Konata Izumi (the short blue haired girl) is the eccentric, outgoing girl with a cheerful but mischievous sense of humor with a habit of doing all-nighters of playing games and watching anime, which does mess up her studying habits despite her being smart a bit of times. Most of her traits around videogames do come from her father, who is a bit creepy at a few times whenever dating sim games, most of the manga he reads & having a lolicon fetish since his late wife Kanata has a resemblance of Konata herself (which is disturbing at first) but he isn’t a pedophile (good thing, too.) Konata is that character that many otaku would consider their dream girl but still seems very lazy and inept at her other part of social life.
Kagami & Tsukasa Hiiragi (the two purple-haired girls) is fraternal twin sisters. Kagami being the older sister who has good grades, concerned about her weight most of the time but loves to eat sweet food and is the archetype of being the tsundere in the show and the fact that Konata loves to irritate her and seems to be more of the level-headed one is proof in the dust. Tsukasa is the younger sister who isn’t good at studying or sports but she can cook and is portrayed as the klutz and is easily forgetful about her work, which is different than Konata being lazy or busy with her hobbies.
Miyuki Takara (the pink-haired one with glasses) is practically the show is known as “the moe factor” of the main 4. She’s smart, well-mannered, extremely polite, and comes from a very wealthy family. She is best described as a meganekko, or glasses-wearing girl and is the tallest of the girls. She is the one often relied for her help with their studies and maybe even better-rounded than Kagami. Although like Mikuru in Haruhi Suzumiya, Miyuki has fallen victim of Konata’s bouts of verbal sexual harassment and believe me, there is more references of that show and other anime but that can wait.
Other characters include Yutaka Kobayakawa, Konata’s cousin who first appeared in episode 14; Minami Iwasaki, who is the show’s ‘mysterious’ and ‘emotionless’ character of the show and very good friends with Yutaka; Patricia Martin, the 1st-year American transfer student who is a big fan of anime and manga and everything Japanese; Hiyori Tamura, an amateur dōjin artist who likes to draw mostly yaoi to yuri anime, especially when it involves her friends (specifically, Yutaka and Minami); Izumi Wakase & Ayano Minegishi are Kagami’s classmates who doesn’t really contribute much and mostly background characters most of the time. Nanako Kuroi is the homeroom teacher for Konata and is more of a friend due to her relaxed personality and she, like Konata, plays online RPGs at her spare time but she does remind Konata when to study on her work. Yui Narumi is Konata’s cousin and a police officer for the Saitama Prefectural P.D. who acts before thinking, a klutz (again?) & a meganekko.
Also on every end of each episode, there is a short segment called “Lucky Channel”, which in the segment where host Akira Kogami and assistant Minoru Shiraishi mostly discusses certain characters in the show and the events happening around the anime. But one of the most recurring and (IMO funniest) jokes in the show is the relationship between the two partners with Akira masquerades herself as the typical moe girl but in reality, she is a violent, cynical, disturbing, deep voiced burnout entertainer….and that what makes it funny about her. You expect the girl to be the same basic cute moe girl but the more f***ed up she is, the more interesting it is.
However, the problems are this show is that when it tries to be funny, it means up falling flat, much like the first episode where they discussed about food most of the time and the many anime/manga/videogame references, which can be too annoying a few times, whether it’s either Haruhi Suzumiya, Sgt. Frog, Azumanga Daioh, Gurren Lagann, Dragonball, Initial D and I thought I buried that show once I was done with it. However, my second guess is that the point of the references is to appeal to hardcore otakus who know about this stuff and I don’t think it will attract any newcomers to anime if this is the first thing you’re going to watch.
Okay. The animation by Kyoto Animation is very gag-based and nothing special but it’s passable but the character designs just feel like moe blobs and there is nothing more than that. The music is, well, the opening theme I heard once and it was okay but I wasn’t going to hear it all over again once I start to watch the show back to back. I just skip the intro and straight into the episode once I get far into it. The ending music……there isn’t just a single song in there. The first half is mostly karaoke by the main cast of girls and the second half is live-action musical sequences done by the voice actors of the Japanese dub.
Speaking of voice actors, you’ll notice the same Japanese actress Aya Hirano & the English dub actress Wendee Lee voices Konata in the series and was previously the voice of Haruhi Suzumiya. Mostly the voice actors from the latter series (either Japanese and English) appear in Lucky Star.
FINAL VERDICT: At times, Lucky Star can be a very funny and entertaining anime but when you throw in the many anime/manga references that not everybody will get, you’re going to lose points on that. Some of the characters are relatable at some of the light dramatic parts later but I wouldn’t hold on to them for the long haul. I would still recommended this to some people if they want some moe in their life but if you hate that, I suggest you turn back and take the blue pill.
