Lucky Star Review

There you are, sitting in your high school classroom, completely bored with the information being shoved in your face from time to time. Anything that’s said goes through one ear and out the other, except for the conversations your friends are having in the back corner of the room. When you think of what you do everyday, how many times do you say “nothing”, or “the usual”? Not so easy to think of it on the spot. As the title of the genre describes, the shows in the slice of life genre are, well, a slice of life often in the perspective of a teenager. Nothing too extraordinary happens in this genre, except for the odd supernatural event or character. So when this show up for review today was described as being about nothing, I was intrigued to find out whether the show was really about or nothing, or why a lot of the anime community hated the show, or loved it to bits. And here we have the 2007 show, Lucky Star.

Lucky Star is your typical slice of life show, with the main characters being four regular high school girls, formed around the four main character archetypes in the anime world. As mentioned earlier, the show has been described as being about nothing. So while delving deeper into the series, the show is about exactly that. Nothing. Of course, anyone reading this will be wondering, “How can a series be about nothing?”. To put it a different way, Lucky Star is a series about nothing in particular, not just a blank screen hoping that every aspect of the show is imagined by the viewer. If you are still not sure if the series is about nothing in particular, keep in mind that there is no main story, and arcs are around 5 to 10 minutes long at the most. For example, in the first episode, the main characters spend half the episode figuring out the proper way to eat a chocolate cornet. Due to this particular issue with the plot, mentioning any other short snippets of story would count as a complete spoiler, which for the purpose of this blog, will not be mentioned. Yes, many people will argue that Lucky Star is a staple of the moe genre, and yes it has been the base for similar shows later on. This does not stop the series from being enjoyable on its own though. Since the episodes are stand alone, there is no issue with any knowledge beforehand, so the series is great to watch if you’re feeling bored, or slightly out of the moment. The show also features a lot of references to other shows, so viewers unfamiliar with the anime genres and references may not appreciate the show to its full worth.

As for characters, they are all their own definition of four character archetypes in anime. These being the tsundere, imouto, otaku, and kuuderes of the Lucky Star world. Let’s start with Konata Izumi, the otaku. She is your typical otaku, doing nothing more than being obsessed with anime and manga, (in this case, Haruhi Suzumiya), with an otaku father as well. She is the shortest of the bunch, but in spite of her size, has been dubbed the Otaku Queen by much of the anime community. Next up we have Kagami Hiiragi, the tsundere. Again, your stereotypical tsundere, protective of her younger sister, hardworking, and gentle when she needs to be. Kagami often scolds Konata for her obsessive behaviour as an otaku interfering with her school life, and is worried about her and her younger sister’s marks in school. Kagami’s younger sister is Tsukasa Hiiragi, the imouto. She has the basic imouto characteristics; cute, defenceless, innocent. But she also starts falling into the dojikko category, being clumsy, air headed and accident prone. Finally, we have Miyuki Takara, the kuudere, and dojikko combination. She is shy, and smart, yet accident prone, and air headed at times. She wears large glasses, comes from a wealthy family, and has little self confidence. Other than these four characters, there is little to nothing to mention about other briefly mentioned characters, and there are around two male characters in the entire series.

The soundtrack for Lucky Star was done by Satoru Kosaki, and fits the series well, considering it is a series about nothing. The music is often light and bouncy, with little to no orchestral, being mainly electronic through out. Although it is nothing extravagant, it’s great background music while standing around and talking with friends. As for the dub, it’s around good to average, being good to listen to, but not state of the art. It suits the characters well, however it makes the characters sound like elementary school students, which is a bit of a set off for a lot of people. The opening was sung by the main characters, and is one of the most schizophrenic openings in all of anime. A song about nothing, with an incredibly annoying tune that can be stuck in your head for months. Other than that, the sound wasn’t really an issue.

The animation for Lucky Star was done by Kyoto Animation, known for works such as Clannad and Haruhi Suzumiya, (thus for the references to Haruhi Suzumiya frequently scattered through Lucky Star). The animation is alright, not being the best out there, but bearable to watch for a full length 24 episode season. As for the character designs, they were as most people would describe them, “adorable”, while some would be overloaded with too much fluff and cutesy for them. The moe features are incredibly exaggerated adding that touch to the series, again the point that turns a lot of people away from the series. The colours in the series are light pastels, without anything too bright, adding to the moe aspect of the series.

Overall, Lucky Star definitely isn’t for everyone, having absolutely no plot, and with cut out characters, average animation and sound, people will just write it off as being a piece of fluff in the anime industry. So, considering the categories of sound, animation, story, characters and my personal enjoyment, Lucky Star receives an overall rating of 7.38 out of 10 with a recommendation to stream rather than buy. Lucky Star is available for legal streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation’s website, and is available to buy to your heart’s content from Funimation.

And that’s a wrap up, thank you for reading. Reviews will be posted daily through the month of November, so stay tuned!

-Takami