Lucky☆Star: Konata 30

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Me, 291 days ago: I love how we can see the Lucky Star girls again as 30-somethings! The characters are just as charming, the banter is fun, and the new character designs fit them. The new art style takes a while to get used to, but it's nice art. Only two chapters are out right now, but I hope to see more in the future.

Me, today: pain

Yeah, there's only two chapters. It's uncertain if any more chapters will come out, but if you treat these 2 chapters as the full story, it's a glimpse into the adult lives of these beloved characters that will leave ... you saying "Wait, that's it?"

It's hard to recommend this to anyone. If you liked Lucky Star, you will be left wanting more. If you didn't like Lucky Star, you won't like this either. But it's more Lucky Star at the end of the day, and you might want that. I hope that more chapters will come out, but in the meantime, I will just wallow in the disappointment of what could have been another great manga.

You can't enter same river twice.

"Lucky☆Star: Konata 30" is an official spin-off with approval of the original manga author, Yoshimizu Kagami.
What can you expect here? Is it innovative story delving into how some of the most iconic CGDCT in recent years are doing, but years later? Does it use source material to create something new, exciting, and as the tittle suggesting, suited for now 30-something comic fans?
Is it fun?

Well, not really.

First sour experience comes from the art.
In the original series art was not that amazing, since it was somewhat "moe" and heavily based in what was popular in that time and era, but at the ... same time, fitting the 4-panel type of gag-based narration.
Here, in Kona30, art is lacking. It sure comes from someone with passion, but it's just not there. Characters are elongated alien-like caricatures of humans with weird heads. And it's not stylistic choice like in OG, it's rather skill issue in this case. And proportions and sized differs from panel to panel.
Big difference is how storytelling changed - here reader is following probably more popular these days normal panel layout rather than 4-panels two time per page, which I actually like much more, as 4-panel gags are tiring over time.

Second, and probably even bigger issues is how nonsensical the narration is.
Reader is briefly informed what everyone in the gang is doing, what's their occupation, and than just like that, story jumps into kind of story telling and narration similar to what was happening in anime, but that falls flat fast because there's just the four women doing no-substance talk. I'm not saying it should be like Tokyo Tarareba Girls, but it shouldn't be what it currently is as well.
Pacing is off, there's wrong tempo to whatever is happening, and it just feels more like a fan-work from cheap doujin.

The biggest caveat I have is just why?

With all that was made in original manga, anime series, OAV, games, cameos and so on, it seems like franchise came to a natural, lower interest. Original comic is still running and have a dedicated fan-base.

Like I mentioned before, adding "30" to the tittle, for me, feels like it would shift the story to a bit more serious approach. Of course, I have nothing against comedy series, but the thing about that genre is it needs to be funny and Kona30 is not.
Maybe series will grow into something better, but by that time it would probably be called Konata 40 or 50.

It sure takes some guts to pick up such recognizable series and characters and create spin-off, but without good story or just nice art, this is nothing more than stain. Like a pebble you'd find while eating stew.
Will check it again in few months, but after how bad it is now, I really doubt it will get much better.

If you are oldschool LuckyStar enjoyer I advise you to pretend this series doesn't exist. New to LuckyStar? No idea what it is? - just read OG manga or watch adaptation animation.
But if you decide to read this manga anyway, be prepared for big disappointment.