Fading Love for Lucky Star

I’m gonna throw in my two cents on my current feelings about Lucky Star (albeit possibly tardy…or maybe not) as a slight fuss arose in the anime blogocube following Scott’s post. Like Scott, I showed the series in question in my anime club with the final episode shown this past Wednesday. While most people liked it watching for the first time, I began to be pretty passive about it rewatching, working on a crossword or reading some articles for a class. On principle, I usually don’t watched something I have already seen (anime, movies, TV shows, etc.) except I am looking for something in particular to pick out or if I am listening to a director’s commentary. For example, I can recall somehow seeing Love Actually three times within a 9-month period and enjoying it less and less on each subsequent viewing.

When I first saw Lucky Star, I was like almost everyone else in liking the Lucky Channel segments more than what the main show had to offer, partly due to slight hints at Akira’s past. My list of favorite characters began to thin with Kagami and Kuroi remaining as the few with whom I felt any connection – Kagami for the frustration of wanting to get things done, which is strange considering my tendency to procrastinate, and Kuroi for the sassy teacher factor and the “I’m feeling old” moments. The rest pretty much maintain their basic singular roles with slight growth over the series.

While I disagree with Scott that Lucky Star is “just not a good show” as I can argue that it featured many funny moments and also reminded viewers of balsamic vinegar’s existence, I share his viewpoint of wondering if this series is deserving of all the attention it’s getting. I might even extend that same criticism to Haruhi after watching it in a marathon last September and coming away from it still admiring the visuals and sci-fi aspect but less so the back-and-forths between Kyon and Haruhi.

As I mentioned in the pilot ROL post, I am expecting the volume 1 standard DVD to arrive in my mailbox this coming week. I ordered LS v.1 primarily to judge the dub performances for myself even though the feedback I’ve heard so far is that it sucks. Reading the pack-in notes and listening to the dub will likely be my last interaction with the franchise, save for possibly checking out the OVA whenever that comes out or attempting an odd video project.

Strange that I didn’t notice this until yesterday…

It wouldn’t be accurate to call Lucky Star a meme in itself, but it has sprung a number of them like remixes of Yutaka’s Mojipittan scene so I’ll run with the tenuous relation and say I’m at the “meh” stage of not minding. I never really understood Idolmaster or Vocaloid but strangely I grew from being annoyed by to just being fine with the many, many Caramelldansen variations. I admit I still listen to the Lucky Star Douga medley every few weeks and some of the character singles less often but the incidences seem to be decreasing in frequency.

While digging through some boxes last week, I was surprised that I still had four Azumanga DVDs along with the artbox. Owning this did help me demonstrate how ADV handled that one “he’s a German” scene in a post almost two years ago but right now, I’m considering selling them off for some extra scratch. I simply have no intention of watching Azumanga ever again because I’ll see the jokes and their setups coming from a mile away and thus would be wasting my time. Kind of what I felt while re-watching Lucky Star but worse.

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• Worthwhile MAD of Lucky Star Douga (Nico Link) (1)
• Riffing on Quartets of Core Characters and K-On! Manga (5)
• Regarding Spoilers (1)
• Reading Out Loud #01: PiQ and Lucky Star (5)
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