Lucky Star Complete Collection - Review

Lucky Star Complete Collection

Studio: Kyoto Animation
UK Distributor: Beez Entertainment (Anime Legends label)
Episodes: 24 + 1 OVA
Aired: 2007
Released: 2011

Earlier in 2011, we finally got to get our hands on the complete series of Lucky Star, Kyoto Animation's next big thing after Haruhi. Indeed, it seems to come off the back of Haruhi with a bang, with quite a few of the Haruhi cast featuring, as well as a Hare Hare Yukai tribute later in the series.



Lucky Star centres around the life of general otaku and gaming ninja Konata Izumi and her group of friends; showing a variety of everyday conversations and events. The other members of the gang are fraternal twins Kagami and Tsukasa; the former being a tsundere, and the latter being an unreliable airhead; and Miyuki, Lucky Star's moe queen, with glasses, clumsiness and other typical moe traits all being ticked.

As a general slice of life series, there's no over-arcing plot as such, except for showing the girls progressing through their high school lives. You can see this from the very first episode, of which most of it is spent talking about food, and in particular the correct way to eat a chocolate cornet.

The content ranges from the rather mundane to the bizarre as we go through the series; the wackiest of these being the Cinderella and Sgt. Frog parts of the OVA. Mainly, the girl's antics are typical of this kind of show that you'll find familiar if you're any kind of anime veteran; festivals, sports day, Christmas, and the obligatory bathing scene are all in there. You may feel a bit "been-there-done-that" however it's the characters that bring it all to life, especially with interaction with Konata. Perhaps one of the best examples of this, without spoiling too much, is the constant battle the manager of an anime store has to get Konata to buy something.

If that doesn't sound too appealing, I can guarantee you won't be switching it off, as the immersion factor is high. You'll find yourself listening in closely to the conversations, as you find out what the girl's get up to.


One of the interesting things the show does get up to is using Konata to include tons of references to other anime, manga, and even games. The previously mentioned Sgt. Frog (Keroro Gunso) seems to be a popular one, as well as references from Tekken, Street Fighter, Gunbuster, Gundam, Initial D and more. The most obvious one however is Haruhi, with various references, including a parody of the famous Hare Hare Yukai dance. Others are harder to spot, and are sometimes impossible to know without having seen the source material first. In an interesting move, probably to avoid licensing issues, where things are referenced explicitly, they're bleeped out like an expletive. It is kind of jarring at first, but you do get used to it, and can typically at least guess at what it is from the context. The majority are done cleverly too, so it's not just a blatant copy of something.

Lucky Star provides something different with its opening and ending sequences that makes it stand out from the crowd of other similar shows. The excellent opening theme "Motteke Sailor Fuku", is actually embedded into the anime itself in more ways than one. Let's just say its origins are explained later in the show.

The endings are different firstly for the five minute "Lucky Channel" segment, hosted by fictional idol Akira Kogami (voiced by Hiromo Konno), and her assistant, the real life voice actor Minoru Shiraishi. While not really the main part of the show, in some cases they do steal the attention, as these segments are often the most hilarious and outrageous. Akira has some sort of dual personality disorder; of which her darker side comes out often, lashing brutally into Shiraishi as her mood steadily worsens. You do feel sorry for Shiraishi, but they are very funny moments.


There are then two different styles of credits for each half of the series. The first half has the girls in a karaoke booth, singing a host of songs from a variety of media. These segments will raise a smile if you've ever done "proper" karaoke; and the purposely bad singing is quite humorous.  The second half has Shiraishi in various real life locations singing songs either modified or created by himself. While rather odd, they are absolutely brilliant, and I encourage you to get into the extras and watch the "Adventures of Minoru Shiraishi" making of clips, that show just how they were done. Whoever came up with this idea is just a genius - seriously, they're that good.

The key thing to note that the best way to get the most out of Lucky Star is to watch the subtitled Japanese version. While the dub uses the same Bang-Zoom voice actors we know from their decent Haruhi dub, the Japanese cast just bring out the characters so much more. The way Aya Hirano presents Konata's voice is so drastically different to Haruhi, the role most people know her for, you'll be surprised it's even her at times. Actually having seen the sub first online, the dub just doesn't seem as fitting for the characters as it should; therefore I'd recommend watching the dub first if you want to compare the two, otherwise just go straight to the sub, which is a more rewarding experience.

Generally, Lucky Star is a highly enjoyable show with a great set of characters who'll suck you in to their daily lives. It's gorgeously presented and laugh out loud funny, and you won't be disappointed if you pick this up.

8/10