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"Lucky Star never makes any of these exchanges dull."

As a fan of 80s and 90s anime back then, Lucky Star never really appealed to me, unlike Otaku no video. I watched the first few episodes back in 2007 and was bored with all that chit-chat about how to eat a chocolate cornet & stuff even though I loved the opening, the animation quality in general and my general understanding of some (not all!) of the anime/manga related references. To be fair, I know that the first four episodes were not well received in Japan and led to director Yutaka Yamamoto being fired, so it's quite possible that the following episodes got considerably better, but by then I wasn't interested in the franchise anymore.

I had always heard the original director blamed for the "boring" first four episodes, but when I went and read the manga a couple years ago I found that it had the exact same problem. The first 1 or 2 volumes were pretty boring, and if anything the first 4 episodes of the anime are a pretty direct adaptation.

That said, I can't really say that changing the director was the wrong choice. What we got afterwards was truly great, but it's just hard to say if that's due to different direction or the original work just finding its footing.

I think I watched Lucky Star's first episode back in 2011 on YouTube, yeah back in those days that you could easily find recent series uploaded with fansubs there. I was in my last years of high-school, I grew up watching anime since a young age but it was mostly old shows since here in Latin America anime shows used to arrive years later on television after their airing in Japan, it was not until I began surfing on the Internet more frequently that I could caught on with more modern shows, but it was still a sort of Wild West, I sort of felt lost and I didn't know with which series I should start. I was a big mecha fan so I binged a lot of mecha shows like Gundam, Macross, Code Geass and Gurren Lagann, but as I explred forums and websites I began noticing that people had Haruhi and Konata as their avatars, that was the reason I decided to give the first episode a watch.
I found Lucky Star's opening very catchy, but the series itself didn't grab my attention. I never heard that the first 4 episodes director was fired, perhaps if I kept on watching maybe I'd have seen the entire show, but I say first impressions are the most important. I wasn't that into slice of life shows back then and a show focused on otaku felt like an odd concept to me. That and the fact that Lucky Star's character designs looked weird to me, I mean, they're not ugly or anything but those eyes weren't like any other anime I watched before, and I remember watching some episodes of Di Gi Charat on Animax and it didn't look that weird to me compared to Lucky Star.
I did watch Otaku no Video back then, I even rewatched it a few months ago, and I find that OVA much more interesting just because is like a dramatization of the founding of Studio Gainax and a very clever and funny exploration of the early otaku culture in Japan, especially with all those background details, though maybe I'm biased since I found that era much more interesting, but who know, maybe we'll see a revived interest in the 2000s this decade
As for the Lucky Star today, I found it weird that the series doesn't seem to be talked about that much nowadays, especially compared with other series from that era. Perhaps is due to the fact that most of the references on the show dated it to the mid to end 2000s. I'd be interesting to imagine a how a Lucky Star reboot set in the present would look

I almost forgot how godawful 99% of anime memes were in the 2000s.

When I was getting into anime, Lucky Star was one of those shows that was always one of the first few recommended series. It's a very YMMV show for comedy though, as absolutely nothing about it clicked with me. Most of the jokes just felt like the setup for a joke, but then there wouldn't be a punch line. (Or, in the worst cases, the girls would just reference another anime... end scene.) Fortunately there are plenty of other school setting anime comedies out there, so it's not like I'm missing out in that department.

This article also reminded me of that bizarre trend of hating on random pop star Justin Bieber ad nauseum. Seems like that was the #1 joke of the internet for at least half a decade. Guess I should be glad the shelf life of your average meme is drastically shorter nowadays.

Last edited by Oggers on Mon Nov 06, 2023 10:48 pm; edited 1 time in total

Lucky Star burst onto the anime scene when I was in high school, but like with Haruhi Suzumiya, even after watching it I couldn't get into the hype aside from how catchy the OP was. I tried watching the anime again years later and it made me realize just how much of it is dated to the late 2000s, from the anime references (especially to Haruhi, to the point that it started to get irritating) to pretty much any jokes involving cellphones. Which would be interesting, but the fact that 80% of the anime's scenes are just the characters sitting/standing around while talking about nothing in particular couldn't really hold my attention. I get that the appeal is the characters are anime girls who look and sound cute while talking about nothing, but that personally isn't enough to engage me.

I'd say I appreciate Lucky Star as a late 2000s time capsule more than anything else. Looking back, I can see why it became popular, since it definitely had its finger on the pulse of what otaku back then would be into. It makes me wonder what a Lucky Star that tackles the present-day anime landscape would be like.

great article, I do wonder what the modern equivalent of Lucky Star is or is it a bygone era from the monoculture days of anime?

I don't know if Lucky Star is a timeless classic, but I would contend Lucky Channel is. Honestly, just bingewatch these end segments in order, and you get a pretty bleak and at times uncomfortable exploration of idol culture, where someone can already be passé and cynical at age 14.

Truly a classic, by the time i watched it (11~12 years ago) i didin't get most of the references but still laughed for the entire show.
Its one of the animes that you can't truly call yourself an otaku if you don't watched it (i made it myself hahaha, but i truly thinks that).

kiddtic wrote:

great article, I do wonder what the modern equivalent of Lucky Star is or is it a bygone era from the monoculture days of anime?

Possibly Pop Team Epic, but with the homages and jokes being verboten in anime (such as the now banned Osomatsu parody episode) this is a rare example. It doesn't go to the absurd extremes of Teekyu or Ai Mai Mii, but it'd fit in along series such as Gugure Kokkuri San, Azumanga Daioh and Kill Me Baby... if that makes any sense.

Definitely LS played a huge part in my becoming an anime fan. Even missing out on most of the references back in the day, it was so funny and lovable to me and stays so to this day. Crazy how it was so over-talked years ago, even as a fan I got tired of everyone constantly saying the title, and now new anime fans don't even know it when I ask. history, learn it!

Loved the original run. Yes the first episodes where far more every day, so had more appeal at slice of life instead of comedy but they had their moments still, excluding some very obvious missing animations. Making it more oktaku focused and closer to Azumanga Daioh japery broadened the appeal out.

For those who didn't like it, that is perfectly fine and normal. Even in its day not everyone liked it, but it did appeal to a large group of anime fans. The same is for Evangelion, Full Metal Alchemist and Attack on Titan. No show is truly universal, not even Disney movies.

Though I will offer this one dissenting opinion. I think in anime culture Nichijou has had the larger and longer impact then Lucky Star. Lucky Star was for hardcore otaku jokes, similar to Hayate the Combat Butler. But Nichijou had broad appeal in jokes that (most of the time) everyone could get. Japanese language barrier not withstanding.

kiddtic wrote:

I do wonder what the modern equivalent of Lucky Star is or is it a bygone era from the monoculture days of anime?

Now that I think about, is there any recent anime show that is about otaku talking about modern anime? Could it be that because nowadays the tastes of the general public change quite quickly it would be difficult for a show like Lucky Star to be made in the present? I think LS was made at the right time, when the Internet was pretty mainstream but there was still a certain feel of it being niche, I'm talking about an age where everybody had to access to it with a computer, now everyone has a smartphone.

Oggers wrote:

It makes me wonder what a Lucky Star that tackles the present-day anime landscape would be like.

Perhaps they would talk about v-Tubers and streamers, Konata would be a professional gamer, I can imagine it being filled with references to modern works like Kimetsu no Yaiba, your name, Oshi no Ko, etc.

chrisb wrote:

I almost forgot how godawful 99% of anime memes were in the 2000s.

Oh man, I frequent some spanish-speaking anime fan groups in Facebook and recently some people were sharing some old caption memes circa 2010-13, with phrases like "Otaku will conquer the world", "Don't mess with us otaku... we have a defense mechanism called gore", in restrospective it's pretty cringe, but it has a certain charm. Btw, it seems shows like Another, School Days and Elfen Lied were very popular with Latin American fans back then.

While I was a mild fan at best like Eigengrau said the Lucky Channel bits at the end of each episode where the best. Even the Dub knocks it out of the park!

I wanted to like this back then, I really did. I bought all the DVDs in hopes of using it for AMV material. And the OP was very catchy.

By the time I finished the last DVD, however, I realized that I disliked this show, that it was a glorified Azumanga Daioh ripoff, and that I regretted ever buying. Most of the humor was heavily reliant on Otaku culture or just talking about Otaku culture, and it didn't help how it practically used Haruhi Suzumiya as a crutch (another I felt was overrated, but I won't go into that). Moreover, none of the material was suitable for making a good enough anime music video as most of the scenes and characters were all static except for the Goddamn dance scenes. Even Azumanga had more motion despite being five years older, and more memorable scenes since I can't remember much of anything that happened in Lucky Star.

Well to each is own I guess.

Lucky Channel was the best part.

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What Made Lucky Star's Anime So Iconic