For all of its achievements in storytelling, cinematography, theming and all those other words we all love so much, something that a lot of fans tend to forget with time is that anime can be weird. I can be obtuse, it can be confusing, hell it can be outright stupid at times, and the admittance fee can appear to be way too high to someone on the outside looking in.
This was pretty much my situation in the summer of 2013, anime was something I had been acutely aware of but had no idea how to go about getting into. And with such a seemingly
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incoherent consensus regarding what’s great and what’s terrible, it was a scene I was pretty content to ignore. I had been a mildly big Dragon Ball fan up to this point, had a growing adoration of Studio Ghibli, and had seen enough bits and pieces of popular shows that, while I had enjoyed, didn’t necessarily convince me that this was something that appealed to ME in particular.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until skimming through a random vlog by YouTuber Digibrony that I caught sight of a stray wall scroll for a series I had never heard of that was implacably appealing. All of my favourite shows at the time were on some form of break and I was kind of hankering for another show to get into, so I passively looked it up on YouTube and hunted down the first episode. If only I could have known what I had just begun.
Before I can blink I’m thrown headfirst into a trio of immeasurably adorable girls ranting about their favourite foods for upwards of 10 minutes. It was so bafflingly bizarre different from anything I’d ever experienced and I had no way of rationalising how anyone saw fit to animate this. And I was in love. I’ve heard a number of people, even fans detail how this was a terrible way to start the series and in no way represents the show’s true potential. For me, I was hooked. HARD. The second I realised that it wasn’t some sort of gag, and that the characters’ really were just talking about how they eat their favourite foods in unnecessary amounts of detail, I knew that I had stumbled across something amazing. This may actually be the most effective and memorable first episode if any anime series for me, and sets up the show’s characters, tone and atmosphere as perfectly as I could imagine.
Anyway, Lucky Star is a quiet, slow-paced comedy series starring 4 high school girls living their lives in about as normal a capacity as possible. The show is the very definition of slice of life, with all of the various random slices being split into segments and a set number of those segments making up the runtime of an episode. But the thing that makes Lucky Star so interesting as one of my first anime series is the otaku-centricity evident in virtually every aspect of its design. The one thing I knew about this series going in is that our protagonist Konata is obsessed with anime, video games and manga to the point that the majority of her dialogue is layered with some type of obscure reference. A big part of the comedy is built around how little her friends understand her, and the funny thing is neither did I. I’ve heard multiple times that all of Lucky Star’s appeal would fly right past a viewer that doesn’t know anything about otaku culture, but I slowly realised how untrue that was, at least for me. Seeing Konata’s passion for collecting figures and DVDs that pretty much reflected my passion for collecting video games inspired me to learn everything I could to ascend to her level. The show does as much explaining as it does referencing and it created this feeling of camaraderie for members of the audience that were “in the know” so to speak. Whenever Konata would use a word I didn’t know, I was compelled to look it up. Whenever she spoke highly of a show, suddenly I really wanted to check it out. I’ve gotten more anime recommendations from Konata alone than I have from any of my friends. I think a big part of the why the show had this effect on me is because of its tendency to invite the audience IN, rather than push them away, leading to a wave of otaku pride and camaraderie with Konata as the poster child.
One of my favourite things about Konata’s character is that despite the fact that the show does portray her as the type of hardened fujoshi that stays up all night playing MMOs, she is also shown to have pretty great social skills. She’s perfectly adept at maintaining close friendships and over the course of the show we see Konata progressively assimilating her friends to the dark side, dragging them to cons and pressuring them to cosplay. Konata’s relationship with her friends is pretty similar to my relationship with Lucky Star as a whole when I first watched it. Even when I didn’t understand everything it was saying, it had more than enough going for it that I found it wholly enjoyable.
One of the show’s absolute greatest strengths is its completely realistic and natural feeling dialogue that carries most scenes. The characters have so much chemistry and they all converse so organically that it blows my mind that this was a scene that someone actually had to write as opposed to an interaction happening in real-time. It’s also crazy freaky how well the show manages to take the little thoughts at the back of my head I’ve had but never known how to vocalise, and present them in the form of an animated series. Hearing Konata talk about the frustration of dealing with two casts for anime and drama CDs perfectly reflected how I was feeling about subs and dubs at the time. She concludes that while it does indeed take some getting used too, you’re ultimately getting two casts for the price of one! There’s this other scene were Konata suggests that because of blogs, magazines and forums, youths read more now than they ever did before, which was exactly the point I was constantly trying to make. Konata trying to establish a solid definition for the word “moe” was also fantastic. The writer’s clearly had an expert understanding of the quirks and idiosyncrasies inherent in people, and the fact that they could so perfectly and consistently implement them onto fictional characters is a massive achievement and increases my belief in the show’s world tenfold. There’s a reason watching this show brings out feelings of nostalgia and glee to fans. Memories of aimless conversations with friends about nothing, hell I’m having one right now. It’s not quite as enjoyable as Lucky Star, but still. In fact, that right there may be the very reason a pretty decent amount of anime fans vehemently despise this show: I guess they’ve never known friendship. There is something inherently soothing about this kind of experience. It’s pretty much the same as the psychological effects that Let’s plays and podcasts have on viewers, and just like Lets Plays and podcasts, I don’t think a show like this would really work without interesting people to carry it, especially after seeing so many other similar shows trying to recapture this show’s magic and failing.
The characters in Lucky Star are by no means the most deep, complicated or interesting people in anime history, but I think it’s kind of narrow-minded to consider them shallow by any means, and to do so would be ignoring so many aspects of what can make a character engaging. The girls in this show are thoroughly and consistently characterised, have fantastic chemistry, memorable character designs and different comedic highlights. I’ve always been a huge fan of shows that can realistically depict friendship while also managing to make all of the characters individual. For a while my favourite character was Tsukasa, whose constant failing only gets more and more brutal, but by the end I found myself completely in love with Kagami. She’s the most developed and interesting to me, has by far the most unique and creative poses and expressions in the show, her chemistry with Konata is legendary and she overall is the star of a lot of the show’s most memorable scenes. Since Kagami is slightly more insecure and cynical than the others, she tends to headline some of the more sombre and introspective moments. There’s even little nuggets of character development for those paying attention. At the beginning of the series, Kagami is shown to outright dislike Konata, and denounces her scummy otaku ways openly. But throughout the series, Kagami gradually lowers her guard and becomes better acquainted to Konata’s obsession, while also sharing some of her own interests. There’s this great scene in the middle of the series where Konata and Tsukasa find themselves completely unfulfilled while Kagami’s hanging out with some other friends, illustrating the subtle change in the group’s dynamic.
Again, these aren’t characters that demand your attention with wacky gimmicks and catchphrases, but rather characters built from simple concepts, but developed with enough detail to make them memorable. We see EVERY aspect of these girls lives in complete detail. Since there’s no narrative to speak of, the show has the opportunity to go into the type of detail that most shows just can’t. We get to know all of their family members and the dynamics that come with it, which is extremely rare in anime. We get to see them in their downtime and fussing about little problems like room temperature, which creates a strong sense of immersion and relatability. Things like Kagami trying to get sleepy by reading a book, but only becoming tired the second it time to wake up. Or Kagami finding her favourite handkerchief was in her pocket for a year. Or Kagami having a non-stop crappy day which culminates in her forgetting her wallet while AT the till. Yeah, Kagami is by far the most relatable character to me.
Another one of the most enjoyable and refreshing things about Lucky Star is how grounded in reality it is. Every exceedingly profound and emotional moment you’d come to expect from anime ends up being brilliantly subverted in Lucky Star. One of the most telling moments of the shows unidealistic nature is when Konata starts hyping up the start of the new school year as a chance for a brand new, visual novel-style encounter with a guy, before immediately realising that in the real world, she’s actually starting afresh with a bunch of awkward high school boys that have no interest in her whatsoever. With that said, the girls in this show aren’t really portrayed as the unfathomably gorgeous women that most viewers are accustomed to in anime. I mean, their definitely cute and all, but other than Miyuki, none of the girls really stand out as the type that would get lots of attention, which pisses them off endlessly. This, once again, increases my immersion in the Lucky Star’s setting massively. Dumb arguments with sisters that resolve themselves, moments of fleeting melancholy after an amazing concert, Lucky Star nails it all without ever feeling too “anime”.
This show got me thinking pretty hard about how parody can be done right in a show, and how it can be done massively wrong. Parody is the blood that runs through Lucky Star’s veins and the script is so dense with call-backs and shout-outs that there are pretty comprehensive online guides trying to decipher every single reference. This is most noteworthy in the Lucky Channel segment after each episode, which is definitely the most adult and self-referential part of the show. Watching an animated Minoru Shiraishi make a case for why it’s blasphemous to consider Kagami a run of the mill tsundere, or Akira spitefully calling Tsukasa a “droopy eyed” moeblob adds an extra layer of self-awareness to the already masterfully meta series. Watching Konata criticize the Haruhi ending just as harshly as the fans did was also brilliant, especially considering Kyoto Animation themselves made the show only a year earlier. By the way Konata, you’re wrong. That episode was awesome. Watching Konata watch her voice actress Aya Hirano perform her character’s song from Haruhi may be the most mind-blowingly meta thing ever put to animation. Anyway my point is that with every parody and callback, I can feel the creator’s incredible love for anime culture, and how much of that love they poured into this series. I imagine watching this show in 2007 was a revelation, since every joke and quip would have been particularly relevant. The equal levels of passion for otakuism that both the people making and watching Lucky Star feel creates a massive sense of camaraderie that exponentially increases my adoration of the show.
Then there’s cheap, cynical garbage like The Big Bang Theory that uses nerd culture as a consistent punchline to point the finger of judgement at society’s supposed biggest outcasts. Every tired meaningless reference to something the writer’s assume nerds like is so worn thin that instead of inviting you in, it separates the audience into opposing fragments: the people that think they’re above the main characters, and the people who sheepishly admit the shame that is relating to them to some degree. Every character’s development involves them distancing themselves from their nerdy roots as much as possible and finding a woman that can teach them the ways of the civilised man. That show is cancer and watching it is bad for you. But enough about that.
In terms of art and animation Lucky Star is gorgeous. All of the characters and settings have a fantastic hand drawn aesthetic with an awesome Crayola-like palette. The show creatively prevents the audience becoming bored with the sight of girls talking with occasional hyper-detailed shots of passer-by’s, dead cicadas, scenery, the works. KyoAni has become massively acclaimed for their incredible attention to detail that makes their characters and settings feel real, and this may be the show that kicked off their reputation for producing some of anime’s greatest visual masterpieces. Lucky Star’s big moments are made that much more engaging thanks to the production value, particularly in its dedication to a joke. But, one of the most impressive aspects of the show’s visuals to me are how well it can communicate a scene’s tone with its shading and lighting effects, making the more melancholic and even touching scenes much more effective than they would have been otherwise. The character designs are fantastic and kind of iconic at this point. The show put a lot of priority on giving everyone unique and detailed outfits, which for me is always a good thing and I’ve always been a huge fan of how expressive all of the expressions are. The soundtrack fits this show like a glove with one or two tracks being among my all-time favourites in anime. It all enhances the already perfect tone and establishes a real “cinema” that is unique to this show. They’re the type of fun, bubbly tracks that remind you of your youth, and help you see the simple beauty in mundanity.
Oh man, the more I think about it, the more I realise how important it is to me. There’s just not that much to complain about with this show. I mean if I had to force myself to find something to pick on, at the halfway point of the show, Konata’s cousin joins the show, along with a new batch of freshman. These girls aren’t nearly as fun or memorable as the originals. I mean, I don’t dislike any of them, but they just can’t match the chemistry of the main girls, which makes sense considering they’ve known each other for much less time, but it also means they’re not as fun to watch. The new girls are mostly defined by about one or two traits that don’t make them particularly interesting as people. Also, introducing 2 new otaku girls to join Konata was a weird decision, and sort of numbs the idea that Konata is the standout nerd on the show. But still, these aren’t big complaints in the slightest, and I definitely think the second half of the show is better anyway, so whatever.
When I finished Lucky Star within the span of a few days, during that fateful summer, I immediately declared it to be my favourite anime of all time. And while I don’t really feel that way anymore, I still love this series to death. Every aspect of the show ends up being more than the sum of its parts entirely due to fantastic execution. To paraphrase one of my favourite readings on the show, by Daria Morgendorfor, Lucky Star is so thorough in its shallowness that it somehow transforms into depth. 2 years and hundreds of anime later, I still find that the show is massively entertaining, even more so than it used to be now that I actually understand the jokes and it still has a very special place in MyAnimeList. It’s also proven itself over the years to be one of the most rewatchable anime I’ve ever seen. I can watch any episode of Lucky Star at ANY time without having to worry about arcs. I find that I actually prefer the English Dub of the show, which is exceptionally rare for me. The dialogue’s been spiced up, everyone suits their characters perfectly and bring something unique to their role and Konata once again shared a voice actress with Haruhi, this time Wendee Lee. One thing, however, that Lucky Star does that literally no other anime can do for me is somehow make me forget that snobby, bitter, egotistical, evil anime fans exist. The anime community collapses into itself and all is right with the world. When I watch the show, I’m taken back to where I was when I first watched it, no MAL reviews, no 4chan, no unwarranted opinions other than my own. Just me and the show. Pure bliss.
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Oct 19, 2015
Lucky☆Star
(Anime)
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For all of its achievements in storytelling, cinematography, theming and all those other words we all love so much, something that a lot of fans tend to forget with time is that anime can be weird. I can be obtuse, it can be confusing, hell it can be outright stupid at times, and the admittance fee can appear to be way too high to someone on the outside looking in.
This was pretty much my situation in the summer of 2013, anime was something I had been acutely aware of but had no idea how to go about getting into. And with such a seemingly ... |
