lucky ☆ star 4
Categories: anime, episodic review, lucky star
Tagged: lucky star
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I really shouldn’t be watching an anime just to figure out, “Hey, that’s from what show again?”
Originally, in its purest form, Lucky Star was a comedy. I think Kyoto’s version of it is something very different… it’s turned into the Otaku Quiz Game. “Hey, that’s from Sailor Moon!” “Hey, isn’t that a Bonta-kun!” I don’t remember laughing, but I do remember the insane amount of self-promotion. All the references to past Kyoto shows? Well, obvious. All the references to Comptiq? Lucky Star was filler for Comptiq when they couldn’t use up all the pages kinda like The Simpsons for The Tracy Ullman Show. All the references to Moe Drill? Well, that’s the name of the Lucky Star video games. Yes, there’s DS games based off of Lucky Star. All the references to Keroro, To Heart, and other seemingly unrelated anime properties? I dunno. Lucky Star has turned into a rich man’s Pani Poni Dash and is that a good thing?
(Though “Moe Drill” sounds more like something associated with Gurren Lagann.)
Honestly, Otaku Quiz Game format only works in mild spurts. You just don’t want to base an entire series around how many visual or audio references to older anime because, well, you’re not really creating new content that way (see Dash, Pani Poni). It’s nice when Itsuki managed to work in some Fumoffu references, but that wasn’t the point of Haruhi, and the fact that it was so random and so out-of-place (but doesn’t seem as out-of-place anymore) made it enjoyable. Now Lucky Star has turned into an endurance test to see if person watching can catch everything… well… like how Konata should put her energy into homework or something or productive, shouldn’t Lucky Star put its energy into something more productive than fawning over other series? Like, oh, making the audience laugh? And maybe that is the joke…
If they wanted to just make a crazy 24 minute block that made fun of other anime and manga (like an anime version of Scary Movie), that’s fine too… but they’re not really doing that either. Beyond the To Heart joke, the rest of the references are just there to be there. Right now, Lucky Star isn’t much more than an elaborate Otaku Quiz Game. Thankfully, we’ll always have Lucky Channel and 2ch to keep us straight.
Shooting Stars
Gotta love all the anime bloggers using Lucky Star as some sort of badge of honor in measuring how many references they can catch… “Hey, that’s Galaxy Angelune on the cover! Aya Hirano was the seiyuu of that lesbian bipolar chix0r!” I’m glad Lucky Star has finally found its purpose in allowing all the bloggers and imageboard toshiaki’s to show off. Otaku Quiz Game format 4tw!
(And I can see how this series divides people… if you don’t understand the references, the show seems even more random, and you’ll mod it down. If you do understand the references, you get to glow for a sec for knowing absolutely worthless information, and you’ll get to feel good about… I dunno… watching more anime and reading more manga than the next guy? Badge of honor… badge of honor… badge of honor…)
Of course, when I say “all the anime bloggers,” I’m not excluding myself. Hey, it’s the plot to Kanon! It took me a while, but I finally got it.
Though I did enjoy this episode because it had more screentime for LOL FANG-SENSEI, and she’s an actual — gasp! — source of comedy. Loved all three of her bits: When she accused Konata of playing online game (since it’s a party of six, pretty much FFXI) and then tossed in the “You kept playing after I logged!” When she had the “I have so many comebacks…” line after Konata’s Kanon defense (which is almost as awesome as the Chewbacca defense). When she tossed the convenience store joke… which was funny just because she reminded me of Borat when she was telling it. “This suit is grey………… NOT!” Her timing and delivery is almost as bad as his.
(Off-topic, since it’s NBA playoff season, nothing tops the comedic force that was Ali G’s NBA promos from last season for TNT. The Blaine ones this season suck monkey balls.)
There’s a Makoto doll. If Konata has the Makoto plushie and Kagami has the Bonta-kun plushie, does this mean that Miyuki has a secret Itsuki plushie?
Remember how Full Metal Panic originally got delayed a season because of 9/11? Not the same order of magnitude, but Lucky Star attempts a “He seemed like such a nice boy!” joke about murderers after the Virginia Tech shootings. Maybe these aren’t coincidences… since I’m guessing anime has a time lag since they need some time to animate an episode, maybe Kyoto can predict American tragedies before they happen. In other words, if you are planning an ocean cruise vacation and Kyoto announces another Full Metal Panic series, I’d rethink those cruise plans.
(They missed a comedic slam dunk here if instead of Konata, they had Higurashi‘s Rena in the doorway.)
I think that this scene is a reference to Cromartie High School. Anyway, I’m glad Konata actually attempted a few jokes– enjoyed her “Suddenly, these cookies don’t taste as good” line– and that’s what she’s ultimately good at, busting other people’s chops. She’s a lot funnier in this mode than she is extolling how awesome she is at video games or at anime blogging.
Then again, the big difference between Cromartie High School and Lucky Star is that there’s no costume rapist in Lucky Star. Damn, so I wasn’t the only one who thought that Tsukasa had more than a passing resemblance to Akari. Oh, well, at least no one noticed yet how Miyuki is like a rich girl’s Mikuru…
Gotta love people who watch a single episode of anime and then feel compelled to immediately write hundreds, if not thousands, of unflattering words about it on the internet just because small portions of it sucked. Seriously, couldn’t those people put this effort into something more sensible, like trying to expose corruption in government or document the on-goinging atrocities in Dalfur? In a completely unrelated story, you can read my rant about killer twincest lolis appearing in Murder Princess here.
Unrelated to the previous point, this episode seems to focus a lot on how people have all this free time, yet are unable to use it wisely. Instead of productive activities (including resting your body via sleep) we happily choose to do activities that seemingly have no value, like read manga, play h-games, and read Zero no Tsukaima light novels. Kyoto is really, really, really, really disparaging their core audience base… then again… I tossed up this screenshot on an imageboard, and the first comment for it was “CHANCE!” You gotta love the anime fanboy community.
Sharp objects? Crazy eyes? Win.
For advocating the delicious flat chest, Konata is gunned down by Dr. 90210.
Enjoyed Taniguchi’s nyoro~n probably more than I’d care to admit to. Then again, it only reinforces the idea that Lucky Star is no more than a glorified bridge between one season of Crom– Haruhi Suzumiya and the next season. It’s pretty obvious what’s really on Kyoto’s mind, and Lucky Star is doing very little to not remind the viewers of the SOS Brigade. It’s almost like 24 episodes of foreplay before we get to see Kyon, Itsuki, and Taniguchi again… just when we do, I wonder if we’ll see Kyon’s sister playing around with matching Tsukasa and Kagami plushies.
(Andohbytheyway, doesn’t Akira remind you of Charlie Brown when she tilts her head like that?)
Some bad news. Because my posts haven’t been up-to-snuff with Lucky Star, AoMM management decided to replace me with David Foster Wallace starting with episode 5. It’s been fun…
And, lastly, 2ch’s fan parody clip. Fanboy time utilization at it’s best. Enjoy.
18 Responses to “lucky ☆ star 4”
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I personally found that episode 4 was a tier above the other three so far, hitting the highs that it had been missing so far. Notably, I was actually enjoying the body of the action and not wondering when Lucky Channel would come on. Sure, they played the reference game which I suck at but the fansubbers were very helpful and there was a lot more going on, too.
I’ve also worked out what makes this show for me, aside from Akira. I love Kagami’s straight man act, it just works very well. More than once, I’ve found myself saying something (typically “don’t speak as if that doesn’t involve you”) only for Kagami to paraphrase it a second afterwards (“hey, you’re a girl too” or somesuch). When a straight foil’s sharing lines with an audience, she has to be doing something right.
This episode is probably the best one thus far, I laughed so hard when konata was making those excuses for sensei, I dunno who decided to put the kanon scene as konatas’ second excuse but it was brilliant. I’m hoping that they don’t make akira do the same thing for the next 22 episodes, its getting really dull really fast. Does she remind anyone besides me of Maki from Seto no Hanayome?
If Lucky Channel was hosted by a different person every episode I think the variety of the type of comedy that each character could produce would be much more interesting than seeing akira go bipolar every time.
Now that the new director is doing this I hope he can successfully keep it going as good as it’s been.
I still don’t understand your cromartie ==> haruhi reference. Last time I saw haruhi was haruhi costume raping mikuru while the last time I read cromartie was the four great ones on the beach back rubbing each other yaoi style.
This is actually the first time I laughed more at the actual episode than at Lucky Channel. So, either Lucky Star is finally doing something relatively good or Lucky Channel is getting old FAST. Or both.
Looks like I’m going to be the first yes-man comment. Self-referencing was taken too far this time.
Lucky Star is getting old and stale at episode 5. Straight-man jokes running for another 20 episodes? More anime and otaku references that most viewers (newcomers or casual watchers) won’t get? More Haruhi (DEMANDing SEASON TWO, DESU)? I’m not getting any more impressed than the peak that was the first Lucky Channel 4 weeks ago.
First to get my reference in the sentence with Haruhi gets a cookie (z0mg).
I snickered a bit at Konata’s commentaries on ep 11(?) of…err… Cromartie High, what with the Nagato sitting motionless and whatnot.
As for the Otaku quest segment I think I got a… 98% or something (missed the Makoto fox doll and didn’t get the ED).
sorry dude
since this is the most popular show this season
you just have to keep blogging it even if you don’t like it
sorry dude
ouch, that smile.avi gets out of sync, and fast, here (mplayer svn snapshot from 20070501@ http://www.debian-multimedia.org)
imo, it was Nanako Fang-sensei + her interaction with Konata, and the Konata + Kagami dynamics who made this episode. To me, the otaku-ish references were just the chocolate & almond coating of the cake.
The next episode gonna feature more Fang-sensei and will introduce one of Konata’s relatives, the cop.
“bd_ Says:
ouch, that smile.avi gets out of sync, and fast, here (mplayer svn snapshot from 20070501@ http://www.debian-multimedia.org)”
not sure what the link is for, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who ran into it falling out of sync fast and bad.
As for the show itself, I’m still of the opinion that. I rather enjoy watching it, but it definitly doesn’t make me bust a gut. I wonder how much will change with the new director….
That was confusing and kind of hard to follow. Okay here’s what I think. Kyoto Animation just plain isn’t that good at doing original material so they are using references to their shows to plug the holes inbetween the jokes. Is that a bad thing, not particularly, it’s probably somewhere caught inbetween uncreative and the best fit they could come up with. Though I think the series could do with far less Suzumiya Haruhi references if the referencing is necessary, it’s definitely being milked a bit.
What I do like a hell of a lot about this series is that it isn’t afraid to lure in fanboys with a hook like Konata watching Haruhi and then slap them across the face with her making fun of the 10,000 post flame war you get on 2ch should somebody decide they really like or don’t like something about an episode. It’s about time this rather annoying segement of the anime fanbase got what was coming to it, and it’s made all the more enjoyable for me because its in the form of that which they seem to love the most kicking them in the crotch metaphorically speaking. I can see it now
Otaku:”Kona-Chan, How Could You?!”
Konata”Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
Otaku:”I thought You Loved Us!”
Konata:”I do what I wanna do, say what I wanna say. Who are you anyway?”
Otaku:”NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! My Goddess Has Forsaken Me!”
Konata: “Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
>> I wonder how much will change with the new director….
Not so much, maybe the transitions between the scenes will run smoother.
So, if you have not liked the original material in the first place, there are too little chance you’d enjoy the animated form more (knowing how KyoAni is very faithful to the source, they are sadly not Bones).
I can’t figure out if i just have really low standards, or if i’m just random in the shows i like. i’ve turned plenty a show down because it was crap, but i’ve also skipped plenty a good show….
I actually liked the references in this episode… the Kanon one was great just because of the teacher’s response (especially the stealth Uguu), and I loved the fact Konata would actually use Mayumi Thyme’s flat chest arguement of all things.
Agree about the Rena in the doorway comment, though.
If that parody clip had proper sync, it would be win.
Funny enough, I have that exact issue of Comptiq sitting on my bookshelf right now… And I remember thinking the exact same thing when Haruhi busted it out during her run…
For Konata saying flat chest is better, she is charged with possible promotion of pedophiles being ok! SCREW YOU KONATA! DELICOUS BIG CHEST IS THE BEST!