Lucky Star (Generic Discussion thread)

[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.

[Newprimus]

It's a bunch of old men dancing in schoolgirl clothes!! Flee!!

It's hilarious.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Well, there have been over 5000 posts in the Lucky Star threads on 2channel in the past 17 hours or so, and the haters and the unconvinced appear to be running out of steam. Comments are falling into rough parity, or even slightly pro. For a while there, it looked like mass hysteria of a similar but opposite kind to the SHnY posts last year. I wonder if it's the same people.

I am struck that the anti-Hirano Aya feeling does not seem that strong. There were negative comments, but surprisingly few, considering that there is over a thread of anti-Aya posts on 2channel for every ten of the main Aya threads, and she has the second-highest number of anti- threads of any female seiyuu (after Mizuki Nana). Some people prefaced their remarks with: "I hate Hirano, but..." A couple of people said that they were uneasy about her in the role but she was good. People also had few complaints about the other seiyuu, despite the fact that 2channel is generally highly suspicious of inexperienced seiyuu.

I didn't read everything, just skimmed a couple of threads, so I might have missed things, but that's how it seemed to me. By the way, the male seiyuu with the highest number of anti- threads appear to be Suzumura Kenichi (Shinn Asuka) and Konishi Katsuyuki (Sergay Wang).

The main complaints continue to be that the show is not funny and nothing special, and seem to take delight in saying KyoAni has taken a step backward.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by 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!

Will this do?



Cheers.

[Nemo_N]

Originally Posted by Skane

Will this do?



Cheers.

Wow! That was fast! Thank you so much!

[kj1980]

By the way, how many of you here actually read the manga by Yoshimizu Kagami? There's a whole lot of difference in knowing the original manga and knowing what to expect from the anime - and in this case KyoAni did a good adaptation of bringing out the subtleness from the manga.

The yuru~i and mata~ri (very loose and laid back) -ness that was as described and marketed on the manga was exactly that - the anime itself was yuru~i and mata~ri wwww.

Well, except for the OP and the spurt-my-milk-from-my-mouth laughter of selecting Kyodain for the ED wwww I wonder if they'll continue to have each of the girls sing some otaku-ish theme song at every ED from now on? My personal rave would by listening to one of the girls sing the OP to the Uchuu Keiji series like Gyaban wwww


Plus, they've managed to add in some more expansions to some of the neta (the punchlines?) with "how to eat a puff cream" "how to eat the strawberry shortcake" "how do you eat a curry rice" etc. Especially the curry rice made me chuckle as I've never heard of putting mayo into curry or on an oyako-don. (note to self: must try that sometime!)

Many of these are a subtle jokes would be difficult for a non-Japanese person to understand. Some examples:

Konata adds sauce to curry, whereas Tsukasa adds mayo
Reference to curry rice being a favorite dish among the majority of Japanese households, and each household has different ways of eating and "tasting it up" with various secret recipes. By the way, my household way is adding in slices of apples and instant coffee before adding in the rou.

Kagami reading a newspaper on recent weirdos
Confinement kidnappings were heavily put on the news in Japan in which they all happen to be weirdos which further put demise to the otaku stereotype that we are all losers. But, what Konata says is partly true - some idiots can't distinguish what's real and what's not.


BTW, I was surprised they even let Patricia Martin into the OP. And I am absolutely looking foward to hear Minorin's portrayal of Minami-chan.