Lucky☆Star

Lucky Star is incredibly charming and funny despite it's simple premise. If you wanna watch something exciting or with a lot of substance, keep looking; but if you're multitasking, in a bad mood, or just looking to unwind after a long day, this show is an easy recommendation.
Lucky Star has a very episodic structure and usually consist of three or four different segments wrapped into a single episode. This makes the show very easy to follow, you can throw on a random episode while doing something else and be able to follow the story just fine.

As a filthy foreigner, I can't attest to ... its accuracy in portraying Japanese school life, but I can absolutely say that the characters are extremely well written and realistic. I definitely knew people like Kagami and Miyuki when I was in high school, and I'm sure many people can say the same. They all feel like living breathing people, and they're all so likeable that it's very easy to get invested in their lives and daily struggles, no matter how mundane they may seem at first glance.

Lucky Star is one of those classic weeb anime that everyone knows, but almost nobody watches today, so I finally decided to give it a try. Now let's talk about it.

With a great cast of characters, charming moe aesthetics, and good comedic timing, Lucky Star is a fun experience. It has some boring episodes along the way, but they don't hurt the overall experience that much.

Konata is the star of the show. Her interactions with the rest of the cast are absolutely hilarious, especially with Kagami, and they're the best part of the show, along with Lucky Channel and its chaotic energy.

That said, Lucky Star ... has a problem with reference dumping. I caught some of the references, but others went completely over my head, and some characters are really underused.

In general, it's a must-watch because of its historical impact and relevance, but it's not for everyone.

One of the criticisms I never really got about the Monogatari series is that "they talk too much". Maybe partly because I was entertained by the characters and their banter, maybe because it still felt like it was going Somewhere, I never really had an issue with how much dialogue there was in the show. After all, surely they wouldn't make a show that was JUST inane banter-

Oh.

Oh dear.

Lucky Star manages to combine two of the things I like least in this world in my anime (thank God it didn't set it in a fantasy world/isekai): moeshit and blatant pandering.

And, I expected to kind of ... not fuck with the moeshit, the pandering I was a little shocked by how hard it turned me off but what really surprised me is how it feels like absolutely nothing of value happens in any episode.

They occasionally feed you little giblets of character development or emotional moments as a treat but other than Lucky Channel (the one saving grace of this show, otherwise it'd get a 1 like its KyoAni counterpart City), it feels like absolute piss fodder for 22 minutes of Cute Girls blathering on the most random shit or vaguely otaku-related things.

Speaking of which, dear God, please make it stop.

I cannot claim to have been an otaku in the 2000s. That is just, naturally, something I have no right to claim so maybe if you are (although in which case how the fuck have you not seen Lucky Star, it's been 20 years), this'll Hit Different for you, but it's not like I didn't get the references, I just found them cringe.

Most of the time, it's not even, like, clever references, it's just "hey, he's dressed up as Edward Elric! Hey, remember Haruhi (mind you, an anime they made THE YEAR PRIOR)? Look, they say this in Hell Girl! Hey, remember Haruhi? I said Code Geass! Hey, remember Haruhi? Let's name some bands that did anime OPs in the 2000s! HEY, REMEMBER HARUHI?!?!?!?!? ISN'T HARUHI SO FUCKING AWESOME?"

And, like, Haruhi IS a great show. But it felt kind of obnoxious how often they tooted their own horn on it.

Like, idk, I popped off for the Initial D one. I would've popped off if Miyuki were forced to cosplay as Hanekawa or something. I'm not immune to popping for references but that's such bush league behavior. If your best material is just showing off other works, maybe you shouldn't be making a show.

Speaking of which, boy, did I not like Konata Izumi. I don't think every single otaku character sucks, I liked Harumi Fujiyoshi from Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. ...most of them though...

Idk, it just felt slimy and pandering how shamelessly Konata was a self-insert for otakus to insert themselves into. To be honest, it's kind of lowkey in (generally speaking) every CGDCT but they usually don't just make a girl for you to pour yourself into in the same way. Like, she's an otaku and she's an unabashed one and she brings everything back to games and anime (in itself an annoying trait) but she also gets good grades while barely studying and she has a bunch of cute girl friends and she has a good relationship with her family.

There's no conflict here, she's a total loser but skates by with nothing but a comedic thwack from her teacher who is also her net galpal. I get it's a CGDCT so it's not like they're all gonna die or anything but combined with the kind of character Konata is, it felt slimy.

She's also just kind of a dick (and has a weird as fuck relationship with her father, bleh)? I just felt really bad for Kagami in every episode. Speaking of which, I don't really have that much to say on the sisters. Kagami is The Tsundere and the butt monkey for Konata, which only served to make me dislike Konata even more. Nominally, she's supposed to be the straight man but since nothing really changes, I don't really see the point. Tsukasa... idk man, she's a fucking idiot. She's not even the only idiot because Miyuki takes the role of the clumsy one so honestly, Tsukasa's just kind of here to be The Idiot, I guess. She was fine, I didn't hate her or anything.

Speaking of Miyuki, hi Miyuki. As you could probably tell by her glasses, Miyuki's nominally the Smart One but she's more used to be objectified as Moe. Every single one of her flaws is described as moe and making her even better. Again, slimy. However, she's also really clumsy and kind of childish? She refuses to go to the dentist which is a recurring thing in the show and she only wears glasses because she's afraid of contacts. I guess she's still technically Book Smart but they might as well all hold the Idiot Orb at this point, honestly, Kagami feels more like the smart one since she has to play straight man, even if it doesn't lead to anything.

Miyuki also leads to a weird, like, undercurrent that runs throughout the show. For how stupid and moebloby these characters all look, it's strangely sexual at times. Miyuki and her cousin in particular are fodder for breast jokes since Miyuki has giant tits but her cousin is flat chested. Like, what are we doing here? Why is this in a CGDCT? It circles back to the exact same issue basically every issue this show has circles back to: this REEKS of pandering to horny otaku guys. Like, idk, Do It Yourself or something is probably also at least taking horny otaku guys into consideration when they're making their CGDCT shenanigans but Lucky Star feels like it was made by them, for them and no one else.

They introduce a bunch of new characters later on. It really does not feel like they were necessary. Like, the two that are actively related to members of the main cast, sure. The rest? Not really?

I will say I enjoyed Lucky Channel, I liked Akira and Shiraishi's banter, it generally had a few funny jokes each episode, it was a nice B-plot that was a little treat at the end for sitting through like 18 minutes of nothingness crap.

You can write off what I was saying about it being slimy and pandering as me being overly cynical, fine, but it's just not good at what it does otherwise. Unless you really just want to point and clap at 2000s anime references, it's just a bunch of moeblobs talking about riveting subjects such as how you eat a cream puff, if it's normal to talk to your pets, and the rate on your phone bill.

I'm giving this a higher score than City but (outside of Lucky Channel), it's arguably just as boring and unfunny but in a different way. Where City was at least trying to make you laugh (and miserably failing), this is just droning on and on. I don't even really understand the appeal, to be honest. Surely there must be a better show that covers the life of an otaku.

What it is more than anything is it is thoroughly draining.

Honestly, you can just rewatch Haruhi and look up 2000s AMVs after to get your fix. No need to watch this.