Lucky Star (Generic Discussion thread)

[kenjiharima]

She looks alot more like a hybird of most pigtailed girls. Though she shines more without the pigtails and has more originality and character personality imho.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Personally.... I think Lucky*Star (and more explicitly with the Lucky*Channel) takes a large spiked bat to the whole 'moe' meme in a subversive way

Oh believe me, I've noticed. I don't know how many others will catch on or may even go after it thinking it is trying to be Moe rather than make fun of it and everything else Otaku related (Games, Tokusatsu, Bishoujo etc.)

On a different tack, what is with all these pallet swaps of Lucky Star characters in an attempt to make them look like other characters (and then for no reason doing the opposite and adding a character from another show and swapping his colour for Lucky Star style). I am assuming they come from 2Chan and I am assuming the creator subscribes to the theory that if he can make them as fast as possible they will somehow be funny (funnier with each passing pic). I don't know if its not my type of "humour", but it just strikes me as a waste of time as its about as funny as those Couch Guy pics. I don't know, to me a meme has to have a point that once people see it everybody laughs at a sad truth (Chuck Norris is unstoppable in his movies, Over 9000=really bad voice acting joke, All Your Base= Really bad translation joke, Star Wars Kid= This is what Star Wars fans are probably like, Brian Peppers= Some people are ugly on the inside and on the outside despite what you are taught in school constantly etc.) and these don't really have one.

I also really like the last figurine of Miyuki with the ditto eyes.

[Vexx]

Personally, I like the soft-subs now because if a particular piece of translation REALLY bothers me, I can tweak it to my personal satisfaction. Its also helping me learn how to use these cute little tools used for fansubs.

(I got drafted to do QC work on a fansub and eventually would like to do editing and/or translation... the gods know I need *more* hobbies O.o ... but I'd like any opportunity to practice and get better at japanese, even if its 'crappy anime talk japanese' )


@Kaoshin: frankly, what makes Kona extra-special to me outside of her looks is her subversive nature....
(note to self --- using "frankly" and "basically" too much again... must stop... save ship...)

[Samatarou]

Originally Posted by mukansa monkey

Explicit reference to .hack/SIGN at 16:51:
"I don't know the details, but his login info implies that he's been online the whole time."

Moreover, the name of that stuck-in-the-game person in .hack//SIGN was Tsukasa.... however the Tsukasa in LuckyStar doesn’t appear to be a wavemaster... but maybe she is in a virtual world and Kona-chan is one of the monsters....

@Vexx: I like softsubs for the same reason, it’s fun to tinker with them and fix those little things that niggle you everytime you watch an episode. A good example here would be the OP subtitles: whilst a.f.k did an impressive job translating them, the truth is the lyrics are so random that the subtitles are simply a distraction. With softsubs you can simply turn them off, or even delete them from the file.

[aorta]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

A promo shot from earlier has her reading Volume 18 "Side Arms 2 - Kyokuhoku Kara no Koe". I guess this will show up later.

[choupunz]

isn't that FMP?

[Deathkillz]

...this series needs its own thread XD
just watch ep 1 and boy was it crazy...i never knew talking about food can be so interesting O.o moe? dam its something that surpasses even that

the lucky channel part was the final nail in the laughing coffin for me...im speechless...cant wait to watch ep 2 :3

[choupunz]

its already out deathkillz. o_o.

but better if u wait a bit more for the avi. mkv is a bit faulty

[Deathkillz]

i know already but the torrent is just moving so slowly...along with a lot of other stuff im attempting to download

oh and forgot to mention...the OP song is a clean ice breaker...kudos to kyoani *claps*

[Schneizel]

RE: Fonts in softsub MKV. Add it as an attachment in MKVMerge.

[cyth]

Is anyone else disappointed over today's announcement that the 24 episodes will be spread across 12 DVD releases, meaning probably 2 episodes per DVD? I know I am. This really killed it for me. I mean, I wouldn't have a problem if it was a short, 12 episode series, but doing this to a 24 episode series is a bit... expensive, to say the least. The demand for high video bitrate is just not there for what I've seen up till now.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Toua

Is anyone else disappointed over today's announcement that the 24 episodes will be spread across 12 DVD releases, meaning probably 2 episodes per DVD? I know I am.

Not really, 'cause thats how its ALWAYS been with Japanese anime DVD's. And i know it hadn't stopped me from buying. :3

[Vexx]

Um... aren't most japanese R2 releases 2 eps per DVD? (or was I not paying attention?)

I do agree that so far only the OP and a few bits warrant an extreme bit rate but then... I'm thinking of a LOT of series that didn't really warrant the 2 eps/DVD 'quality' but got it anyway. Maybe my eyes are on the wane, but comparing an R2 (2ep) episode with an R1 (4ep) episode ... I rarely notice sufficient differentiation to warrant the cost difference (of course, perhaps my equipment sucks... but I don't think so).

If/when it gets released in R1, they'll almost certainly follow the 4ep/disk pattern because thats the market expectation there.

[cyth]

Why I'm disappointed is because Kyoto Animation have shown a 3 episodes per DVD release structure for their 24 episode title Kanon. Yes, there are numerous examples where the creators want to milk out as much as possible (one gruesome example being SHUFFLE! lim. editions), but the average still revolves around 3 eps/DVD. It's just a bit surprising to me that KyoAni would make such a decission now. I mean, I get that for AIR or Fumoffu since they're shorter shows where they need all the revenue they can get...

[Vexx]

Hmmm, perhaps the DVDs are going to be packed with bonus material or blooper reels.... I suppose we'll get glimmers of why soon.

[cyth]

For now, all they say the special editions will get is mini-games and radio show recordings, probably Lucky☆Channel ones. Not much to look forward to, IMO.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Toua

Why I'm disappointed is because Kyoto Animation have shown a 3 episodes per DVD release structure for their 24 episode title Kanon. Yes, there are numerous examples where the creators want to milk out as much as possible (one gruesome example being SHUFFLE! lim. editions), but the average still revolves around 3 eps/DVD. It's just a bit surprising to me that KyoAni would make such a decission now. I mean, I get that for AIR or Fumoffu since they're shorter shows where they need all the revenue they can get...

Wasn't the first DVD of Code Geass like one episode and the collectors Box and then the rest were about 3 so far (Which at 50 episodes means roughly 16-18 for a 18:3 or 6:1 ratio) discs. Now that's milking. It's pretty bad in Japan. Another example is with FLCL a 6 episode series where instead of doing 3 DVD's with 2 episodes (U.S and still they probably could have done a 3:2 ratio) they did 6 DVD's with 1 episode each in Japan making it a 6:1 ratio (I may have the whole ratio thing reversed). 11 Volumes for Shuffle equates to an 11.5:2 or roughly 6:1 ratio which is just as bad as FLCL. It's quite common I would imagine and each DVD is often way more expensive than the U.S counterpart. That magic 6:1 number keeps popping up so its probably an industry standard to organize it that way.

Now I need to remember why I dropped Shuffle after about 5 episodes...hmmmm, it wasn't THAT bad and I've developed tolerance for that kind of show. Just needed to get past those painful Lia and Nerine arcs, but they wouldn't freaking end.

[Vexx]

Oh it gets worse (controversial/better/etc) if you didn't like those arcs .... but then thats a different topic for a different thread.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Hmmm, perhaps the DVDs are going to be packed with bonus material or blooper reels.... I suppose we'll get glimmers of why soon.

Well, we know already that this is a show that could do with a few of those --- and i'm sure Kyoani have that in there minds. I'm looking forward to seeing just what type of extras we'll get.

[rg4619]

Wasn't the first DVD of Code Geass like one episode and the collectors Box and then the rest were about 3 so far (Which at 50 episodes means roughly 16-18 for a 18:3 or 6:1 ratio) discs. Now that's milking. It's pretty bad in Japan.

Yeah, 3 episodes per DVD seems to be a fairly standard approach for longer anime series (shorter ones are usually two episodes per disc). I don't know about older series, but newer titles like NANA, Honey and Clover, Kanon, and Strawberry Panic have all been released like that.

This is just a guess on my part, but I'm thinking that home video just isn't viewed the same way in Japan as in North America or Europe. In the West, TV box sets are cheap, with content providers aiming at mass-market consumption of their products. Anime is more expensive (no surprise there), but even full sets are reasonably priced to attract more customers.

In Japan, series DVDs (anime, live-action drama) seem catered to a very exclusive market - that is, only the die-hard collectors who have enough money to buy such things. Looking at Oricon sales figures, the number of units sold per volume tends to be ridiculously low (maybe 1000-5000 copies on average? Otaku-centered anime fares considerably better than the typical series, so that's probably one reason why we've seen so many of them lately. Outside of otaku, how many people are willing to spend 35,000 yen on a TV series?), so we're not talking about mass-market consumption here. As such, companies are going to squeeze as much as they can out of this exclusive consumer base.

Perhaps the rest just watch the shows on TV without ever bothering with home video. We can also consider the used and rental DVD markets, but with such small print runs involved, I can't imagine that many viewers are relying on those.