The Lucky Star OVA: Slice-of-life Comedy for Dummies, or How to not suck at anime appraisal this summer
Posted by: Owen S in Anime, tags: Lucky Star, Theory & StructureThis post has its roots firmly planted (pun unintended) in this category; present-day incarnations include this recent article by The Anime Almanac, which pushed me to write this post as a result. It’s not like I’m singling the two of them out through my writing of this, — well, alright, maybe I do pick on lolikit a lot, but that’s just due to how far he’s gone — since their opinions are unfailingly pedestrian in their nature that you could pick an otaku, any otaku who thinks that they’re the most intelligent/unique/erudite critic on the internet since Yahtzee or Maddox, and get the same type of reasoned opinion out of them.
Before all of that, however, have a colour bar (click for larger version).
A bit of context before I begin: my past posts on Lucky Star have attempted to be heuristic in nature; which is to say, I was once convinced that all the flak it accumulated was due to an innocent misunderstanding; people didn’t understand what LS was all about, and therefore failed to enjoy it, no matter how much they tried. My posts were then, by way of their content, a way of proving to the adamant that their beliefs sucked weren’t all that sound in their logic — I mean, you couldn’t be serious when you thought the point of this was merely comedy? Surely you kid. No one’s that dumb.
Time has proven otherwise. General opinion towards LS snowballed as a result of prolonged exposure to it, and its effects could be seen everywhere. Just when I thought the initial wave of disapproval had finally abated six long months after it finished airing, the second wave struck with its R1 release. The third wave’s upon us, or soon will be as a result of the recently announced OVA that’s due this summer, and what better way than to strike while the iron’s hot?
It always starts like any other debate. An innocent statement like this will draw first blood with:
Lucky Star isn’t funny.
Or, if said person is feeling particularly intelligent, he’ll go out of his way to say:
Lucky Star isn’t funny. Therefore, it isn’t a good anime.
Lest you think I’m making this up, I quote from Scott’s post that I linked earlier, highlighted text mine:
Lucky Star is just not a good show. This slice-of-life comedy involves four girls spending most of the time sitting around and shooting the breeze. Their conversation centers around eating pastries, going to dentist, playing video games, watching anime, reading manga, and other mundane aspects of young geek life. It’s like an otaku version of Seinfeld… except without 99% of the funny moments.
But the laughs come too few and far in between for this 24-episode series. I remember screening the first couple of episodes to my anime club a year ago when they were just starting to come out in Japan. During each episode, the audience sat there in complete silence, laughing for maybe only one or two sequences in the show. There was even a little hint of frustration and anger over the series because the dialog-intensive nature of the show required us to read a lot of subtitles, which ultimately resulted in very few laughs.
The reasoning can be broken down like this:
- A funny anime is a good anime.
- Lucky Star is a comedy anime, therefore it tries to must be funny.
- Lucky Star isn’t funny.
- Therefore, Lucky Star isn’t a good anime.
this is how a typical Lucky Star fan looks like after trying to defend it from critics
If you’re one of those people currently holding such an opinion, I’m sorry, but your opinion is retarded. Why’s that so? Such a statement shows evident lack of forethought; it follows the underlying assumption that LS is “just” a comedy anime, disregarding its other half. How asinine can you get? That’s like watching a shoujo anime and then complaining about the lack of action and things blowing up, or reading a shounen manga and then decrying the lack of romance or deep inter-personal relationships. Or like watching Aria and then whining about nothing happening, or reading a Naoki Urasawa manga and kicking up a fuss about how it doesn’t help you unwind after a long day.
Here’s a huge clue: LS was never “just” a comedy anime. See the second sentence of the first paragraph of Scott’s post that I quoted up there? It reads “This slice-of-life comedy…”, no? Alright, now tell me what the second word in that sentence is. That’s right, it’s “slice-of-life”! See where we’re going with this now? You’re a rare one if you can grasp the gist of my argument at this point. However, since I’m quite sure that most of you won’t (and considering the opinion that you hold, it’s no surprise, really), you’ll have to stick around for a bit.
That flimsy bit of reasoning isn’t all there is to that obtuse argument, though. The second point that’s usually raised when LS is criticised is as follows:
Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh.
Unusually enlightened individuals will append this onto their statement:
Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh. Therefore, it fails, as it isn’t as funny.
Breaking down the statement, we get:
- Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh.
- Lucky Star is not as funny as Azumanga Daioh.
- Therefore, Lucky Star is a terrible anime.
The statement’s subtext can be further deconstructed as such:
- Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh.
- Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh due to how they have a lot in common.
- Shared characteristics include but are not limited to an energetic OP song, characters in said OP dancing, a high-school setting, schoolgirls in their mid-teens, a perverted side character, a cat of questionable origin.
- As Lucky Star is like Azumanga Daioh, it is fair that they be evaluated on equal grounds.
- Azumanga Daioh is funny, therefore Lucky Star must be funny.
- Lucky Star is not funny, therefore it is a terrible anime.
This is where my colour bar comes in, and I’ll need to you refer to it now. Scroll up. Do you see where Azumanga Daioh is? It’s the furthest one on the right, red in colour, right above the words “Comedy”. Now look for Lucky Star. It’s the third name from the left, somewhat purplish in colour, and not all that far away from the words “Slice of life”. In case you need to have this spelled out for you, what this means is that Lucky Star is closer to slice of life than it is comedy, and Azumanga Daioh steeped in comedy much more than it is slice of life, even if the both of them fall in the same category.
The keyword here is distinction. Or, in the case of those who make unwitting statements as per above, a distinct lack of distinction. The dreaded Ican’ttellbetweentwoanimeitis disease that ravages the atrophied brains of otaku who can’t tell the difference between a slice of life-centric anime and a comedy-centric one. Fortunately, this terminal affliction can be easily cured by means of a few mental exercises, and here’s how to go about fixing this problem.
of course, if you don’t get the joke here, it’s likely that you’ll never distinguish anything, period
Get it into your head that no two slice of life comedy anime are the same. Once you get that through your head, the seemingly gargantuan feat of pigeonholing anime becomes infinitely easier when you realise that it’s ultimately retarded to lump two anime in with each other just because their genre happens to be the same. The same goes for expectations — expecting that all because certain anime share similar traits (superficial traits, surely, but similar!) they should possess the same content is fallacious thinking, and on a level of idiocy too great for words.
When you juxtapose this shaky logic on other anime within the colour bar its inherent failure becomes evident. Do we chastise Sketchbook for lacking obvious punchlines? No. Do we bemoan Bamboo Blade’s almost absent slice of life? No. Do we criticise Hidamari Sketch for not being funny? Heaven forbid, no. How is this possible? It’s because we know exactly where each and every one of them stand with regards to their slice of life and comedy content, and judge them accordingly.
What makes Lucky Star any different, then? Call it an educated guess, but I’d wager that it’s due to how it’s presented in the hi-octane OP: visual cues that seem to hint at a show infused with the same energy, a large cast reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh, a catchy dance (because we ALL KNOW that a dance means that it’s going to be comedy! the logic is sound!), and the aforementioned shared attributes that both anime have. As a result of AD preceding LS, the established symbols fall into place, and the Western fanbase proceeds to whine over it “not being funny”.
I’ve got another tangent that I’ll like to tackle with regards to LS’s slice of life element and how it deserves 10 out of 10 for its powerful and emotive moments, but I’ll leave that for the next post. Instead, I’ll wrap up here with a few more quotes from Scott, whose quotes are really illuminating once you put them under the microscope and read between the lines; again, bold is my emphasis:
That’s the one aspect of this whole mess that is completely understandable. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was a good show. It was better then good, it was amazing. A completely original story line with great characters development was the kind of kick in the pants that the otaku community needed after years of having the same old crap being thrown our way. In my opinion, Haruhi Suzumiya was the best thing to happen to anime since Evangelion back in mid-90’s.
Wait, what? Okay, so he likes Haruhi. Not going to judge him here. It was a good show; too bad it didn’t deserve so much hyperbole from the fanbase, and definitely didn’t deserve all of the vitriol cast its way. Haruhitards are one thing, but the Anti-Haruhitards were equally, if not more ignorant in how they allowed the fanbase to shape their opinion of a show, so whatever. Heads you win, tails you lose for this one.
Haruhi Suzumiya came out of no where and blew us all away, and the show’s production company, Kyoto Animation, exploited her success with the release of Lucky Star. Such tactics included casting Haruhi’s voice actress, Aya Hirano, as Konata, the new lead character in Lucky Star. Lucky Star also makes many references to Haruhi through out the series. But the “Second coming of Haruhi” tactic that drew me in came from the March 2007 issue of the newly created “Pretty Girls Only” magazine, Comp Heroine.
As you can see, the cover features the two “Heroines” of these shows, Haruhi and Konata, striking a pose together. Inside the magazine, you will find that the first three articles include a lengthy preview of Lucky Star, a “one year anniversary” tribute to Haruhi Suzumiya, and a 4-page photo spread of the fornmentioned voice actress Aya Hirano. One of Hirano’s pictures included a shot of her surrounded by every Haruhi / Lucky Star publication available at the time.
Yes, March 2007. When did Lucky Star air? April 2007. Wait… doesn’t that mean that it was only natural for it to deserve room in a magazine? I mean, I’m not trying to sound like I know a lot, but one would think it reasonable, considering KyoAni’s stature in the industry and the shows that they’ve animated before, that it’d only make good business sense to dedicate such room to KyoAni’s upcoming project. Call it a hunch, but I’m sure Clannad got equal amounts of coverage. But it gets better.
this picture automatically hypes Touhou too, by association; clearly the person who drew this must think it the second coming of Lucky Star! in before Touhou anime made by KyoAni, and Aya Shameimaru voiced by Aya Hirano.
The magazine is clearly trying to show the reader that Haruhi and Lucky Star go hand-and-hand. It sybolizes (sic) Haruhi passing the her great torch to Konata for the next leg of the otaku relay. Bandai Entertainment is trying the same tactic in the US by putting a Lucky Star teaser trailer in their Haruhi release that starts off with the message, “If you like watching Haruhi. then you have to see this…” The trailer is the cosplay cafe scene I mentioned before. Along with being one of the only funny moments in the show, this clip is the most obvious Haruhi reference in Lucky Star.
And God, does this “second coming of Haruhi” promise work! It has given birth to one of the biggest hype machines ever in the history of the medium.
Whoa, whoa. Hold your horses! Unfortunately, while I know that personal interpretation is all the rage these days (”It means what you want it to mean”), don’t you think this takes things a bit too far? From magazine coverage (I don’t know about you, but over here it’s called “What sells, sells”) to biggest hype machine in only one paragraph? Quite the slippery slope there, don’t you think? All because you perceive something to be that way doesn’t mean it automatically is! Whatever happened to thinking things through?
A few paragraphs later, we come to the main point that Scott’s trying to make:
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must fulfill my otaku obligation by opening up this Special Edition box set complete with a t-shirt I’ll never wear, CDs I have already heard, and posters that will just get added to that pile of other Lucky Star crap.
Well, at least the theme song is good…
I see how it is now! You didn’t get Haruhi as promised from the “biggest hype machine” that the “history of the medium” had ever “given birth to”, and therefore you resent it when LS didn’t turn out to be anything like Haruhi! In other words, this can be easily summarised newspaper-headline style as “Diehard Haruhi Fan Fails To Get The Same From Lucky Star, Writes Scornful Post About His Experience.” Good job at letting your weakness for a Haruhi-likeness influence your spending habits before digging up weak excuses as to why it’s so terrible.
That, I think, is what’s wrong with the haters. Not that they didn’t like LS or anything, but that they failed to think before diving headlong into an anime that didn’t “deliver” on its “promises”, with a big fat load of expectations that dragged them down past common levels of enjoyment all the way to Davy Jones’ locker. Yeah, I’m sure drawing a colossal amount of assumptions from 1:30 worth of an anime episode, a bunch of anime magazines, and the relevant promotional material is the way to go. You keep on doing that while I use that thing behind my eyes.
Next: Lucky Star’s superior slice of life, and how it outdoes even Hidamari Sketch in that aspect.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Mmmm~ another war of opinions over Lucky Star again?
I’ll be honest and say that Scott’s article really made me laugh out loud. Really. “Lucky Star isn’t the second coming of Christ.” Dear god, that was just so fucking hillarious. I didn’t know Lucky Star had become a religion. I guess Scott’s being hanging around with the wrong crowd or taking some things a bit too seriously.
Also, there is no need to take all the marketing drivel seriously. Y’know how it is with specialty media, they always hyperbole. Go read some tech-review magazines, and you’ll spot the same shit as it is with what Comptiq H and just about every other anime magazine in Japan does. The way they do things, if Lucky Star is the second coming of Christ then Geass R2 must be the next Dalai Lama or smth equivalent. Sorry I kinda can’t think of a hillarious enough analogy to put it.
I’m standing mostly with saturnine on this topic (but that doesn’t mean he’s right 100%). But seriously, “second coming of Christ”, HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:39 am
The categorization of Lucky Star as a slice of life anime is mainly an excuse to justify its general lack of humor, plot and characterization beyond charicatures (all based in some way on moe/otaku wish fulfillment, yes even Konata). In most anime that are considered slice of life, more emphasis is put on setting and atmosphere than on the writing. In Lucky Star however, the setting is generally ignored and often replaced by one color gradient backgrounds during its unfunny comedy bits. Slapping on the label “slice of life” is NOT in any way a justification for lack of interesting writing if what makes slice of life anime enjoyable is completely missing, which is the case in Lucky Star.
There are more actual slice of life moments in one episode of Sketchbook than in all of Lucky Star.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:50 am
ANGRY VISITOR: Awesome, so my next Lucky Star post will be of relevance to you. Note that I said I wasn’t done with elaborating on how it was slice of life, and would do so in another post due to high word count. Did I say I’d leave it at that? No. Your words, not mine. Trying to pretend Lucky Star’s climatic slice of life moments didn’t exist is quite the exercise in ignorance, but yeah.
As a footnote, logical fallacies examined in this post include:
Fallacy of composition
False dilemma
I also owe it to CCY for jogging my memory on several points in an enlightening conversation on IRC this morning, so props to him for that.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Yup, hate based on not living up to expectations isn’t just the case for Lucky Star, it’s the case for nearly every series that receives a lot of hate-reactions. Take ANY series that diverged from its original source material just a little bit (Bokura no, Claymore, FMA, etc).
However, Lucky Star in my opinion still remains mediocre. It’s not just because it wasn’t funny; it was just… dull. For every single episode, I was bored out of my skull. There’s no attempt made to make the characters likable, they’re too often stereotypes and the fact that it kept reusing its material over and over didn’t help much either.
Also, care to explain that little scale you made? Bamboo Blade didn’t exactly strike me as a funny series. Does that make me right when I criticise it for not being funny?
P.S. Also, what is your definition of Slice of Life-Comedies? Is Kamichu one? Does Moyashimon belong to the genre? And how about a series as Rumiko Takahashi’s Rumic Theatre (for those of you who haven’t seen it: it basically consists out of thirteen episodes, each of which looks into the life of a different typical Japanese household).
May 10th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Hmm, although I actually agree with your main points Owen, I think you could have done a better job of pointing out the weaknesses in Scott’s arguments. For instance, you did not highlight this gem:
I think it is fair to be critical when a show is supposed to be funny but isn’t. And say what you will about Lucky Star’s genre, but it is clearly meant to be funny as well. However, the above quote is not a valid justification for a crowd being disappointed in Lucky Star’s humor. Watch the dub or learn Japanese then!
I read all of Scott’s post, and I think he has some valid points. I agree that some of Lucky Star’s comedy is hit or miss and he states this himself.
However, I think this quote also illustrates the problem with his argument that LS does not deserve its hype. Having established that some people will just not get it and looking at the success of LS, does not that open up the possibility that Scott is merely one of the minority who does not get it? And if he’s not getting it because he has to read subtitles, then the argument that LS is undeserving of hype becomes even less convincing. Going back to the “second coming of Christ” example, Christ didn’t appeal to everyone either.
To establish why Lucky Star is not deserving of hype, one would probably show why the LS is not appealing. And of course the first step would be to demonstrate how LS is not appealing to the critic specifically. I think ANGRY VISITOR actually does a much better job of this than Scott did. The second comment about how LS fails as a SoL does more to undercut LS than saying ‘I didn’t get the jokes, and I had to read too much.’ We’re not talking about Death Note here, the dialog was not that complicated… psgels has a reasonable complaint about the reuse of jokes in the series.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Not quite, it’s more like watching an action/shoujo anime that’s at least 75% about blowing things up and then complaining about how the blowup scenes suck. Lucky Star goes for comedy and fails, which is a world apart from attempting no comedy at all. A more fitting analogy: Lucky Star is both a Comedy and a Slice of Life anime in the same way that Dick Cheney is in both the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch. When he fucks up the world as Vice President, no big deal, because he’s also the President of the Senate (and in the next post I’ll explain why he’s a 10/10 President of the Senate)!
Nobody will argue that a show can fail as a comedy while succeeding in some other aspect. I even agree that Lucky Star may not totally suck even though it totally sucks at comedy (”I don’t want to say that Lucky Star sucks yak testicles, but frankly, it fails as a comedy.“) However, Lucky Star is primarily a comedy (yes, that means I disagree with your chart, Lucky Star belongs between Bamboo Blade and Azumanga). Its slice of life elements would have to be out of this world for them to be the show’s saving grace.
You’ve got your work cut out…
May 10th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I’d like to argue that people who don’t see how funny Lucky Star really is just aren’t intelligent enough. So there.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Wow, great comments, guys, I appreciate it. Yup, these are my readers (always wanted to say that).
Kabitzin:
This is my main contention, which I will address later. Which parts are “clearly meant to be funny”? LS is more Hidamari than Azumanga, and if you’re going to say that LS was meant to be laughed at more than anything, you’ve got to apply the same standard to Hidamari’s conversations, too. Quite a lot of conversations, in my opinion, were more “everyday” rather than “punchline”, which is where I made my distinction.
This too. Again, I will go on to elaborate in length later, but depending on how you view the series, so do the conversations change. There’s a difference between “everyday conversations that are funny” and “jokes meant to elicit laughs”; LS leans towards the former more than the latter.
Baka-Raptor:
I hate to say this, but gotcha. It was a stupid wordplay trap that I did there; obviously, action happens and things blow up in shoujo, just not literally; shounen series do have romance and inter-personal relationships; stuff happens in Aria, and Monster/20th Century Boys can be relaxing after a long day. All of what I said was more rhetorical than anything — I used the analogy to make my point that sometimes, what we’re looking for might be right in front of our eyes, just not in the form that we expect!
May 10th, 2008 at 2:35 am
@Calveth: Hahahaha, I don’t need to laugh at Lucky Star’s jokes to feel intelligent. I’m more into Daily Show kind of humour, not moe sort of humour. That’s not to say I didn’t chuckle at one or two segments throughout Lucky Star.
We’ll they are sort of making a good go at trying to make Lucky Star into Haruhi recently, what with all the phone cards and the latter half of Lucky Star. Really though my big issue with the series is that it just started to feel more and more like an advertisement for Kadokawa (Whose exploitation people frequently attribute to Kyoani for some reason), and the way the OVA spoilers are sounding it doesn’t look like our sequel will be any different. Also they kind of killed the Slice of Life element in Lucky Star when they reached the second half. After that it was “how can we reach the most otaku and make the most dough” decisions going on. No extended comment on the second coming bit. Either this Scott is really influenced by hype and marketing or he’s your typical die-hard Haruhi fan.
But yeah, did you just say these are my readers? Your scaring me man……
May 10th, 2008 at 2:41 am
How come there isn’t a ‘don’t care’ option in the poll? Or is one of the options there the ‘don’t care’ option? It’s so hot here I have a vision of my brain melting and pouring out of my ears.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:44 am
I am pretty sure this is a Sports Guy quote, although I think I know what you are trying to say.
I think LS has both, and it would be a difficult argument to say that things like the crazy otaku store clerk are not meant to be straight-up comedy.
Anyway, I await the other posts in this series, although I feel a deep inner need to judge the whole series by this first post!
May 10th, 2008 at 2:50 am
What Kabitzin said. And as I’ve said in IRC, I think that Hidamari and Lucky Star should switch places. I agree with your viewpoint of looking at what the characters say as conversations, and not waiting for a punchline with everything they say.
Funny how often that happens. And very sad too. :(
Can you explain to me what “moe humor” is, dear sir? I know there were some jokes about moe qualities of certain characters, but that wasn’t the main point. And if you’re talking about that it’s moe characters having the conversation that defines it, I need to understand that a bit more, cause I don’t.
And yeah. That advertising was pretty annoying. But it didn’t get in the way too much of the show.
Well, he is saying that LS had both, just probably not in the same ratio that you think it is. I think it was a 57% convos -43% lol attempts split myself. :P
May 10th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Poll fixed with “I don’t care” option. Funny how I forgot about the middle ground.
Kabitzin: Yes, thanks for reminding me of Anime Tenchou. p.s.: Stop making me laugh so hard please, I just ate.
N: I’m sure I’ve told you this, but just for the record, I laughed consistently at every episode of Hidamari, so much so that I avoided watching it after a heavy meal. LS, on the other hand, only elicited the occasional laugh, Lucky Channel aside (even that ceased to be funny with time). But I’m saying too much here already.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:29 am
@Owen S & IKnight: When it comes to Kyoani series there is no middle ground, I found that out the hard way. (*).(*)
@Kabitzin: Well he’s about as loud, repetitive and obvious as John Madden so sure…..
@The Big N: Moe humour is the fun Konata had in constantly pointing out the quirks of her friends, like Miyuki being a klutz with moe appeal, Kagami being a Tsundere (it’s in the teasing) and Tsukasa being a dunce. Occasionally Kagami would strike back at Konata for being an Otaku even though she’s a totally manufactured and flattering representation of a desired image and rather more like an Otaku’s wet dream for an ideal girlfriend. Moe Humour I guess could be considered a side effect of Moe itself.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Kaioshin Sama: Wondering how much of LS you actually saw then, since overall, that sort of thing was at max like 8% of all of the humor there when you see the whole thing in my opinion. Then again, it is what I saw, so I’m not sure if it’s the same thing you saw. :/
Owen: I hope laugh quotient isn’t your main factor in determining where things fall. I’ll wait to explain myself when the time comes. :P
May 10th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Haha, that’s such a cheap way to dodge my arguments that I just might allow it…
May 10th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I’ve got to agree with N here, as that was not even 8% of the show’s total humour — try 5%. I thought it was exceedingly obvious that the show was satirising our tendency to put such archetypes on a pedestal when they’re present in real life, and how everything “moe” is ultimately connected to their real-life counterparts.
N: I’ve got more than one card up my sleeve. No, scratch that. My sleeves are made out of cards!
Baka-Raptor. Touché.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:32 am
@Owen S: For a while it was satirising, but eventually it just entered the realm of outright glorification. I also don’t see how Moe relates at all to real life other then fan reactions but I’m pretty sure you’re half kidding as usual. At least I hope so….
May 10th, 2008 at 4:57 am
I never joke around when it comes to Lucky Star. True story.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Well at least you understand what they were trying to do, I just don’t share the opinion that it all came together in a satisfying package. That’s really where we differ. You seem to have liked the same parts I liked, but I felt they were too few and far between all the parts I didn’t. It’s that mixed bag nature that ultimately sunk the show for me when I think they were trying to build it up.
And I don’t think most people have the same type of appreciation for the show as you do unfortunately. I think the majority of the people liked it more for when it gave them Haruhi references rather than the good little moments of the characters engaging in social activity/commentary. Unfortunately when I watch an anime I have to take the good and the bad and to me there were about equal amounts making it a more average series in the long run then it probably should have been. Lucky Star is after all the only show I’ve ever watched that could score a 9/10 with me one episode and a 2/10 the next. I blame Kadokawa’s pushiness though, not Kyoani.
Final Answer.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Americans can’t understand Japanese.
Americans can’t even read English in longer sentences beyond one line!
To follow: Americans invent mental cyberlink, eliminating need for languages.
Conclusion: Ghost in the Shell must be set in the US.
Anyway, Lucky Star was alright what. It’s generally good. The reason people flame it is because it got more attention than them/their pet favourite shows. Watch me flame Haruhi because it got more attention than Gintama (actually not true, Gintama is more popular than Haruhi in Japan).
FUCK YOU HARUHI!! YOU ARE JESUS!
May 10th, 2008 at 7:47 am
>>Yup, these are my readers (always wanted to say that).
This is not fair; you are trolling me excessively here. Also, Scott fails at Lucky Star hate. The first aspects an intelligent person takes issue with is the opening song and sequence, two travesties to top all travesties. Even Soul Link—even Joshikousei—fuck, even Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora shines in comparison. No trespass against the common good in any anime—not even the fanservice (lol?) in dregs like Ultimate Girls or Witchblade—can match up to the veritable insult that is Lucky Star’s OP.
I do fully intend to write a real post about Lucky Star sooner or later, and I think that this OVA will give me just the right opportunity to do so.
In the meantime, I’m just laughing. When I saw your message of “a post about your favourite anime in a few” right before dashing for school, I expected to come home to a wonderful post. A post about Aria, or something. But apparently even in your one-off GTalk messages to me you feel the need to troll; it wasn’t IRC and it wasn’t a blog post and it wasn’t even a comment and yet you prodded me with the odorous Lucky Star pole—wrapped up in leaves of false hopes and Mars-high expectations.
Go die.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Oh man, where do I begin?
Besides with thanks for all the traffic, of course.;-)
You seem to be ignoring my main point - KyoAni deliberately promoted Lucky Star as the new Haruhi Suzumiya. Yes, the magazine also promoted every other new series that came out at that time, like Idolmaster Xenoglossia, Nagasarete Airantou, and Hayate no Godoku, but those series DID NOT get the front cover treatment along side Haruhi nor take part in the trifecta of Lucky Star preview + Haruhi tribute + Hirano photo spread at the beginning of the magazine. Nor do those series continue to grace the cover of the magazine for every single issue since then, including the March 2008 issue which I show in that photo at the top of the post.
And does it get any more obvious then Bandai USA literally saying, “If you like watching Haruhi. then you have to see this…”? That seemed to be the only part of that excerpt of mine that you did not highlight… >_>
So yeah, I’m pissed off that Lucky Star did not live up to the expectation of Haruhi because that was the expectation they, the studios behind it, had set forth. KyoAni didn’t form that Haruhi connection when promoting Kanon or Clannad, they only did it with Lucky Star.
And it was this specific connection that made LS the beast that it is. Can you honestly say that Lucky Star would be anywhere as popular as it is without that boost from her big sister? Of course not! It would have had some kind of fanbase, but just like countless other otaku-targeted shows in the past, would just fallen out of the public scope after it was done airing. It’s the hype that keeps it alive so that we can still be debating it a year later.
@Kurogane
I’m glad you found the “second coming of Christ” bit funny. Yes, it is a joke, but it comes from my belief that Lucky Star has an insane cult following from the moé-loving, uber-otaku nerd community that I am a part of. Maybe I am hanging with the wrong crowd, but I can’t help it. ;-)
Which is why I’m going to have to argue the fact that I simply don’t “get it.” I’m the type of person that this show was made for. I get it alright, and I appreciate it’s effort and occasional lmfao moment. But overall, there are many more brilliant shows to have come out since then, like the completely overlooked “Potemayo” from last summer’s season.
@Kabitzin
I’m going to have to disagree on you with the complexity of the dialogue. I minored in Japanese in college, but I still think that the highly condensed and fast-paced dialogue of Lucky Star was a real bitch to try to understand. And I’m even the exception, because mostly every English-speaking anime fan does not know any Japanese, besides for only a few words. So up until last Tuesday when the English dub was release, subtitle was pretty much the only option for the show.
I did check out the English dub this week after I received my copy of the R1 release, and I’ll admit, I did enjoy it a lot more then trying to listen to it in Japanese. Still didn’t make it that much funnier, but at least I wasn’t frustrated at all while watching it.
All-in-all, the R1 release was very solid and I was very satisfied with it. My post next week is going to be a very positive review of it.
Again, I don’t hate Lucky Star. It just believe that it wasn’t all that notable except for the monster hype around it, which was completely artificial and unjustifiable.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:02 am
[...] and I were having a heated discussion following my reading of and commenting on his latest post—one about the unforgivably terrible TV series “Lucky☆Star.” Eventually, the [...]
May 10th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Dis post wuz a bit too tl;dr for a stoopid guy loike mee. But since it is a discussion regarding Lucky Star, I feel rather obliged to join in the fun.
The ‘greatness’ of a show is not exactly guaged by how popular it is but how well does it deliver in its field. Not everyone can look good in a smart suit, and that is my point.
Yeah and the blasphemy of one of my otaku friend who is not impressed by Gurren Lagann!!11!!
May 10th, 2008 at 11:38 am
This is one of the few times where I’m actually around to read a LS defense post from Owen and to watch the subsequent firefight. Lucky me.
I actually like the slice-of-life-comedy spectrum graph (although I’d reverse it so it can reflect a political spectrum as well: slice-of-life => right, comedy => left). Anyway, I’ve always wondered why I like a show that didn’t really go anywhere and had only light comedy. That graph puts things into better perspective (at least for me).
May 10th, 2008 at 11:51 am
*munches popcorn at the dorama*
I was one of the skeptics at first myself, but in the end, while it wasn’t brilliant work, it was enjoyable for what it was. I ended by giving it a fairly decent review, where I repented of my earlier 1-1 harsh comparison with it to Azumanga (though I do make some comparisons and contrasts–only to explain why Lucky Star was fine the way it was). The best parts of the show were, for me, the Lucky Channel segments, the “slice of life” elements that Owen so eagerly wishes to defend–I could definitely identify with some of the nerdish behavior on display. I never found it laugh out funny, certainly not to the extent that Azumanga Daioh was, nor did I find myself pining after the characters when the series ended. But that’s ok. By the time I reached the end, I realized that wasn’t what LS was trying to do.
My main slight disagreement with this article is that I think it was trying to be a comedy at times, and at those times, its sense of humor was not as much as I would have liked. Maybe because I like slapstick humor, which it didn’t have too much of. In my original final review I definitely conflated the terms “slice of life” and “comedy” in ways that you probably wouldn’t like–and you’re trying to define now, I suppose.
Which leads me to another point: we’re going to have to hash out one day what is the exact definition of “slice of life.” The first series that pops in my mind when I hear the term is Honey and Clover, which is full of drama and tension and the like. Shows like Sketchbook where “nothing much happens” may loosely fit in that category but otherwise they are very, very different. The only thing they have in common is a general lack of fantasy/sci-fi elements and genre romance plots. I’ve said it before on someone else’s blog, but I think “realistic fiction” is a better descriptor of shows like H&C. Maybe “slice of life” should only apply to the Sketchbooks and Lucky Stars of the world? Oy, now I’m confusing myself…
The way I see it, no need to fight over what’s basically otaku comfort food. It is what it is. I suspect the hype and the aftermath backlash is all part of the Haruhi/Hirano Aya/KyoAni nexus which fans have all lumped together mentally, when really nothing of the sort should happen at least logically. (No matter how much KyoAni tried to pimp the Haruhi connection with LS itself, or in its promo as Scott was complaining.) They should be judged separately on their own merits.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:59 am
@Scott:
Yeah, I did enjoy the joke, especially given in the context of how mad the marketing Kadokawa-KyoAni puts behind it. It’s not nearly as bad as Bandai’s yet, really.
The thing is, I think the main point about how people “dont get it” is how the humor in Lucky Star is presented. Unlike most comedy, it doesn’t use physical slapstick to do it most of the time, but instead, it uses wordplays and the like to come to the punchline, which require a high a level of knowledge of the medium’s various aspects and ability to understand and read in to the subtext to understand. This is probably why people without the requisite knowledge can’t appreciate it. I have to admit too, I didn’t really understand EVERY joke in the show, but the ones that did, really made me laugh at it.
I suspect’s Owen’s next post will deal with that. Hopefully he can come with a good bunch of examples.
Oh, NOW I get what you were trying to do! Yes we definitely need more exposure for Potemayo so they can make a second season out of it! Honi~ Honi!
Lastly, I’d like to say this. Comparisons to other shows SHOULD BE SUPPLEMENTARY.
P.S.
Dear god lolikit, you should be banned for causing excessive laughter!
May 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Thank you, thank you. Too bad I didn’t notice that misgrammar when I was writing the comment. Obviously, the aspects are. T_T
May 10th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Why does nobody get that it wasn’t Kyoani that did all that Haruhi linking nonsense, it was Kadokawa. Of course Kyoani didn’t do it with Clannad/Kanon, because they aren’t advertising whores like Kadokawa and they don’t own the magazines to do so. So yes to Lucky Star getting the assist from Haruhi, but no to it being Kyoani’s idea to promote it as a tied in product. Though it’s debatable whether it ended up as such anyway.
@Kurogane: No, Bandai’s marketing is way less intrusive then Kadokawa’s. At least they aren’t hawking Gundam models within the actual episodes. Once they start doing that then we’ll talk.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I think this post could partly be Owen baiting LK again but quite frankly I’m just as annoyed at the same old LS hate that’s been whipped up over the slightest hint of a sequel so I can understand the other half of where this post came from.
The moment this was announced as a rumour I was falling over the ‘lucky star suxors!!11!!!eleven!’ comments in forums and on blogs that had the same old arguments over and over again (Re: this thread, my reply to which pretty much sums up my thoughts on it). To those people, I GET YOUR POINT. YOU DON’T LIKE IT. SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY.
My own reason for being less than enthusiastic about an OAV though is my concern that it’s a cash-in and the quality of the material will suffer. Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of selected KyoAni productions rather than idolising the studio as a whole but I’m quite comfortable with leaving the series as it was - for a show that didn’t put much emphasis on ’storyline’ to begin with, it ended on a really satisfactory note so as entertaining as a sequel will be, I don’t think it’s necessary. Doing subsequent Lucky Channel sketches for instance might present problems with continuity.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Hey, Scott, thanks for the reply.
I’m having difficulty reconciling these two points of yours. Is the magazine in mention owned by KyoAni, or did the magazine just attempt to boost sales by means of advertising what they saw as a potential hit? Because unless you operate under the assumption that the magazine = KyoAni, I’m afraid I’ve already answered this in my point here:
Also, the only reason I didn’t highlight your point about Bandai USA was due to how I didn’t think it relevant, considering I was commenting more on Lucky Star when it aired than Lucky Star’s R1 release.
That being said, I think “hype” is a very convenient buzzword — nevermind the fact that it’s getting an OVA release next season and it being criticised and my pre-empting further criticisms is why I’m talking about it, and nothing else! See what Martin said above.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Here’s my take on the problem: Lucky Star DOES suck. So it doesn’t matter what it started out as.
The reasons for it:
# It caters to the loser otaku; just like any other current anime from Kyoto Animation.
# It features the beating up and bullying of some poor, miserable loser. (I so want to burn KyotoAnimu to the ground after that miserable waste of time and money known as Clannad.)
# Konata (as a character) can be considered the only good thing that comes out of LS. Because she’s not Haruhi (who share the same voice actress). However…
# Lucky Star is pure viral marketing garbage; with too many tangents, not enough airtime for the secondary characters, and too much time spent on THAT GUY who voices the guys AND girls of this show.
# This crap is pure YouTube fodder. Put it in UTube’s search engine and be amazed of what it can crank out.
# Finally; Lucky Star is basically a shadow of Haruhi’s Melancholy. And that latter show is about some annoying punk b####. (I still believe IMMHO that it’s ripping off Evangelion with twelve vengences; me believing that Evangelion was the worst garbage ever created by Japan.)
With all that said: I hope this show bombs in the US; worse than how Haruhi bombed.
May 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Wait… Why are those people who hate lucky star even care about this news? Usually when a series they don’t like is given an OVA they would just ignore it.
But that isn’t the case for lucky star. I wonder why.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I wrote a post a year ago about this sort of thing, and why Lucky Star ended up getting irrational vitriol because of it. It’s a nice example of why having expectations can be a bad thing. :P
I could help out with that if you need it. I tried to get close to that once before, but results were mixed.
And I feel the same way that Martin does with unnecessary complainers. Only with a bit more expletives involved. :P
May 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Tyrenol: Here’s my take on your opinion: It DOES suck. So it doesn’t matter what it sounds like, it’s retarded.
The reasons for it:
# You’re a loser otaku; just like any other current idiot otaku in the fandom.
# Your comment features the beating up and bullying of your poor, miserable loser brain. (I so want to burn morons like you to the ground after that miserable waste of time and money known as your comment.)
# This comment (as a satire) can be considered the only good thing that comes out of of it. Because it’s actually intelligent (and not a thought shared by your brain). However…
# Your existence is pure garbage; with too much idiocy, not enough grey matter for intelligent discussion, and too much time spent on MY BLOG posting a stupid comment about that anime you hate.
# This crap is pure Let’s Play fodder. Too bad I don’t have a mic.
# Finally; your weak attempt at trolling is basically a shadow of whatever lolikit can do. And that guy would beat your troll wannabe punk b#### a## any day. (I still believe IMMHO that you’re ripping off lk with a vengance; I
don’tbelieve that lk was theworstbest troll ever created by the internet.)With all that said: I hope you die in a dumpster somewhere; worse than a starving African orphan with AIDS.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:37 am
Haha if there weren’t Lucky Star haters posting here I would be morbidly surprised. lol food anime. I’m definitely guilty of judging everything by the first episode. I’ll get around to it soon.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am
@Tyrenol: your vitriolic trolling is a shining example of someone who clearly has no idea what they’re talking about - proves the point of the post though.
My thoughts exactly.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!
I’ll think of something intelligent to write later. In the meantime:
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
and so on….
May 12th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I’m having a hard time with this because I agree overall with what you’re saying — that LS doesn’t suck — but I’m not exactly with you on the slice-of-life vs. comedy gauge. Not about where it sits on that gauge, but the relevance of the chart itself. You’re trying to make this an issue of semantics, and I’m not sure how much the supposed genre should be a factor in the enjoyment of a series.
I suppose expectation management is a reasonable thing, but with respect to the hype, not the genre. Saying that people shouldn’t have expected LS to be funny is silly. It is meant to be funny, and some will enjoy the humor and some will find it unfunny. But saying people shouldn’t have expected it to be super alpha Haruhi Plus just because the promotion indicated it — that’s more than reasonable. Because those people who believe what hype promises are suckers, that goes for a lot more than just anime.
The talk of LS on blogs is so “meta,” i.e., barely about the show itself and more echo chamber, I think everybody might need to take a step back. It’s unfair to base opinions of a series on the hype, on the fans, or even on the haters. It’s just an anime — yes, it followed (er, advertised) Haruhi, yes it catered directly and shamelessly to the otaku crowd. But it’s just a show.
As for the OVA, I’m also afraid it’ll be a cash-in without a lot of value, might try it though.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Nicely done. Something I’d point out to ANGRY VISITOR btw:
A genre banner like “Slice of life” is not a universal statement. I have more of my life reflected in moments of Lucky Star than of Sketchbook. Blanketing the entire issue by saying “A has more of Z than B does” when referring to something that is supposed to comprise such a humongous body of content is analgous to saying “Vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream” as though it were a general truth. I’m fairly sure a four year old can tell you you’re full of shit at that point.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
>>I’m fairly sure a four year old can tell you you’re full of shit at that point.
Vanilla IS better, more versatile; you can mix more things with it.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Actually, Vanilla is better.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:41 am
In the style of your deconstructions:
1) Person writes blog post using grammatically correct English.
2) Visitor reads blog post, and thinks its written by an intelligent person because said person can write.
This is what it all comes down to.. the people you were quoting are basically trolls, and we’d usually ignore them as such, but because they frame their mindless, ignorant ranting in grammatically sound sentences, we feel the need to argue the point with them. There’s no need to convince people that Lucky Star is good (which it is), because there are really only two types of people anyway — people who take their own preconceptions into a show and judge it based on what they want, and those who watch a show and judge it based on what it is.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Uhhhh, Hidamari Sketch has no jokes. How is it funnier than Lucky Star? Also, LS is way funnier than AzuDai.
Problem is not Japanese people and/or people who aren’t knee-deep in JP and otaku culture miss like 95% of the jokes in LS. It is most certainly comedy anime, but it requires people to know things. Same thing w/ shows like PPD
May 13th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Tyrenol: “and too much time spent on THAT GUY who voices the guys AND girls of this show.” I think he also did the animal voices, or at least Minami’s dog…
May 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Matt: I love you sir. You have just appropriately defined “users” and “receivers”. <3
As to you ice cream white supremacists… -eyeroll-
May 13th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Hidoshi, we’re all users at the end of the day. Trying to be a receiver is another path to userhood.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Actually, while that’s a nice soundbite, I should elaborate. The idea that we can see something without the influence of our preconceptions is a pleasant myth. To have no preconceptions would mean knowing nothing, not even (given how much influence the intentions and accents of words have) language, being incapable of watching Lucky Star in the first place.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Personally I find it just easier to simply say “wow that was a (good/bad) show” and move on to the next or maybe try to convince a friend to watch it.
I’m impressed you were able to explain L*S’s fan-explosion in such detail though….it definitely makes sense, though not that I disagree with anything you said but I just liked it as a slow comedy with occasional development bits tossed in. It was a nice break between the Gundam shows, Macross, and Gurren Lagann if you know what I mean. That and I just want to say I saw L*S before I saw Haruhi (yeah, I know that’s a sin to some of you).
Also, although I found alot of the quote “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must fulfill my otaku obligation by opening up this Special Edition box set complete with a t-shirt I’ll never wear, CDs I have already heard, and posters that will just get added to that pile of other Lucky Star crap.” to be quite true, I’ll just say that I bought if for the artbox and the special DVD more than any of that other stuff. The random crap is nice every once in a while though (I had never heard the knee socks song before), even if it is unnecessary, but I primarily bought it since I liked it when I saw it subbed and I figured having a dub in addition to being a hard copy was worth the price.
I don’t consider myself a Lucky Star fan, but rather than get argumentative over whether it’s dumb to like something or not I’m sure everyone here has at least one show they like that they consider either a “guilty pleasure” or a show they can’t really justify why they like it other than they just do. That’s pretty much how L*S is for me and I agree with the old saying that “ignorance is bliss”.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am
“# Lucky Star is pure viral marketing garbage”
I ask–nay plead–that otaku will learn what viral marketing is.
This one phrase demonstrates that you have no idea what you are talking about. You are just spouting mindless rage.
Oh, and I hate Lucky Star too. But I hate idiots like you more.
I read the first few chapters of the manga way back a few months before the anime came out. I had no expectations. I was unimpressed. The anime wasn’t any better. I am highly annoyed by the Lucky Star fanboyism, but I do recognize that people have different tastes. Their opinions are as valid as mine. Goodness and quality are subjective, not objective.
But oh, does the blatant otaku pandering annoying me.
Finally, tj han summed up the reason for the Lucky Star hate quite well. In terms of otakudom, it was *the* show from 2008. Much like Haruhi was for 2007. For people who felt their pet shows ignored, the prime target for rage is the big show.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
who is maddox and yahtzee?
May 16th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Whoops, that should be 2007 and 2006 in my last paragraph. God, my sense of time has gone down the toilet as I age…
May 16th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
AGREED WITH wildarmsheero
But srsly I think it is worth saying this: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!? Maybe they should’ve put their FUCKING YURI GOGGLES ON before watching Lucky Star so they could understand that it was about KONA/KAGAMIN AND THEIR YURILOEV OBVS
May 17th, 2008 at 6:44 am
> Uhhhh, Hidamari Sketch has no jokes. How is it funnier than Lucky Star? Also, LS is way funnier than AzuDai.
Picking up on Wah’s comment and running with it, could it not be argued that Lucky Star starts off aiming for the AzuDai end of Owen’s diagram, but by the last third of the series it was firmly in the slice-of-life half of the bar?
Oh, and Wah, you suck. Hidamari Sketch has awesome humor and jokes!
May 18th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I must have missed them while I was sleeping through the show :(