Lucky Star

Information of Anime

The anime follows the story of four high school girls: Miyuki Takara, Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, & Tsukasa Hiiragi.  It follows their high school years on & off school.

Lucky Star is based on the Lucky Star manga by Kagami Yoshimizu, not Shiomi Koohara.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Basically follows the lives of the four high school girls of their everyday lives.  All the episodes are made up of very short stories like a weekly manga strip that don't link to other another very smoothly.  At the end of the show, a small segment called Lucky Channel starring a cute, but rude Akira Kogami & her assistant Minoru Shiraishi (as himself) is shown as a comedy relief.  The show progresses as the girls are moving towards their final year in high school.  Along the way, we see Kagami's friends from her own class & a group of underclassmen that are related to the main group.

The show ends with the final cultural festival for Konata & her group as they perform a opening act with a cheerleading dance & the Lucky Channel duo breaking up.

My Personal Review

I jumped onto the Lucky Star bandwagon based on the large number of responses it got.  Although it's quite funny, it's not for everyone.

Animation

The character designs are on the flat side.  It's quite plain & one dimensional.  However, the girls are strangely cute despite how dull & simple they are.  However, you can see how the lines aren't solid around the faces & bodies.  This problem isn't from views that are very close.  However for those distance shots, the drawings are very simple as details are omitted & start to almost like a kid's show.  You can clearly tell the animation is done with CGs.

The backgrounds are okay.  Not a lot of details as they seem pretty flat.

The colours are mainly on the dull side.  The shading is pretty close to your typical comedy anime as it doesn't have a lot of detail.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture.  Sometimes the movements are realistic & sometimes the movements are not normal.  A majority of it are realistic ones with a bit of silliness in them.  But they are quite smooth with hardly choppy frames found.

Sound

The sound effects are really on the silly side with a bit of realistic stuff on the side.  Mainly because to make the show cute & funny.  It provides some life to a yet talkative show.

The seiyuus here are pretty good.  They fit their cute girl roles as well as their personalities.  Not the very best, but still pretty good.

The music is more on the cute pop side.  Not a lot of background music though really & most of them seem to repeat themselves over & over.

Story

Basically following the school life of the four girls.  Nothing really exciting or serious happens in the series.  It's more of a bunch of sort manga strips put into an episode.  They make reference to one another, but don't have a hard connection.

Although there doesn't seem to be a storyline & probably won't be, the anime makes a lot of direct reference to other series & the otaku world.  People that are familiar with a lot of anime series or the otaku world would be able to catch & pick up some of the humour involved.  If you are familiar with the Japanese culture as well, you will be able to pick up more of the jokes.  Aside from the jokes & otaku culture, it does have its serious moments such as the importance of family & having close friends.  I found that Lucky Channel was the only one with a storyline & plot as the duo have conflicts with each other along the way.

One problem with the show is the amount of conversations involved.  Because the manga is based on text jokes & not visuals, the anime show can be a sleeper for some people as the talks don't seem to end at times.  A lot of people will get turned off by this.  Although the Lucky Channel segment has both visual & speech jokes that are more straightforward, it doesn't save the show very much.  However, it does have some educational parts.

Overall Conclusion

Lucky Star is an interesting & funny show.  However, it's not for everyone as it contains a lot of speech.  A lot of the jokes come from here as it has very little visual ones.  Because of the amount of Japanese & otaku references, people can get lost easily.  If you have some background on those areas & don't mind long talks, give this anime a whirl.  But, don't expect a main storyline.

Lucky Star gets a seven out of ten.  The anime contains a lot of speech & some of the topics can last for five minutes amazingly.  Personally, this show is only good if you are willing to sit down & listen.  Aside from jokes, the show does have some serious moments as it focus on family & friends on a high schooler's life.