Into the actual show, Lucky Star is an anime about the lives of four teenage girls. The girls just live out their everyday lives... and that’s honestly about it. Sounds, boring doesn’t it? Well, it’s not the boring everyday events themselves that make the show, but more the way the events are expressed on screen. It tries to put itself out there using its cuteness factor, different camera angles, certain animation effects and overall puts more emphasis on what seem to be just ordinary things. What we get from this is a simple, yet over the top anime that shows us that life really is stranger than fiction. Some would call this ingenious.
I think that from an art and filmmaking perspective, the show succeeds immensely, but when I look at the show realistically it seems a lot harder to find entertainment value as it should be, but overall the show was good enough to make me want to watch the entire 24 episode series, so I shouldn’t be complaining too much.
Lucky star can be a very funny show and the anime and game references and parodies I particularly enjoyed, but at the same time, the show can end up being incredibly lame, especially during the first episode. The beginning of a show is supposed to hook you in, but surprisingly, the first episode was one of the worst in the series for me which is very strange.
Now, if you’re going to make a show with such a miniscule plot, you’d think that it would be vital to have an engaging cast of characters and a well written script. Thankfully, Lucky Star has just that. Each character has their own unique personality and ways of thinking and behaving. I won’t explain the characters personalities and traits because I feel that I would be ruining one of the most important aspects of the anime. Lucky Star focuses on character development and discovery, and learning more about these characters is good and can sometimes be funny, but there are many lame, boring, crazy or just plain stupid moments that didn’t convert as well into the lucky star formula as other moments, which sadly ruins a large portion of the show.
I personally think that the lack of males in the show could be one reason why I didn’t enjoy Lucky Star as much as I should have. People of different genders often have different lifestyles, personalities and real life issues and by introducing more males, the show’s audience would broaden and the show would be more entertaining and more popular overall.
I don’t have much else to say about Lucky Star. The animation and art is smooth, crystal clear and a joy to look at, the music, while mostly forgettable, does fit the show and it’s scenes well and, with the exclusion of a few annoying voices, the dub is well performed and fits the characters well too.
I do have to bring up one more issue though. The voices are way too high pitched and the main cast are way too small and cute. They’re supposed to be sixteen at the beginning of the show and eighteen by the series finale, but they all look and sound like they’re eight years old. I know I’m just starting to nitpick now, but it does seem out of place to me.
Summing things up, Lucky Star is... different to what I’m used to which makes it difficult for me to properly judge and rate. This one of those things that you'll either love or love to hate, and as usual with this type of thing, I'm one of the very few people who are somewhere in between. I think Luck Star deserves all of the criticism that it gets, but at the same time deserves all of its praise too. Sort of like Mirror's Edge in the gaming world, I would recommend that you experience this anime, even if it's just for the experience, and don't just watch the first crappy episode either. Watch two or three more and if you don't like it, then that's fine, but if you do like it then that's fine as well.
Overall, I thought that the show wasn’t too bad. It had plenty of bad moments but, at the same time, it had a lot of good moments too. It’s kind of embarrassing to say this but Lucky Star is a pretty good show, just not a great one, so I’m giving Lucky Star a 7.5 out of 10. Funny sometimes, and a good watch to cheer you up every now and then, but this type of anime doesn't really appeal to me much, though I do recommend it for the experience. If it’s a comedy you’re looking for then I would recommend something like Sgt. Frog more than I would Lucky Star, but wether Lucky Star deserves its popularity or not really does depend on what you think.
This show isn’t for everyone and that’s okay and sadly, it wasn’t really the type of anime for me, but despite that, I’m glad I saw Lucky Star, even if it was just for the experience. I’ve learned a lot about Japanese culture and about myself from watching the show and I’m glad I made the decision to check it out.
