Reservoir Lucky Star
I’ll probably get smacked for this, but in the opening scene of Lucky Star where Konata, Tsukasa, and Miyuki spend a good chunk of time talking about how they eat cornets, ice-pops, shortcake, etc., etc., I couldn’t help thinking about the opening scene for Reservoir Dogs where they’re sitting around in a diner and start talking about Madonna songs and then other songs in general and then that whole thing on tipping. It’s several minutes of idle chatter for the first scene instead of a hook. The way the whole first Lucky Star episode runs like one extended agenda-less conversation about nothing in particular just added to that thought in my head. Not that I’m saying the opening chatter in Lucky Star is an homage to that, since I have no freaking clue as to what the writers were thinking, watching, and smoking or if they’d even seen it seeing as they’re in another country, plus the girls aren’t in a diner — so yeah it’s just me, but hell, one of the Madonna songs they bring up in that opening bit in Reservoir Dogs is “Lucky Star”, so I just couldn’t help myself with that stretch of a connection.
Perhaps lowered expectations had something to do with it, but I enjoyed these first four episodes in Lucky Star volume 1, which I’ve gathered are thought of us ultra-boring by many, and boring enough to get the director fired replaced (thanks, Nork22). Or was that just a rumor?
Lucky Star isn’t really laugh out loud funny. It is once in a while in the show and during a couple of those Lucky Channel segments at the end each episode — the one for episode three had me spit-take, so wrong and so right, but for the most part I found Lucky Star more amusing than hilarious, which is fine. It’s kind of a strange show, even though it sticks completely to the mundane.
There’s no plot or even any context for many of the scenes other than hey! they’re on earth and happen to be in school. It’s like any reason for the scene being in the story has been chopped off and the only reason for that scene to have being is the conversation. I’ve heard Lucky Star compared with Azumanga Daioh as a show that strings together a bunch of gags from the 4-panel comics, but even Azumanga Daioh gave the characters a reason for being, a reason for doing what they’re doing when the setup > punchline thing happens. Lucky Star just jumps from one conversation to another and only provides context when it’s relevant to setting up the joke, otherwise it just jumps from conversation to conversation, once in a while without providing a pause to indicate a scene or time change. It may sound like a mess to have all these middles running together, but it flows along quite well.
On my second viewing of the four episodes my attention did drift a bit, but on the first viewing I found myself entertained throughout each of the episodes. Still not sure what to make of Lucky Star, but for now I’ll call it “interesting”.
English Dub Notes
Fantastic, at least as far as the character representation goes. I watched it in English first and feel the voices match and represent the characters well, which is the job of the dub, to accurately bring the character to life in English. To me, the actor in the dub isn’t there to port over the seiyuu performance. I mention that because the English cast doesn’t mimic the seiyuu for Konata and Kagami as closely as they do for Tsukasa or Miyuki. It’s nice if they do match up, but hey sometimes it just won’t work that way for whatever reason and I’d rather not have it forced to be similar in tone and delivery.
So What Did I Think of Lucky Star?
I’ll be checking out the rest for sure. It’s interesting and a little different than I expected it to be. Knowing that fans generally think it picks up after these four episodes also has me curious to see how it continues to go.
Comments
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Nork22
on May 19th, 2008
The first director wasn’t fired per say, rather Kyoto Animation gave him a shot at it, but comic timing wasn’t his thing. Second director did it right in terms of comic timing, silly in-jokes and other cultural jokes that are as old as me.
Forget which episode it was of Lucky Star, but I laughed when Konata was mimicking a Timotei ad. Of course 4/5 of the fandom didn’t get it, which made me felt old.
Anyway, my box… it should arrive soon!
ron~
on May 19th, 2008
glad you enjoyed the 4 episodes, now the thing will get better
Lucky star is one of my favorite anime, you’ll get attached soon. I hope that this will get licensed in Australia
scottfrye
on May 19th, 2008
Lucky Star does get better after the first 4 episodes but I think the last half of the series is the best. That’s when they introduce new characters.
super rats
on May 19th, 2008
-The box is pretty sweet. Though I do have to wonder will anyone actually wear the shirts Bandai is packing in with it? ^^;
-I’m already leaning toward Kagami as far as which character I like best so far. It doesn’t happen often, but when she sends one back in Konata’s face, there is rejoicing.
-So I’ve gotta wait a whole bunch to meet Ms. Policewoman who’s stretching in the OP?
ron~
on May 19th, 2008
Yep, everyone love Kagami, she’s my favorite character also (not only in LS, but across all anime~). And that policewoman should appear in eps 5
Ryan A
on May 19th, 2008
Kagamin! Nice Reservoir Dogs comparison lol. I thought Azumanga was much more “composed” than Lucky Star’s random shake-shake.
Seiken / VManOfMana
on May 19th, 2008
Any comments regarding the quality of the subs compared to say, the fansubs? (Sadly) I don’t expect a DVD to try to explain every single referece or joke, but given that Lucky Star relies a lot on puns and references, I do expect certain level of accuracy.
super rats
on May 19th, 2008
-So it keeps to the same format even with the directorial change?
-I don’t watch fansubs, so can’t compare. The dvd comes with liner notes (a paper insert), which explains some of the references in each episode. I’d say there’s about 10-12 of these explanations for each episode. Other than a few random words, I know zero Japanese, so I can’t speak for the accuracy of the translation. Honorifics and stuff like that are intact and Bang Zoom! is noted for being on the literal side of things among the usual localizers. Intuitively, I think the subtitle script could have gone for a little adaptation to make the sub script read less like a verbatim and more like a joke, but that’s just a gut reaction rather than an informed opinion.
Veers
on May 19th, 2008
Hm, even though I enjoyed Lucky Star I can’t really speak too highly of it, and find it inferior to Azumanga Daioh in almost every way possible (except on the otaku-o-meter). Though as scottfrye said above(#3), the second half really is better–more characters and more variety in the dialog, humor, and activities.
I’m undecided on buying the DVDs; leaning towards waiting for a full series collection down the road. On one hand I would feel guilty about not buying them because I use the series as something to listen to at work to blanket out the office noise, so I even though I’ve only watched it once, I’ve listened to it around fifty times since last fall. On the other hand, I still haven’t convinced myself I liked it enough to watch it again (aka buy it).
And, yes, Kagami is the best.
morimoli
on May 19th, 2008
I haven’t gotten around to watching any Lucky Star beyond a few clips here and there, but I have always wanted to mostly based on the character designs.
I watched all of Azumanga Daioh and enjoyed it very much, so if this show is even a little bit like it I’m sure I’ll get hooked.
Also I don’t know how you can stand to watch the English dub, every single time I try with any show it just sounds so terrible and really gets on my nerves ^o^
ron~
on May 19th, 2008
yes, same format, but with better presentation, you’ll love the rest
lu-k
on May 20th, 2008
Lucky Star came as a very refreshing show for me, since I am especially fond of this kind of comedy, and have not seen such an anime since Azumanga Daioh. Well, there were a lot of great comedies in the meanwhile, like School Rumble, Full Metal Panic… but this cannot be compared to those 4-panel manga adaptations, I think.
As you will see, most of Lucky Star jokes are very “otaku-oriented”, and I guess it is a big aspect of its success.
This said, there are more and more comedies targetting this public… it seems GENSHIKEN has shown the way ^^
I was first fan of Kagami as well. The tsundere stuff I guess… but now, I am definitely fan of her twin sister Tsukasa.
She gets stronger with episodes, and she really shines in some scenes arround half of the serie. She is fantastic to me ^^
Len-Vesper
on May 21st, 2008
Lucky Star vis-a-vis Reservoir Dogs.
That’s kind of a scary yet accurate comparison there, of course Lucky Star doesn’t have any of the gratuitous violence or a crazy guy that cuts off an ear but I agree with you that the conversational scenes match Tarantino’s ‘casual’ writing for spoken-word parts of script.
I didn’t think of it that way before, haha!
I’m glad to hear the dub managed to get decent voices. I kind of cringed when I thought about how much emotion and subtlety they had to sink in since a lot of the scenes that have long conversations tend to be really big on context.
super rats
on May 21st, 2008
-I usually delete those tangent paragraphs like the Reservoir Dogs comparison, but this time I was like, why not.
-It’s a veteran crew on this dub and just by the flow and chemistry between characters (even though recorded separately), it tells me the dub has a budget for multiple line reads. Actually, all of the Kadokawa shows that Kadokawa licensed themselves for North America and contracted out the localization have had dubs that had a polish that comes with a budget, which leads me to believe Kadokawa is willing to invest in good dubbing, at least at this point in time.
theunholy
on July 29th, 2008
anyone else think that they say things completely random
that have nothing whatsoever to do about the current conversation that they were having 20sec. ago on that show they say one thing and then right in the middle they change subject….what ever I don’t care its a good anime.
theunholy
on July 29th, 2008
“You can bleed me! You can break my bones! You can kill me! But know that my soul has been commended to Her! Death is but a gift as that would send me to battle by Her side to the ends of time! FOR THE GOD EMPRESS! FOR HARUHI!”
Captain-Knight of the SOS Dan, in the eternal service of Her Holy God Empress, Haruhi Suzumiya. a little off topic lol.
theunholy
on July 29th, 2008
lucky star is mostly oriented for otaku but a lot of people seem to find it enjoyable and funny for all the random stuff it talks about. I don’t know what people have a problem with understanding it for though its easy to follow and understand unless your a complete retard.
god its hard to deal with noobs sometimes…not you guys but actual noobs who dont know there ass from a hole in the ground!
GO OTAKU
theunholy
on July 29th, 2008
If any body is actually on this forum except for me can you plz say something or at least tell me where i can find an active forum!!!!!!
theunholy
on July 29th, 2008
You know what i fucking hate you!!
you can all eat shit a big bag of shit!
super rats
on July 30th, 2008
How big of a bag are we talking?
theunholy
on July 31st, 2008
The biggest bag you can find in your immident location
lol.
theunholy
on July 31st, 2008
For a while there i was beginning to think this was a dead forum think you for proving me wrong ill watch what i say from now on when i think no one is watching
….sorry about the insults lol.
super rats
on August 1st, 2008
Well, this is a blog rather than a forum, so activity really only happens when I post something…which is only like 1 or 2 times a week.
theunholy
on August 1st, 2008
Oh ok i was once again corrected i really need to pay attention to what i am doing sorry again :p
ranakwolfpriest
on September 14th, 2008
is anyone on this blog?
theunholy
on September 14th, 2008
some times not very often……….super rats never puts any thing on here lol
ranakwolfpriest
on September 14th, 2008
umm….. whos super rats?
theunholy
on September 14th, 2008
hes the owner of this blog
ranakwolfpriest
on September 14th, 2008
do you watch this thing just t see if anybody gets on or something? becuase your last entry was on august and your still here in here yet there has not been any activity so my question is do you have a life?
theunholy
on September 14th, 2008
dude wtf is your problem your relliy being an ass!!!
ranakwolfpriest
on September 14th, 2008
just a question don’t get your panties in a bunch it just seems like you are haunting this blog
super rats
on September 14th, 2008
If you’re looking for new Lucky Star stuff, there isn’t any, but if you’re looking for new stuff in general check the home page for updates.