Lucky Star - Episode 23 Discussion / Poll

[takumi2k4]

Saw the episode a while back, and meh. TBH, I really didn't like this episode. I expected something more crazy coz it's ya know the 2nd to the last episode, but what the heck, I'm totally disappointed about this episode.

Yeah, I liked all the screen-time my favorite gaijin got, but I just didn't like it overall.

7/10 for me.

[AVPlaya]

References for EP23, Part A. This is everything before the eye-catch, minus the things already discussed like Nissin Donbei. They will be added to my final post to Cultural References thread. Saa, Minna! Tsukatte! (I love Live Action Maruko-chan).

Spoiler for Long Post, Unhide to read:

Kona's Haruhi Love
Konata's Computer Wallpaper is the picture Haruhi 2nd Season Announcement graphic. It looks like the top half of this:

Where can I find this wallpaper?!


Tsuruya Spam
When Konata discovered that her mailbox is full of spam, she said 「メールがめがっさ溜まってる！」 (Meeru ga megassa tamatteru!, or I've got a LOT of mail!). めがっさ (megassa, a large number), like Nyoron!, is one of Tsuruya-san's trade mark sayings.

Megassa Chaos, a Tsuruya-san only compilation doujinshi



www.tsunderelabulabu.co.jp
It seemed that Konata is busying copying an image folder named TSUNDERE (ツンデレ) from her computer to a.. website? What is she copying? Her secret webcam candid photo of Kagamin? Does she have a pay-only site for the Tsundere Lovers which offers "candid" photos of a certain purple-haired girl with twin-drills? Where do I sign up? NOW we know why she goes to the Hiiragi house all the time now... new source of COMIKET fund no doubt. OKOK She's only copying to her E: drive, but a guy can dream, can't he?

What was that flashing red light in your bathroom, Kona-chan?



The Real Reason the PS3 Failed in Japan
Is due to the fact that Kona-chan's still playing old PS2 games, even while sick at home. If Kona-chan ain't buying, you ain't selling. Them's the rules. Wrapped under her warm and compy futon, Konata is playing one of the best games of 2005, "ワンダと巨像" or "Shadow of the Colossus" in the West. This game became part of Sony's Greatest Hits title, and that's probably the version she's playing.

Cover of the Playstation 2 the Best collection version:



Yet Another Minomonta TV Show
Minomonta-san is the most exposed person in the world - he's on TV on average of 20 hours a week, a world record. That's how popular he is as a host. He does a LOT of shows, including the one watched by Miyuki and her Momma, an daily afternoon house-wife information show called "午後は○○おもいッきりテレビ" (Gogo wa Marumaru Omoikkiri Terebi). It's a show only a house wife or husband would enjoy. In this show, the pink-haired pair learn about the incredible hype surrounding Xylitol, a sugar substitute marketed all over Asia as some magical dental health aid.

Since I can't find a single video on this show, I can only imagine how boring it must be:



The Magic of Xylitol!
Speaking of which, the very next scene we saw Miyuki bought into the hype surrounding this Finnish fake sugar made from wood, and she GET herself a family bottle of the New Lime Mint flavor of Lotte Xylitol Gum (キシリトールガム). Since the darn gum did cause her to visit a dentist needlessly and ended up getting another cavity taken out, I'd say this gum works! I can't believe people who bought into this marketing scam... Xylitol has minimal dental benefits - the best thing it can do is to make gum sweet while not giving you cavity, that's all.

These family bottles are quite handy!


DVD Recoder for Kona
Kona mentioned to Nanako-sensei that she wanted to get a DVD recorder. In Japan, as the sale of DVD players fall, the sale of DVD recorder is rising. It seemed that the DVD Recorder adaptation for the Japanese market is faster than the hard-drive based DVR's North American adaption rate. This is probably because the marketing focus of the major Japanese electronic firms are focused on DVD and nex-gen Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technologies and less on the HD technologies, where Japan has no real tech advantage. I do hope she gets a DVD-recorder for her late night anime.. how did watch ALL those shows without one? Most likely she download them from Winny like everyone else too. But really, HDD recorers are so much better, Kona-chan... don't you know at least one AV-otaku (Audio Visual, not the other one)? Like these new sexy Panny Digas... I know you want a Blu-Ray recorder so this Panny BW-200 HDD/BD hybrid recorder is exactly what you'll need to get all your akiba-kei anime in HD! It's a little expensive but you get to burn your own BD anime collection neh...

Just look at this beauty.. you know you want it, Kona-chan...

[Risaa]

Thank you for another wonderful references post. I don't say that often enough.

Eto, this doesn't have anything to do with the references you picked out, but I wanted to say that I love your little captions! The, "what was that flashing red light in your bathroom, Kona-chan?" type things are really funny and clever, and I like the pictures you find and put in your references posts, too. It's obvious you put a lot of effort into your posts; perhaps you should have a website you can put them in so everyone (even non-asuki members) will be able to find them easily? I would link to it at my blog, for sure (not that that means very much... oh yes, I get LOTS of traffic there )!

Spoiler for spoil'd for *outer* space!:

Originally Posted by AVPlaya

www.tsunderelabulabu.co.jp

Hmm, the link didn't work for me. My end or yours?

Wrapped under her warm and compy futon, Konata is playing one of the best games of 2005, "??????" or "Shadow of the Colossus" in the West. This game became part of Sony's Greatest Hits title, and that's probably the version she's playing.

I knew the game was popular, but I didn't know how popular it was! O_o My WoW-obsessed friend would often take time off whenever guild-mates were fighting and would play Shadow of the Colossus and its sequel (though the story in the second game is a prequel to the first game). I never caught on with the hype -- I could see myself getting really frustrated with that sort of game.

The Magic of Xylitol!
Speaking of which, the very scene we saw Miyuki bought into the hype surrounding this Finnish fake sugar made from wood, and she bought herself a family bottle of the New Lime Mint flavor of Lotte Xylitol Gum (????????). Since the darn gum did cause her to visit a dentist needlessly and ended up getting another cavity taken out, I'd say this gum works! I can't believe people who bought into this marketing scam... Xylitol has minimal dental benefits - the best thing it can do is to make gum sweet while not giving you cavity, that's all.

Hahaha, it's such a big hit in Korea! Every so often I get a bottle of it too, but more for the taste and lack of variety at the smaller oriental stores than anything else.

[AVPlaya]

Originally Posted by ProtoMan

Hmm.... it seems Konata uses winrar and WMP 10 to watch her avi's, not to mention Windows XP default theme. Bleh, despite being more tech savvy than the average joe she's attached to such trifle mainstream applications. pttf...

Japan is very, very Microsoft-centric in term of OS and Internet technology. A lot of IIS/ASP/SQL sites and official media is almost invariably Windows Media based. I believe this has to do with the Hero-worship of Billy Gates; he's quite popular in Japan.

Originally Posted by mickal555

Maybe patty just isn't into hentai, perhaps shes not really into it so doesn't have much experience. Porn & Hentai isn't for everyone, even otaku's.

An akiba-kei otaku like Patty? It's impossible for her not to be open to Porn. She might not enjoy it, but at that level, you're pretty much desensitized to a point where porn just don't matter, so she can watch it with fellow otaku like Kona and enjoy AV anime and Ero-ge without caring too much for the "porn" factor. Given that she's from the US might give her some sense of guilt, but if you're in Japan and hanging out with the J-otakus, that hypocritical puritanism probably went away as well. How can someone who enjoy COMIKET and sees Akiba as a Holy Site be offended by porn? I don't know why would anyone ask about if Patty seen porn though.. her collection is probably bigger than most of us.

About Patty.... have you guys notice how she pronounced "America"? It's not A-ME-RI-KA a la katakana, but an American-accented "America" with a rolling R. That Seiyuu is a pro.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Shiroi Hane

Hentai DVDs and the like are often/sometimes decensored in the US release* and Patty is from America, so perhaps the producers had this in mind.

The nico comments were of the (nearly unanimous) opinion that they were playing an eroge/browsing an eroge site, not watching hentai. Also, it was referring to a mosaic.

Originally Posted by mickal555

Maybe patty just isn't into hentai, perhaps shes not really into it so doesn't have much experience. Porn & Hentai isn't for everyone, even otaku's.

She is a fujoshi in every sense of the word. It is quite clear that she has encountered it before.

[Kinny Riddle]

Originally Posted by AVPlaya

Sentence #4

What Kagami wanted to write:

「かつ勢いだけじゃなく委員会の雰囲気も大切にしつつ、」
(Katsu ikioi dake janaku iinkai no funiki mo taisetsu ni shitsutsu)

"Moreover we should pay attention to not only the energy but also the mood of the committee."

What Kagami actually wrote:

「かつ勢いだけじゃなく委員会のふいんき（←なぜか変換できない）も大切にしつつ、」
(Katsu ikioi dake janaku iinkai no fuinki (<- nazeka henkan dekinai) mo taisetsu ni shitsutsu)

"Moreover we should pay attention to not only the energy but also the fuinki (<- somehow this can't be converted) of the committee."

The joke here I believe is that the word 雰囲気 (fu n i ki, mood) is very often misspelled phonically as "fu i n ki", and of course the input system won't be able to convert it to correct kanji. Some folks in 2ch then added the sentence "(<- somehow this can't be converted)" after writing ふいんき in hiragana, and it became the defacto form of the word for mood (雰囲気) in 2ch as a running joke. Kagami made a typical typo, but what came out is all 2ch otaku-ness. Some even invented a new kanji compount 不陰気 (fuinki) to add to the Input system and use it in the same joking manner; this new word looked very negative so it probably has the notion of "negative mood" attached to it. This is very 2ch-ish so I wish some expert would explain more to us.

Even when I hear the three words read out loud, I've always mistakenly thought it's read as "fu-in-ki" instead of "fu-ni-ki". Either that or the seiyuus must have mispronounced the term as well themselves.

I think it's a bit like "porn" being misspelled as "pr0n", "OWNED" being misspelled as "PWNED", and "the" into "teh". These originally started out as minor misspellings, but because these words are so easily misspelled that over time it actually became fashionable to actually misspell them.

I had wanted to comment on "Mania Transfer" probably being a typo of TYPE-MOON's infamous "Mana Transfer" plot devices, but realized "Mana Transfer" is not written as such in Japanese.

[Psycho Power J]

Originally Posted by AVPlaya

Japan is very, very Microsoft-centric in term of OS and Internet technology. A lot of IIS/ASP/SQL sites and official media is almost invariably Windows Media based. I believe this has to do with the Hero-worship of Billy Gates; he's quite popular in Japan.

I noticed that Nanako sensei was using Microsoft Internet Explorer for her journal entry. Haven't used that as my main browser since I migrated to Firefox, and later to Opera. Never had to worry about losing a long post since you could go back and all the things you typed is still there.

[Calawain]

Originally Posted by bayoab

The nico comments were of the (nearly unanimous) opinion that they were playing an eroge/browsing an eroge site, not watching hentai. Also, it was referring to a mosaic.


She is a fujoshi in every sense of the word. It is quite clear that she has encountered it before.

Pretty much sums it up there. A lot of popular ero-games that you don't see US ported censor the naughty bits. So for instance in the small amount of h-scenes in Fate/Stay Night everything below the belt is blurred. That is in contrast to ero titles released in the United States which tend to be less story and more sex. American companies probably don't have the money to pay for licensing a game like FSN because of the tiny market. So I was thinking that if she had been watching much American released ero she would be surprised by the censorship in some of the popular Japan-only releases.

Edit- These are just conclusions I have come up with after my experiences with ero-games released in the US and fan translated patches of FSN and others, do not take it for absolute fact!

And yes, her fujoshi status makes her quite able to stand the site of sex, especially if she is such a frequent patron of Otome Road.

Originally Posted by AVPlaya

DVD Recoder for Kona
Kona mentioned to Nanako-sensei that she wanted to get a DVD recorder. In Japan, as the sale of DVD players fall, the sale of DVD recorder is rising. It seemed that the DVD Recorder adaptation for the Japanese market is faster than the hard-drive based DVR's North American adaption rate. This is probably because the marketing focus of the major Japanese electronic firms are focused on DVD and nex-gen Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technologies and less on the HD technologies, where Japan has no real tech advantage. I do hope she gets a DVD-recorder for her late night anime.. how did watch ALL those shows without one? Most likely she download them from Winny like everyone else too. But really, HDD recorers are so much better, Kona-chan... don't you know at least one AV-otaku (Audio Visual, not the other one)? Like these new sexy Panny Digas... I know you want a Blu-Ray recorder so this Panny BW-200 HDD/BD hybrid recorder is exactly what you'll need to get all your akiba-kei anime in HD! It's a little expensive but you get to burn your own BD anime collection neh...

Just look at this beauty.. you know you want it, Kona-chan...

The hard drive based HD-DVR recording devices are really freaking awesome. I love ours and now aside from sports I never watch commercials. It allows you to tape stuff every week without forcing you to spend money on DVDs to record shows you may not want. Plus if you really do want it you can archive them (although that costs extra).

[stassy]

Small tidbits catched on this ep. and not referenced yet :

Spoiler for :

One of the first mails has the header "it's Mi*noru". Might not be a spam...

Spoiler for :

Aren't most of those theme related to Kagami? Omg 35/60 min of pics transfer, there might be more than thousand gig to move, usually a few gig don't even take more than few minutes. Also I didn't see any yuri/yaoi folders, we know that Konata bought some Hyorin doujin so they might be somewhere else

Spoiler for :

Nice shoot, the Ahoge cockroache antenna of Konata is placed exactly on Saber face in the FSN poster, which of course happen to have one as well

[Kinny Riddle]

Originally Posted by stassy

Small tidbits catched on this ep. and not referenced yet :

Spoiler for :

One of the first mails has the header "it's Mi*noru". Might not be a spam...

Poor Minoru, lol. Speaking of which, if you had registered to join the SOS Brigade in the official Haruhi TV website, you would get those interesting SOS Brigade emails sent by Kyon himself, announcing new activities while grumbling at the same time.

Spoiler for :

Aren't most of those theme related to Kagami? Omg 35/60 min of pics transfer, there might be more than thousand gig to move, usually a few gig don't even take more than few minutes. Also I didn't see any yuri/yaoi folders, we know that Konata bought some Hyorin doujin so they might be somewhere else

Wonder if "Elf" means "Elven-eared" or that eroge game studio Elf?

Spoiler for :

Nice shoot, the Ahoge cockroache antenna of Konata is placed exactly on Saber face in the FSN poster, which of course happen to have one as well

Legend has it that if you pluck off the ahoge off Saber's head, she'll become Dark Saber. Who wants to try this on Kona-chan so we can see Dark Kona?

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by AVPlaya

...About Patty.... have you guys notice how she pronounced "America"? It's not A-ME-RI-KA a la katakana, but an American-accented "America" with a rolling R. That Seiyuu is a pro.

That seiyuu is the relative newcomer Sasaki Nozomi ささきのぞみ, owner of the moe-est voice in anime (imho). She's a 24-year-old college graduate, shrine priestess, and office lady who got her break last year at an open workshop in Kobe and was picked to star in Bokura ga Ita as her debut role. She has a great blog that she is posting to several times a day, almost rivalling Ochiai Yurika for posting frequency. She was the biggest reason I was looking forward to this show. Of course, I have lots of other reasons to like the show now.

Here are some photos from her blog:



She has a series of photos on her blog now of a trip to Kyoto. The second-last pic shows her on the terrace at Kiyomizu-dera. She is so happy to get back among people speaking Kansai-ben. I think she is from Osaka. I was not overwhelmed by her work in LS at first, but either she is getting better or I am getting used to the way she's doing it, because I thought she was great in ep23.

[Rion Steiner]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

Here are some photos from her blog:



She has a series of photos on her blog now of a trip to Kyoto. She is so happy to get back among people speaking Kansai-ben. I think she is from Osaka. I was not overwhelmed by her work in LS at first, but either she is getting better or I am getting used to the way she's doing it, because I thought she was great in ep23.

How old is she in these photos, she doesnt look even pass 16 and I gotta admit she has great potential and I love her English. Nozomi Sasaki as well as Aya Hirano and Misao's Seiyuu (I cant find her >_<) did a marvelous job on giving life to their characters.

[AVPlaya]

Originally Posted by Risaa

Thank you for another wonderful references post. I don't say that often enough.

[...] perhaps you should have a website you can put them in so everyone (even non-asuki members) will be able to find them easily?

Thank you for the kind words. These are labors of love, so I'm always glad when others find them useful. I've thought about putting it on a personal website, but I've done that before and managing and maintaining a blog/site is always a hassle, plus posting it here ensures that present and future fan of the show will always find this info. I'm sure more people will start watching it after it's over, like people do with Haruhi even today.

The reason I started doing them was really for myself - Although I know a bit about Japan they always manage to reference some obscure TV show or comic bits I need to do research on. Plus I'd miss most of the ota references anyway. Looking up these things and writing about it is incredibly fun - I get to look for things I'd never looked into before, like the name of the darn Horse Crap Sea Urchin... I had no idea I was eating them all these years. Since it's a joy I'd share with other fans of the show who may not know about the real J-culture that intimately. Like the bit about Xylitol.. I see so many articles and CM on this stuff I got the joke right away, but Xylitol was never marketed the same way in the US so people maybe scratching their heads a bit. But as you know, Xylitol gums are becoming almost defacto in markets across Asia.

Hmm, the link didn't work for me. My end or yours?

It's Kona's end. She spend all her "income" on C72 that she forgot to pay her ISP and her site got shut down. Those damn Maido3 Banana Servers.... just because they host 2ch (in California, no less) they think they can act like asshats.

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

That seiyuu is the relative newcomer Sasaki Nozomi ささきのぞみ, owner of the moe-est voice in anime (imho). She's a 24-year-old college graduate, shrine priestess, and office lady [...] I think she is from Osaka.

I fully expected this excellent post from our ichiban resident seiyuu-ota, Kaoru-dono, the moment I wrote that sentence. She's a cute Miko-OL-Seiyuu? What a killer combo! Must got quite a fanbase. According to her wiki page, she lives in Kanagawa, but her parents are from Osaka. She probably speak Osaka-ben at home and being in Kansai (where Kyoto is) made her feel at home.

You know, Kyoto used to be shrines, temples, and maiko-chans to me; now Kyoto is Nintendo, KyoAni, and Lucky Star. I'd better not say this to a non-outlaw Japanese...

Originally Posted by Rion Steiner

How old is she in these photos, she doesnt look even pass 16...

She's born in '83 so that makes her 24. She's a college grad you know. It sounds like you're not used to the age of Asian women... many girls looks like this in their 30's and 40's. My wife still gets carded now in her 30's.

Originally Posted by stassy

Small tidbits catched on this ep. and not referenced yet :

Great catch! Also if you've noticed the mail are all dated October 07... So it's early fall in L*S time already. KyoAni's vaunted attention to detail... Does Shiraishi want to date Kona too? Hmm... Kaori-chan (Tsukasa's Seiyuu) does have that chibi look...

As for the folders, maybe they are mostly photos of Kagami in various stages of... dress and posture...? I can't keep this up or I'm gonna get a nose bleed.

I don't think Kona is a full fujoshi though... she is so much more Akiba-kei. But since she did dig Marimite, I'd say she's a Yuri fan more than a full fledge fujoushi, who would put more weight on Yaoi and Shota. I'm actually quite surprised that she bought Hiyori's Circle doujin... That meant she went all 3-days, even BL-days. What other Yuri goodness did she buy? Hmm....

[723]

This is what I am talking about when I tell my friends to see L*S right now. A big part of this show is the internet chatter we are doing every day. Moreover, occident-minded people like me wouldn't get half the jokes: this is why I have to thank AVPlaya and all the other guys who help in this whole thread. No only because of the explication, but also theories, ringtones (xD), images, etc...

So, after this happiness moment I had (XD), how is the situation about the lovers stories in L*S? The only one which was treated properly was Kagamin's one (and it could have been ommited ¬¬). The rest of the stories are kept in such a quiet mood... if there is a reason for the Minoru hints, I say xD.

And... I think we have talked about this but... who stinks? Why does he stink? Why he does not stink at the end of episode 23? I really want them to say something about that in the last episode!! This is as "weird" as balsamic vineaguer madness... x3

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by Rion Steiner

How old is she in these photos, she doesnt look even pass 16 and I gotta admit she has great potential and I love her English. Nozomi Sasaki as well as Aya Hirano and Misao's Seiyuu (I cant find her >_<) did a marvelous job on giving life to their characters.

All those photos were taken in the past few months. Photos 2-4 are all from the past week or so.

I have a page giving info on all the main seiyuus. Misao's seiyuu is Mizuhara Kaoru 水原薫. She has a blog she just started last month. She hasn't appeared in much yet, just having debuted last year with bit parts in Otoboku and Angelique Mezameru Toki. Nobody seems to know her age (Sasaki Nozomi is one of the few seiyuus who puts her birth year on her own home page). Wikipedia says she got interested in voice work because of her mother being a public address announcer in a department store. Really have to give KyoAni's people credit for finding good but little-known seiyuus and getting good work from them.



And by the way, thanks to AVPlaya for all the background info. And thanks again to Guerrand for the quick subs. Watching #23 again was a total joy. So dense with humor and interest. It seemed as if not a second was wasted.

[himemiya613]

i cant believe this series is about to end!!!!

[Prim8]

Originally Posted by himemiya613

i cant believe this series is about to end!!!!

I feel ya, I feel ya.
I'm going to miss it so much.

[Shiroi Hane]

Originally Posted by bayoab

The nico comments were of the (nearly unanimous) opinion that they were playing an eroge/browsing an eroge site, not watching hentai. Also, it was referring to a mosaic.

I assumed they were playing a game yes, I mentioned DVDs in particular since I know these are de-censored in the US but I don't know much about the erogame market in America, other than it is smaller than the H-anime market. The L*S producers probably most likely know less than me, so I was running on the assumption that they know stuff is sold uncensored in the US but overestimated the scale of the market.

[Calawain]

Re-watching the episode today I once again was in agreement with Kona-chan about little sister characters and moe. I have a sister who is several years younger than me, so I rarely see any moe in the younger sister or loli types. As soon as I hear the male lead being called "onii-chan" I prepare for the worst. I never really understood the whole lolicon type, I mean in the Saimoe tournaments from years past, 9 year olds from Nanoha won. Blows my mind.

[nikorai]

Hello. Watched the episode. It's full of laughing moments indeed. I voted 10


AVPlaya
Once again, thank you for another set of cultural reference. I learn a lot of new things every time I read them.
Also, thanks for your comments on Kagami's typing skills. I type in japanese myself so when i watched the episode the joke was clear to me.
I just came up with a possible English equivalent to the joke (you probably all know this, I remember this poem since the time I was learning English in the uni).

eye halve a spelling chequer
it came with my pea sea
it plainly marques four my revue
miss steaks eye kin knot sea
eye strike a quay and type a word
and weight four it two say
weather eye am wrong oar write
it shows me strait a weigh.
as soon as a mist ache is maid
it nose bee fore two long
and eye can put the error rite
its rare lea ever wrong.
eye have run this poem threw
i am shore your pleased two no
its letter perfect awl the weigh
my chequer tolled me sew.