Konata a close second, but I also really liked Tsukasa, Patty, Nanako (Kuroi-sensei), and Miyuki’s mom, Yukari. A lot of the jokes reference “I do that too!” moments, and the humor is well done. However, there are also a shocking number of references to other anime series, especially those that KyoAni also animated. The incredible amount of Haruhi references are sometimes funny (like when Konata cosplays as Haruhi, or when Konata is bribed by Patty for a handshake session with Hirano Aya), and at other times blunt and pointless (like the Haruhi soda commercial). While this sort of humor contributes greatly to the current popularity of Lucky Star, I think it may make the series’ humor difficult to understand and disjointed for future viewers. I base this prediction on the crispy cracker I just broke in half and used for fortune telling.
Not everything about Lucky Star is funny, however. In fact, the first episode got off to a bad start, and I think the food discussion scene was badly placed. Also, I found the general otaku jokes to be much funnier than the vast majority of references to specific anime/manga series. However, the biggest weakness I saw in Lucky Star was Lucky Channel; every time that little cat mewed, I would get a nervous pang and check the progress bar to see whether or not it was signaling the start of Lucky Channel. I thought the parts where Akira threw the ashtray at Shiraishi and how Akira and Shiraishi hated each other in the last episode were ok, but overall I consistently found Lucky Channel to be an unfunny pandering to those who love Shiraishi. And love him they must, because the introduction of the Shiraishi ED sequences really put his role in the series at an all-time high. Generally, I found these Shiraishi ED songs to pretty much be teh sux, and I grew to really abhor Shiraishi by the end of Lucky Star. Yet, with all the online love that Shiraishi’s scenes got, I felt like Mugatu yelling about the piano key necktie.
Concerning the other aspects of Lucky Star, the production values were consistently very good, even with the simplistic character designs. The voice work was absolutely outstanding (especially Konata, although Patty’s VA was very good as well), with the exception of that random guy lady who played all the unnamed side characters (WTF…). The background music was ok, though not very memorable, and the OP was very very good. Naturally it spawned a whole dance sequence, but the OP really was very catchy. I liked the karaoke ED songs, but I hated the Shiraishi ED songs.
Overall, I really liked Lucky Star. I eagerly watched every episode as soon as I got it, and I always felt entertained and satisfied when I was done. There were a few rough patches, but I think Lucky Star succeeded in spite of some recycled jokes and an over-abundance of references to other anime series. If I could rate Lucky Channel and Shiraishi’s ED as a separate entity, I’d give that entity a 1/5, though.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 4.5/5
Related posts:
17 Comments
the random guy who voiced all the side characters is a woman
My criticism still stands, and this new information actually makes the performance that much worse…
Glad to see someone else didn’t like Lucky Channel and those lame Shiraishi endings.
i: Sometimes I think it was a woman, and other times I think it was Shiraishi. :P
And I liked Lucky Channel and the Shiraishi endings. They weren’t taking it seriously, and I liked that aspect of it.
I loved the “kuroi sensei” part at the beginning of each episode. Sometimes I would restart the episode a couple of times just to hear it again and giggle a little to myself each time..
Lucky Star really is the Family Guy of anime…
I call it the illegitimate love child of Family Guy and Azumanga.
Konata cosplaying as Haruhi was one of the reason why I started watching Lucky Star
It’s kinda sad that they already ended the series, especially when I just started to get to like the new cast members. It would be really great if there would be a second season although I kinda doubt it.
Motteke! Sailor Fuku is possibly the new Hare Hare Yukai IMO lol
You’ve obviously been watching far too much Zombie Loan! Yukari is Miyuki’s mom, not Michiru’s mom.
lol Zoolander
…and it wasn’t a random guy playing all the side characters, it was Kujira…she’s actually a woman, believe it or not. :P
Anyway, very good analysis of the show overall, I pretty much agree with everything you said except Shiraishi being “t3h” suxx0rz”. Minorun-run fa’ life!
BLAAARGH, fixed. Damn that Shiraishi, he’s so hot right now.
I dropped Lucky Star on episode 17, but until then, the only thing that could really entertain me was Lucky Channel.
Let me explain, some of the reasons for dropping it were; 1- it became free advertising for KyoAni, 2- Shiraishi ruined my fun trying to guess who would sing the next sequence and what song it would be. (answer: Shiraishi original song/Haruhi song)
But Akira was so comically different from most characters and I couldn’t help but smile whenever she screamed “Lucky Channel!” (or didn’t). Not to mention Daisuke Ono, but that’s mostly because my fangirl-seiyuu-dork side kept laughing at whatever he did. Eventually, that stopped being funny, too.
On the good side, I agree the voice work was great, the OP was catchy, and the general references were really funny. (Ti-mo-te! I still can’t take this off my mind…)
To sum it up, if KyoAni hadn’t turned it into a free-advertising series “Look, Haruhi is god! And Shiraishi is jesus!” later on, I’d love it. No, really.
I’m wondering why I see so many complaints about the MoHS references in LS, and almost none for FMP.
Personally, I quite liked Lucky Channel in its own right – things like the “live event” being a karaoke bar, the build-up before Shiraishi finally snapped and demolished the studio, etc. But Shiraishi’s singing is something he definitely could have kept to himself.
As for people griping about Haruhi more than about Full Metal Panic – I think there are two chief reasons for that: 1) The FMP references were less overt – Tsukasa(?) had a Bonta-kun teddy bear that would sometimes show up, and that was it for the most part. OTOH, Haruhi was stuffed into our faces with extreme prejudice. 2) More people have seen Haruhi and can therefore identify the references. FMP is pretty famous, but Haruhi still has it beat. I myself dropped FMP midway through (not that it was bad, it just didn’t catch my attention), so there could have been some references that didn’t click with me (and in that case my first theory may not stand).
Well, i really hated the lucky chanel part… it was always a bore and i didn’t like shiraishi endings at all!
I agree with Matte, that “Kuroi sensei” part made me restart the episodes many times too! ( just one more time! xD )
Well, overall, i really liked the voices and my favorite chars: 1st Konata 2nd Misao ( yup, that classmate of kagami xD ) and 3rd…dunno… maybe ?Kagami?
Despite the fact that the references of haruhi, at some point started to be anoying to me, i must say it was the best anime Ever!!!
( ” what do you mean? Santa Claus isn’t real… ?” XD )
Haha, I actually loved the Lucky Channel segments, myself. XD Unlike the regular show, they were always consistent, and definitely had lots of laughs. Lucky Star is one of my favorite shows, and I agree 100% with your opinion on the
But I also loved Kagami and Tsukasa a lot. It may have been a rather simple show, that doesn’t take a whole lot seriously, but in the episode where Konata’s mom came to see her family, I almost cried. 
guygirl who did the random voice overs, but not the comment you made about Patty’s voice. In my opinion, it was terrible. Every time I heard that squeaky, stereotypical voice I had to cover my ears…. Oh, and I DID like the Shiraishi endings at first, but after a while they became a little bland.By the way, Konata might be my favorite anime character ever.
Overall LS is one of best slice of life comedy series. Lucky Channel was okay for most part but Shiraishi’s ED songs was extremely annoying.
not to mention it didn’t fit with the show, this is anime series not live show.
holy crap im just like konata. (except im a guy lol) im constantly playing videogames yet im the fastest runner in my grade. all my teachers and friends keep bitchin at me to run track but they wont listen to me. I also love anime. lucky star is pretty good, but i like animes more like bleach and naruto.
2 Trackbacks
Lucky Star: An animated kind of stand-up…
So will Lucky Star stand the test of time? If nothing changes between in a decade or more, perhaps. More likely is that years from now, it will be watched like one would watch archival footage……
[...] didn’t think you’d pick Kagami, since I never saw you as a Lucky Star fan, until I read your review of course. Oh, and Setsuna, that Alto-hime avatar was something I reserved for the [...]