Lucky Star doesn’t have to rely on cliffhangers and plot twists at the end of each episode, or an epic story that holds the fate of nations to keep you interested to watch the entire series. All it needs is the amazing characters it presents and the seemingly mundane situations they’re put in to keep the audiences’ attention until the very end, and that’s something I can respect the series for.

I absolutely loved Lucky Star from beginning to end. Realistically, I wasn’t in love with the show until about three fourths of the way through the first episode, where Konata Izumi steps out of the nurse’s office declaring “I’m still short!” I was crying from laughter after that and Konata kept as my favorite character throughout the rest of the series.

As far as I’m aware (which is about 20 feet at most) Lucky Star is a very polarizing show. You either love it or you hate it, which is totally understandable. Somebody who likes things with a lot of action isn’t going to like this series because there isn’t any, at least not until half-way through the second season, and even then, it’s Seinfeldian in a sense, exaggerating aspects of real life. If I had to chose one word to describe this series, it would be “Seinfeldian”. When you really get right down to it, this show is about nothing. I mean, sure, it is about high-school girls, but there’s no through-line to the series besides the everyday progression of a school year. There’s no monsters to face or evil empire to destroy. Hell, there’s not even a villain. None of the characters are heroes or villains. None of the characters are stereotypes or caricatures. No, these characters are simply people, like you and I. They’re people who have their own light sides and dark sides. They’re people who have their own problems which may seem mundane and simple to the rest of the world, but is earth shattering to them. We have all had experience exactly like the ones that the characters face in the show. And that is why it is an amazing series from start to finish. The show uses it’s clever, slice of life writing to subconsciously make us go, “Yeah, that’s happened to me” and keeps up coming back. I absolutely love this series and plan on re-watching it in the near future multiple times.

Phew. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the analysis that I try to put into these proceedings.

Since there isn’t a lot to discuss plot-wise about this show, I’m going to go through the characters and mark my likes and dislikes of each of them.

Konata Izumi: She’s lazy, manipulative, self-centered, obsessive, impulsive, and all around manic. So basically, she’s a teenage girl. What really interested me about Konata was her tick, and the way they present it in her first line of the series.

“If I got on a team and started playing sports, I’d miss all my prime-time anime shows.”

Yes, Konata is an Otaku (not sure if I should capitalize Otaku or not. I’m gonna go with yes). I can understand how this could be a put off to some viewers. A lot of the ticks she has as a huge anime fan could be construed as stereotypes. But, as with the rest of the show, all of these ticks are fact. Staying up all night to watch anime and play games, discussing her favorite shows excessively in conversations with her friends, even if it isn’t called for by the topic, and obsessively collecting everything related to her favorite series. These are all things that I know Otakus, as well as hardcore fans of anything nerdy, do every day. Most of my friends are people who have ticks like Konata does, so it adds a new dimension of relatability to the character that someone who doesn’t live around the “grab bag of personality disorders” that is a group of nerds like I do might not get. It’s not just that though. The rest of Konata’s personality is very enjoyable to watch, even if you, yourself don’t relate to her laid back nature. Personally, I’m a very high-strung guy, constantly worrying about everything, even though my life is as mundane and boring as everybody else’s. But Konata seems to not let that stuff bother her, she’s very laid back, self-aware, and gives off a feeling like she’s completely in control of where her life is heading. I envy the amount of security that she gives off on a daily basis, which adds another level of why I like the character so much. I’ve found that people will enjoy characters that they either want to be or pretend to be. When referring to this theory, I always refer to blowshimselfupdude’s order of character relatability that he addresses in his top ten comic book heroes video. The order being that Superman is who people want to be, Spiderman is who people pretend to be, and John Constantine is who people are. If you haven’t noticed already, the first two characters are probably the most popular superheroes of all time, while the third is more of an underground character, one that only fans of comics would know about, let alone enjoy. I find that people don’t like to see themselves represented in fiction, because, while a character may be able to reflect the good in a person, sooner or later, the bad in a person will also start to show in the character that represents them. For another example, let’s look at my favorite character on the main cast of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie is also very self-aware and secure about herself, which is the kind of person that I want to be. However, the antithesis of this would be Twilight Sparkle, my least favorite of the MLP main cast. The very reason is that I relate to her too much, if there even is such a thing. Sure, she is analytical and constantly asking questions, which are the traits that I do find good in my personality, but she’s also a neurotic mess of worry, which is an extreme that I see myself in and don’t really want to see represented in the media that I consume. So, after that long-winded explanation, I’ll end on this. For me, Konata is to Lucky Star as Pinkie Pie is to My Little Pony.

Kagami Hiiragi: If Konata is my Pinkie Pie for Lucky Star, then Kagami is my Twilight Sparkle, only to a lesser extreme. While I don’t like to see the bad qualities in myself in Kagami, those are her main qualities. She is way too high-strung about everything, always correcting people, and always very strict when it comes to priorities and ideals. However, unlike MLP, where the negative character traits in Twilight are more forced due to the fact that it’s a kid’s show, Kagami gets to show some of her better side as well. She is a great sister, a responsible worker, and a good friend. Also, the interactions that she has between the other characters really express her as a more well rounded character. While Twilight has to be taught everything about friendship by a demigod, Kagami is already a pretty good friend. She goes to a convention with Konata, a little reluctantly, but she still goes. She lets Kotana and Tsukasa copy her homework, a little reluctantly, but she still does it. She has her good sides, which is why I can’t hate her for her bad sides. She is the prime example of what I was expressing in the intro. Kagami isn’t just a neat-freak or a study Nazi. She’s also not just a good friend to fit the role that she needs to fit for the show to move forward. She’s a person, with good and bad qualities that each shine through during their own moments in the show.

Tsukasa Hiiragi: Tsukasa (is the T silent? Please help) is the first half of what I like to call “The world’s most innocent duo” in the show. Her overall character design just screams cuteness. Since the show’s main characters are really Konata and Kagami, there isn’t much focus on Tsukasa or Miyuki, the next character on this list, so there isn’t going to be as much depth as the two bigger characters. Although, Tsukasa does get her fair share of good moments in the show. Like when they go to the beach and she picks up a seashell. She puts it to her ear and the scene transitions to the beautiful sequence showing her kind of hovering in the middle of the ocean, looking up at the sky and smiling. I can’t really speak for anybody else, but I think that this scene represents how curious Tsukasa is about the world. She’s constantly asking for the advice of her sister, Kagami, and is usually just asking questions about the world, which start off some of the best exchanges in the entire series. It seems that Tsukasa feels kinda sheltered and under-appreciated. Even though they are twins, since Kagami came out first, she’s usually referred to as Tsukasa’s older sister. Because of this, she wants to gain more knowledge about things to feel equal to her sister, who is always telling everyone what the answer is and is usually always right. Kagami is very aggressive and Tsukasa is very passive, and I feel like each sister has a mutual respect and strive for the others respective personalities.

Miyuki Takara: And here we have the second half of the most adorable duo, Miyuki. And she is the definition of adorable. She’s clumsy and generally shy while also being wildly intelligent and open minded about pretty much everything. Guys. I think I’m in love. I hate to go back to the pony analogy for those of you who really don’t care, but I’m trying to work out my theory about how every person in the world is one of the mane six, so bear with me on this. Miyuki is kind of like the Fluttershy of the Lucky Star universe. Since her real purpose is just to be cute and occasionally provide a detailed explanation about something that the other three main characters want to know about, there’s even less to say about Miyuki then there is about Tsukasa, but I’ll try my best. I actually see a lot of myself in Miyuki. I have a lot of trivial knowledge and when I blurt out at people like verbal diarrhea, they complement me on being smart. While, at the same time, I’m clumsy as hell and sometimes can’t get through simple tasks without hurting myself in some way. The one difference between me and Miyuki is that I’m a lot less polite and innocent as she is. Anyone who hangs out with me knows I’m bluntly honest and have a pretty filthy mouth. I also like how Miyuki has a lot of money, but doesn’t really treat anyone else as inferior or anything. I wish a lot more well off people would have that attitude about wealth. Referring back to the order of character relatability, Miyuki is the person I want to be. While Konata is more of the person I pretend to be, Miyuki is the kind of person that I would strive to be. She’s just a really good person, and I think that if there were more Miyuki’s in every day life, the world would be a better place. Who’s with me for the Miyuki for President campaign? However, while I admire the fact that Miyuki is a wholesome and good person, that does get in the way of her character actually feeling like a real person. She never makes a rude comment toward any of her friends and is just a bit too polite to be an actual person. Maybe there’s another side to Miyuki where she starts to loosen up about manners that the show just never really provided because they were focusing on Konata and Kagami. Who knows? Also, she is the cutest thing ever! I just want to get a life size plush of her a cuddle with it! … Wait… Did I really just type that? Did I type that out loud!? Well… just forget you read any of that.

Lucky Star is the quintessential slice of life story, providing a lot of dialog elements from stuff like Kevin Smith’s work, to the social situations from things similar to John Hughes movies. It’s also a very good show morally. There are some episodes, particularly the one where the spirit of Konata’s mom visits the house to check up on the family (the only really fantastical element of Lucky Star), that have some really tear-jerking and dramatic scenes that send really good moral messages to the viewer. But, the show uses comic relief to deceive the audience slightly and make the moral of an episode more subconscious than blatant. A character will crack a joke about something and you’ll forget that they were just talking about the importance of family and friendship.

This is a great show and I would recommend it to anybody who’s looking for a more relaxed show to watch.

FAVORITE EPISODES: ALL OF THEM!

Even though this has been over 2000 words about my opinion of the show, I would love to hear your opinion of it. Whether you loved it and agreed with me or hated it and disagreed with me, I’m open to a fair discussion about the pros and cons of the series in the comment section of this blog post. If you don’t want your views to be public (trust me, I know the feeling), just send me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible, which is very soon, because I don’t do much.

Peace; Love; Empathy

-Alaska

http://stuffpoint.com/lucky-star/image/178990/lucky-star-poster-picture/

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related