Ya know those try not to sing anime challenges? Yeah? Good. That’s my reason. After seeing the Lucky Star op in almost every single video I’ve watched for those challenges, I finally decided to give in and actually see what it was all about.
Short version: Cute and decent. Definitely had its flaws but can surely put a smile on your face at the end of the day. Not the worst anime by a long shot. If you like cutesy anime styles, slice of life, and simple, innocent comedy, then this show is for you.
Long version: Please proceed to read.
Story - 6/10
Like most (or perhaps all) pure slices of life, Lucky Star had no story. Just 4 highschool girls going about their daily lives and experiencing event, after event, after event. But for being so basic and repetitive, I actually found the execution not half bad.
Each episode offered some new scenarios and discussions between the girls (as well as the few other minor secondary characters throughout the show) that actually held shape and a decent amount of entertainment. Some of it may have been a tad bit slow topic wise, but I doubt no one is able to relate to every event or conversations that’s brought up, as there are quite a few times where there are jokes and talks of personal experiences that may or may not be understood.
There was no excessive drama, no suspenseful, crazy love triangles, no action packed fights, no reincarnation or fantasy worlds.
Just nice, simple, executions of daily life that try to offer up nothing but a good time.
Art - 6/10
2007 Kyoto Animation. Art could have been a lot better, but for the vibe the anime gives off, I get it. It’s cute, colorful, a little lazy at times, but it works.
Sound - 5/10
Very mediore, but it was far from horrible. Cutesy and fitting with the obvious insanely catchy op.
Characters - 5/10
Character time ! To start off, I loved our 4 main girls. I found myself relating to each one of them someway or another, a feat that I actually don’t come across too often in that much of a bulk. Konata’s otaku self (duh), Kagami’s responsibleness, mom like tendencies, and study habits, Miyuki’s kindness and sight troubles (glasses for life), and Tsukasa’s airheadedness and love for cooking. Female characters always end up becoming more memorable to me if I can relate to them somehow, which I definitely did. I am also aware that relatableness was a major point for this show, as that’s where most of our “story” and “enjoyment” resides, but I will get to that later.
Now as for the rest of the character’s that we see in Lucky Star…I could honestly go without them. To be honest, the presence and shove in of everyone else was why I gave the character score a 5 instead of a 6 or 7, as I honestly believe that they took away from the show. I’ll briefly go over the groups I’ve put them from most tolerable to just straight pointless.
Yui, Nanako, and the other family members of the main 4 girls - Our adult protagonists. Any slice of life has them. They add the more adult aspects of life that are a little more serious in addition to possible comedic placement. Not much of a problem here.
Ayano and Misao - Two girls who associate themselves with Kagami. They show up every so often during the 2nd half of the series for maybe 2-3 minutes at a time. That fact alone made them tolerable as well, but still not very important.
Now here’s where we really go down hill, starting with…
Yutaka, Minami, Hiyori, and Patrica - Konata’s cousin, the cousin’s friend from middle school, another otaku who draws manga, and a foreign girl who works at a cafe with Konata. I want to make it clear that I don’t despise Yutaka at all. However, she’s far from memorable, and it’s nothing compared to the other 3 girls. In my opinion, having these 4 girls have their own little group of 4 seriously and pointlessly took away from our main characters. I don’t mind secondary characters, but there’s something about side stories that involve the secondary characters to TREAT them like main characters that bug me. Not only that, but the whole aspect is just shoved right on in between the main “plot”, taking away the levels of enjoyment. If that is to ever be done, at least do it with some remotely interesting characters.
And lastly, our Lucky Channel Stars - Since the very first episode, I found the whole period of Lucky Channel to be absolutely pointless and annoying as can be. I didn’t enjoy Akira or Minoru’s interactions whatsoever and couldn’t help but fast forward through them. There was nothing funny about their segments, nothing enjoyable about their completely opposite attitudes. Akira was happy, then pissed off, then happy once more while Minoru just…continued to be Minoru. Every episode, Lucky Channel took away 2-5 minutes of what could have been more scenes with our main girls. A total waste of time that did nothing but disappoint me.
Now in the end, I know the purpose of the other girls that were introduced was to make it so we could have the ending of the whole cheerleading act and have it make sense. I just wish it was executed a little better and that the interactions between the other girls were a bit more tasteful.
Enjoyment - 5/10
Naturally, my enjoyment of Lucky Star came in as mediocre. Up until about episode 12 or 13, I was watching about 3 episodes at a time. But then, I ended up slowing down to 1 or 2. And it was that last push I gave to watch the final 3 episodes to finish it completely.
It wasn’t that the show was growing bad. It was just getting a little boring. The topics were growing sour and sometimes a bit repetitive, and when you add a few mediocre characters on top of that you aren’t gonna get the best combination.
I did smile quite often, and I even let out a few chuckles, thoroughly enjoying and relating to the characters and their discussions as much as I could. I just wish I could have done that all the way through at the tempo I did during the first half of the series.
Overall - 5/10
To sum it up, give Lucky Star a shot. It definitely serves as a more unique Slice of Life because it quite literally aced the department. Anime talk, manga, food preferences, relationship types, eyesight troubles, sleeping issues, studying habits, routines, family matters, daily struggles, personality types ,bodily issues, even innocent likes and fetishes. Lucky Star covers alllllll of it and then some.
You may not be entertained 100% of the time, but then again who knows. Lucky Star was “the anime of 2007” so honestly, I think this one all comes down to preference.
