Opening Sequence:
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OP: 「Motteke! Sailor Fuku〠by Hirano Aya, Katou Emiri, Fukuhara Kaori & Endo Aya
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- Hiiragi Tsukasa asks her friend Izumi Konata why she doesn’t join a club when she is so athletic. Reason is because Konata would miss prime time anime.
- Konata and Tsukasa talk about how they eat a chocolate cornet. Another friend, Takara Miyuki, joins the conversation and they talk about how to eat other foods.
- Hiiragi Kagami talks about how some kidnappers are making their victims call them master. Konata thinks that the kidnappers have played too many eroge and galges. Though Kagami questions why Konata knows of such things.
- Miyuki talks about her faults, but Konata sees these are moe points.
- Konata hears that Kagami has influenza, but she says she is fine since she’s an idiot. But they find out that a cold and influenza are different. Konata comments on how Tsukasa didn’t agree with her when she called herself an idiot.
- Konata and Miyuki pay Kagami a visit on separate occasions with Konata wanting Kagami’s homework, and Miyuki giving her student council notes. Though Miyuki ends up having a silly conversation with Tsukasa.
- The girls have a health examinations with Kagami pondering about the extra weight, Tsukasa wearing embarrassing panties, Konata not growing at all, but Miyuki is happy, which causes Kagami to be jealous.
- Kagami has lunch with Tsukasa and Konata and the topic goes to how they became friends. Konata tells her that she saved Tsukasa from a foreigner and beat him up, but it was just her talking about a game. The truth was the foreigner was asking Tsukasa for directions and it was hard with Konata there. The conversation ended up going back to how to eat a chocolate cornet.
Impressions
Firstly, the opening sequence was damn awesome. Right off the bat we can see KyoAni’s animation ability in full swing and start seeing the similarities with this and Hare Hare Yukai, though I think this one is a bit more hip and zany. Although I am somewhat mildly disappointed in how created something similar to the Haruhi end, despite it being a very successful piece of work, I was hoping we could move away from the Haruhiism and have something a bit more original.
Really there isn’t any plot to this series. It’s just a collaboration of short random stories and it makes me wonder how some of it can come from a 4-koma. The second story of how to eat your various foods went for 6 minutes, around after 3 minutes I was wondering if it was going anywhere or if there was a punchline, but really there wasn’t much. Having never read the 4-koma collection myself I do wonder how this will pan out for 24 episodes if there isn’t at least a basic plot. Azumanga Daioh was very random but at least it had a basis of a story and that was their aim for the college exams (even though this wasn’t evident till around the middle). So if Lucky Star is going to go about food I would start to lose interest.
The animation is definitely up there but I don’t think it does KyoAni any justice. The drawing style is very cute but slightly childish so really we can’t see the awesomeness that we see from KyoAni. The characters are indeed very cute and very moé, but they also have vivid personalities as well as being very colourful. Each are very likable but I would say my favourites are both Konata and Kagami (mainly Kagami because I love long purple hair girls) and Konata appears to be an otaku in disguise.
The humour is definitely there, but watching this raw without a good understanding of Japanese would cause you to miss a lot of the jokes as this is also slightly fast paced. I watched this subbed and at times I had trouble keeping up with the subs but I picked up most of the dialogue from listening. One major thing about this being a comedy anime based on a 4-koma is adapting it to a full-length anime episode. KyoAni are known to stay very close to the source material, but given the nature of the jokes are situation-based, I do think it may get tiring after a while.
In the end I did enjoy this very much and I will continue to watch it. With the hype that was generated before the airing date I don’t think it was all it was cracked up to be. Being something random and funny is great, but to be something that is memorable, Lucky Star isn’t. Of course this is only from the first episode, KyoAni could pull something out of their sleeves and surprise us with something big though I wouldn’t hold my breath. Definitely keep watching but doubt I will continue blogging.
Preview:
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I guess the drawing style is just another accuracy to the medium it was adapted from.
female otakus are always good. hahaha
good review!
I liked the ending song.
Just watched this today too–I liked it OK overall, but so far I’d have to rank it behind Azumanga. Although I think with Azumanga it took me a few episodes to get to know the characters and get into it, so maybe Lucky Star will grow on me more as time goes by.
I was a little disappointed in the animation–I wasn’t expecting another Kanon, but I was hoping for a little more detail, especially on things like the backgrounds…although the simpler style probably does fit a 4-koma-to-anime series better than if they gave it a huge budget.
Kagami’s probably my favorite so far–I agree that long purple hair is always a good thing ^^
TedFox: female otakus are always win
maglor: I’m still waiting for the proper ending song
suguru: At this point I agree that this is behind Azumanga Daioh in terms of story so far. Really in Lucky Star at this point I can’t see that basis story that’ll make us last through the rest of the 23 episodes to come. However I still hope for it to reveal itself later on as I’ve read that it gets funnier in the manga. Long purple hair girls FTW!
“Azumanga Daioh was very random but at least it had a basis of a story and that was their aim for the college exams (even though this wasn’t evident till around the middle).”
And what makes you think that Lucky Star would have a plot in the first episode?
I thought it would be pretty funny with all the hype it caused. The first episode was kind of disappointing. I just watched the second one which was less disappointing but still could be better. I like the lucky channel at the end though. The otaku concept through Konata though is what really keeps me hooked to the series.