Daijoubu

I finally watched the first episode of Lucky Star. There’s been some quite divergent opinions about it. I thought it was a good show with some potential. As long as you’re not expecting Haruhi or Kanon, I think its effective for the kind of comedy that it is. There was a lot of reaction to the over six minute-long food discussion (that does amount to about a fourth of the entire ep). Maybe it wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but it was definitely a unique sequence. I think that they a) wanted people watching to wonder how far they could stretch it out and b) tried to satisfy a hard-core audience that finds cute girls talking about almost anything very moe (and this is food, after all, which can have a lot of connotations!) They were building to a climax with a punchline that was supposed to show (I think) how clueless Konata is. It was certainly unusual and got a lot of attention, so that means it probably served its purpose!

The show has to introduce the main characters in the first episodes, and being based on a 4-koma its gonna do that through short comic-strip-like situations that reveal their personality traits (or quirks). With just a few of these traits for each girl, you have as fully realized a 4-koma character as you’re probably gonna get. Older shows, like Azumanga Daioh and Sensei no Ojikan, were more explicit in introducing each character and really hammering you with a bunch of jokes so you “get” them right away. Maybe because they have a more otaku/moe-loving audience, Lucky Star jumps in a little more rapidly and is actually a little daring in starting off the way it does. And we’ll see where they go with that Lucky Chanel bit at the end, but I’ll want to see it again because that girl was certainly cute!

While I was thinking about this show, the lyrics of the Madonna song Lucky Star popped into my head. I wonder if anyone would ever make an AMV with that, or is it too obvious when a song and anime share a title? Plus, Madonna’s song has a much slower tempo than the opening to Lucky Star, “Motteke! Sailor Fuku,” and the anime’s style and might not mesh effectively with the 80s song, but it might be worth a try. (Speaking of AMVs, I think Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” would work really well for REC, given Aka Onda’s fixation on Audry Hepburn movies.) With Lucky Star, I do know that something’s already been made for it that really does seem to match the show, but its definitely not Madonna, or even Mad Donna!