Lucky Star (Generic Discussion thread)

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Sheba

There are a fight against "moé"???

It was a good one. Basically me and lolikitsune feel (felt in my case) that Moe is (was in my case) taking the place of real character and plot development in anime because it was cheap and fairly easy to recycle the same character types such as Tsundere, Bookish, Kawaii, Loli and settings such as school, small town where magical things happen etc. over and over again and still have people like the characters and the storyline, buy all the DVD's and Merchandise and make the show a success, even though everything was essentially superficial. There's a whole movement called the superflat movement that aims to counter the degradtion of culture in Japan and it frequently targets the Moe aesthetic. I'm something of a veteran of this whole movement, but I don't think its necessary anymore.

You can ask me about the things I saw. I've been all over the internet reading blogs on the Moe aesthetic and opinions on shows where it was deemed to be important to the shows success for the past year and it was kind of scary for a while just how easily people seemed to be lead along (The thing that stuck out the most is nobody really seemed to care about the overall quality of the show as long as an aspect of the show catered to their favourite moe fetishes). It all seems so distant now though, but it was only about a month ago I was slugging it out with these people trying to explain why I felt they were being led along by the nose and that they were basically reversing the relationship so that they were working basically giving away there money to the company rather than the company working hard to earn it. Man do I ever sound like some sort of War Vet . Anyway I've gone home so to speak as a result of the sudden and abrupt return to a normal company/viewer relationship (possibly as a result of the otakus running out of money and the whole pandering style of Moe collapsing upon itself) and it seems like 5 blogs suddenly popped up to do the same thing I'd been doing for a year. Where the heck were you guys like five months ago when I was going John Rambo solo on the industry, when it was really truly necessary.

I wanted to show people an example of the type of comedy that goes into a series like Lucky Star, but the source website is down and thus I can't give my lesson. Maybe tomorrow.

[ShadowMercenary]

Oh, man forgot to post this here almost. Had to mention the nice GAII reference that they managed to put in the preview. I know it'll show up in full next episode, but this was my favorite sight in the preview.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nluckystar.png

[WanderingKnight]

It was a good one. Basically me and lolikitsune feel (felt in my case) that Moe is (was in my case) taking the place of real character and plot development in anime because it was cheap and fairly easy to recycle the same character types such as Tsundere, Bookish, Kawaii, Loli and settings such as school, small town where magical things happen etc. over and over again and still have people like the characters and the storyline

What you're describing fits more the typical bishoujo game stereotypes than moe stereotypes IMHO. The reason why you're seeing it more in anime is because anime adaptations of bishoujo game characters have been on the rise since bishoujo game designers found out that just making a game only with sex scenes was boring the public, and thus decided to give it a little twist--that twist is now old news, that's why it seems as a common stereotype now. But I hardly see the direct link with moe--although moe is a controversial enough term already. I'd rather see moe as one of the stereotypes of bishoujo games.

[Mirrinus]

How ironic, considering KyoAni's AIR is one of Lolikit's favorite anime, lol...

Anyway, the heat's sorta died down by now, and it seems Lucky☆Star may be able to slip under the radar for a while. At least, I hope so. Too much dorama indeed. ^_^

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

What you're describing fits more the typical bishoujo game stereotypes than moe stereotypes IMHO. The reason why you're seeing it more in anime is because anime adaptations of bishoujo game characters have been on the rise since bishoujo game designers found out that just making a game only with sex scenes was boring the public, and thus decided to give it a little twist--that twist is now old news, that's why it seems as a common stereotype now. But I hardly see the direct link with moe--although moe is a controversial enough term already. I'd rather see moe as one of the stereotypes of bishoujo games.

Whatever it was Lucky Star has become a lightening rod for a sort of delayed backlash against the whole thing. Maybe a new term is necessary to define what was being pushed during that period. You're right though the primary culprit was the Bishoujo games. That's been scaled back and perhaps that's why the whole moe-like thing has suddenly dried up. Lucky Star not being a bishoujo game like Kyoto Animation is used to adapting, Moe isn't likely to be the main driving point behind the series, but the comedy. On the topic of Haruhi, people are just pissed off that they can't have their Quiet Yuki, Crabby Haruhi and Cutesy Mikuru for at least another year. Though I'd argue there's fare more to the characters than that, that's what the people really want. Just talking about all this is making my head spin as it seems that everything is just a huge mess. It's almost like everything is guilty of something, but at the same time not guilty of anything. It's like the fans want light Moe and they get Lucky Star, but then they don't like it when its not Haruhi or something.

It's a paradox and a lack of commitment or true knowledge of what it is they want, within the fanbase. It's like how in video games when the company does the same thing over and over they get bitched at and then they do something different and get bitched at again. In this case Kyoto animation has gone with light moe comedy like Haruhi again so they get bitched at for the opening being pandering to that style, but then it's not Haruhi again so they get bitched at for it being a 4Koma instead of straight plot progression and the opening is hailed as being exactly like Haruhi' ending. And now that sentence just seems like there's a paradox within a paradox regarding the fans desires. It's.... ARRRRRRGH, it's like an bloody riddle!

[mukansa monkey]

I find all this talk about "Kyo Ani is god! No, KyoAni is teh suck now!" to verge on bizarre. On the one hand, it should have been obvious well in advance that this show is nothing like Haruhi, so to have really similar expectations from it seems really irrational. Even if someone's sole awareness of KyoAni is that they did Haruhi, how hard is it to look at a couple of the early pics posted in this thread and realize that it's something different? On the other hand, why are so many people's feelings about this show being driven by the opinions of near strangers posting on blogs? Does it being overrated or underrated actually matter that much? To misquote Yoda: "Watch, or do not watch. There is no fanbase power."

Mebbe people have really short memories on some of these forums or something. Like, who's automatically expecting Sunrise to produce crap, when this is the company that brought us Cowboy Bebop and Witch Hunter Robin? Or how about I show my age/span of time watching anime and say This is the company that made Dirty Pair!!! Maybe it's good to not pay too much attention to which staff people make what and just enjoy the shows. I liked Haruhi just fine without having a clue that most of the same people did Fumoffu, which I also enjoyed. Of course I also liked Mai Otome, so maybe my opinions are suspect... then again it'd been ages since I'd seen anything that reminded me of BGCrisis 2040, and I find Arika amusing in a Kodocha-like way.

I'm sure lots of people wouldn't be watching this show if KyoAni weren't the ones doing it, but I don't see a problem with that. The company has a reputation for far above average work on multiple levels, so not only does this suggest that this show will at least be decent as an anime, it suggests that they're picky enough not to take on lousy source material just to churn out some product that will make some kinda profit. This is particularly true if like me you're not already a fan of 4komas and slice of life stuff. There are also the people like velocity7 for whom the draw is the type of show, period. I don't think one reason is better than another for starting a show. Granted, I think it's nuts to watch the entire show and be unhappy with all of it, just because you're hoping fo a Haruhi-level moment or two.

As far as the OP goes, I'm more impressed by the song than the visuals. The character animations aren't all that good. Which is no surprise given the style and the source material, it wouldn't make sense to draw them super-detailed, but it limits how impressed I'm gonna be. The backgrounds are weirdly inconsistent, some of them have the "lovingly crafted art" level that so impressed in SHnY, and some of them are 30-second simple color gradients generated in Photoshop. On the other hand the music seems pretty creative to me, the shift into rap mode, then to more of a chant feel, the tempo change for the cheerleading sequence, and I'm counting at least three different time signatures. Not features you find in typical pop music. Judging from the copious screencaps (I'm waiting for subs to come out rather than frustrate myself with my lousy grasp of Japanese) much of the show itself has backgrounds done with a CG watercolor brush in rather short time. No surprise though that this is mostly about this dialogue, which alas I have to wait for.

[Furudanuki]

Maybe I'm denser than usual tonight. But let's see if I can get this straight.

Some people are apparently shocked and upset that Kyoto Animation took a slice-of-life 4-koma about female otaku featuring humor that will not appeal to everyone and adapted it into - oh! the horror! - a slice-of-life anime about female otaku featuring humor that will not appeal to everyone. Because of this the entire future of the anime industry has been altered, the moe subculture will collapse, and all anime will now have to feature more manly men instead of those annoying singing seiyuu.

OK, I guess I get it now. On second thought, no I don't.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by mukansa monkey

I find all this talk about "Kyo Ani is god! No, KyoAni is teh suck now!" to verge on bizarre. On the one hand, it should have been obvious well in advance that this show is nothing like Haruhi, so to have really similar expectations from it seems really irrational. Even if someone's sole awareness of KyoAni is that they did Haruhi, how hard is it to look at a couple of the early pics posted in this thread and realize that it's something different? On the other hand, why are so many people's feelings about this show being driven by the opinions of near strangers posting on blogs? Does it being overrated or underrated actually matter that much? To misquote Yoda: "Watch, or do not watch. There is no fanbase power."

Mebbe people have really short memories on some of these forums or something. Like, who's automatically expecting Sunrise to produce crap, when this is the company that brought us Cowboy Bebop and Witch Hunter Robin? Or how about I show my age/span of time watching anime and say This is the company that made Dirty Pair!!! Maybe it's good to not pay too much attention to which staff people make what and just enjoy the shows. I liked Haruhi just fine without having a clue that most of the same people did Fumoffu, which I also enjoyed. Of course I also liked Mai Otome, so maybe my opinions are suspect... then again it'd been ages since I'd seen anything that reminded me of BGCrisis 2040, and I find Arika amusing in a Kodocha-like way.

I'm sure lots of people wouldn't be watching this show if KyoAni weren't the ones doing it, but I don't see a problem with that. The company has a reputation for far above average work on multiple levels, so not only does this suggest that this show will at least be decent as an anime, it suggests that they're picky enough not to take on lousy source material just to churn out some product that will make some kinda profit. This is particularly true if like me you're not already a fan of 4komas and slice of life stuff. There are also the people like velocity7 for whom the draw is the type of show, period. I don't think one reason is better than another for starting a show. Granted, I think it's nuts to watch the entire show and be unhappy with all of it, just because you're hoping fo a Haruhi-level moment or two.

As far as the OP goes, I'm more impressed by the song than the visuals. The character animations aren't all that good. Which is no surprise given the style and the source material, it wouldn't make sense to draw them super-detailed, but it limits how impressed I'm gonna be. The backgrounds are weirdly inconsistent, some of them have the "lovingly crafted art" level that so impressed in SHnY, and some of them are 30-second simple color gradients generated in Photoshop. On the other hand the music seems pretty creative to me, the shift into rap mode, then to more of a chant feel, the tempo change for the cheerleading sequence, and I'm counting at least three different time signatures. Not features you find in typical pop music. Judging from the copious screencaps (I'm waiting for subs to come out rather than frustrate myself with my lousy grasp of Japanese) much of the show itself has backgrounds done with a CG watercolor brush in rather short time. No surprise though that this is mostly about this dialogue, which alas I have to wait for.

Your idea sounds like a policy that would begin a utopia of anime fandom on the internet, but are you familiar with internet drama?

Some people can't live without it unfortunately. Basically it stipulates that nobody is allowed to have a moderate or reasonable opinion on internet forums, blogs or news boards and that everything is either black and white (a bit of a generalizing going on as this is untrue with many forums, it's more of an individual thing held in common between people than a group or forum thing, but bear with me). Thus, because currently Kyoto Animation is at the top of their game they are god and unfappable and because Sunrise had a tough break with GSD falling apart they are Satan and everything they does trainwrecks. Now that Kyoto Animation has tried something different animation style wise they are Satan and everybody wants you to know about it just like how everybody wanted you to know that they were God for creating Haruhi. This is an example of internet "drama". And you know, Kyoto Animation was popular because of the style they used, not really the quality, because they've got the same quality of adaptation here and attention to detail, but the manga-ka's style. So because the style's changed its suddenly a waste of resources. Does it make sense? Not at all, but unfortunately that's the way it seems to be in a lot of places.

To the guy above me, wait until tomorrow and look over my posts again. The reason its confusing is because I'm trying to make some sense of the fickle behaviour of the fanbase. Essentially the Moe subculture has already collapsed back a bit and manly men ARE making a comeback to fill the void. So it's a shared stage. Ok basically the first part up to "will not appeal to everyone" is part of the absurdity argument and the part beginning with "because of this" is what I feel has already happened and why people shouldn't worry anymore. Yet the worrying is coming after the fact on the five blogs Mirrinus posted. Get it?

[Jiji]

If we can get past the drama about the animation studio now, does anyone know if there's any group that has expressed an interest in this anime other than Mahora? Um, I'm not saying Mahora is bad, i'm just wondering is all...

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Furudanuki

Maybe I'm denser than usual tonight. But let's see if I can get this straight.

Some people are apparently shocked and upset that Kyoto Animation took a slice-of-life 4-koma about female otaku featuring humor that will not appeal to everyone and adapted it into - oh! the horror! - a slice-of-life anime about female otaku featuring humor that will not appeal to everyone. Because of this the entire future of the anime industry has been altered, the moe subculture will collapse, and all anime will now have to feature more manly men instead of those annoying singing seiyuu.

OK, I guess I get it now. On second thought, no I don't.

[Drama Drama]

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!

[/Drama Drama]

It's a bit hard to really comment on the first episode without knowing fully what is being said, but I do know that I was amused more by the later chapters of the manga material.

The... hostility between Konata and Kagami is one of the better interactions in Lucky Star in my opinion.

Cheers.

[Tokkan]

Originally Posted by Ueda

If we can get past the drama about the animation studio now, does anyone know if there's any group that has expressed an interest in this anime other than Mahora? Um, I'm not saying Mahora is bad, i'm just wondering is all...

Yes, a.f.k. has expressed interest.

[Mirrinus]

Originally Posted by Ueda

If we can get past the drama about the animation studio now, does anyone know if there's any group that has expressed an interest in this anime other than Mahora? Um, I'm not saying Mahora is bad, i'm just wondering is all...

a.f.k. will also be subbing it.

Edit: 2 seconds late...

[mukansa monkey]

Wow, I "would begin a utopia of anime fandom"? Damn I'm good. I'm all for drama, especially if it's written by Tom Stoppard, but Internet drama I tend to ignore or avoid. It's really not worth getting too worked up over what dumb and/or shallow people think, there's so many people in the world whose opinions simply aren't that valuable. Thus I heavily promote a policy of making up your own mind.

Odd though, the quality of KyoAni's work is what impresses me most about them. Ikept hitting the pause button while watching SHnY just so I could ogle the background art. And some of the scenes where they animate camera panning instead of a linear slide motion, forcing them to switch from 1 background to 12 different backgrounds a second? Gives me the shivers. My initial impression of the screencaps on moetron's site is that much of this show isn't going to have that kind of love given to it. Which matters less given the type of show it is... and it's also possible that with a big juicy h264 video the art quality will become a lot more obvious. I like Madhouse for vampire Hunter D and Otogi-Jushi Akazukin, I'm all about seeing craftsmanship regardless of the style.

Unfappable? To quote Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that means what you think it means."

[animes25]

Hi guys, I want to make you a true weeaboo
I did this version that is 50% more slow so if you want to practice the dance you can do it with this video! hope it helps you to become another more loser who wants to do the dance live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlTvfZuomM8

[Eleutheria]

Regarding episode 1:

If you don't 1) speak Japanese or 2) have lived in Japan for more than a month, you most probably will fall asleep during this episode. That said, even though I have both, I still found the episode merely "ok".

Perhaps I had inflated expectations, but the 4 koma itself doesn't get really funny or moe until the latter half of volume 1 or the start of volume 2.

[Jazzrat]

It's odd but i find this anime more likely to appeal to the female fan than male despite being published in a shounen magazine.

Atleast i know my sister would love this since she's a bit of an otaku herself (play games, watch anime and draws comic)

[CrowKenobi]

Just some random screen grabs from the open...

. . .

Edit: Lucky Star sig!

[Nemo_N]

Can I make an avatar request here?

Could someone make an animated avatar of Konata eating the cone, around 5:20 - 5:24?

Thanks in advance!

[Skane]

The OP sounds downright creepy at 50% speed.

I bear no responsibility for incurred nightmares.

Cheers.

[Asrialys]

Nightmares? Gave me a laughing fit.