Before getting into my short non-review of the first Lucky Star OVA (not hard to imagine there will be subsequent releases), I would first like to point out the above copyright reminder that was displayed after the live action Lucky Channel segment, which a fansub group kindly took the time to translate in order to incriminate themselves. So anyone who watched this using ANY METHOD other than through a legally acquired digital versatile disc (i.e. fansubs, raws, streaming media), you have violated the law…and so have I. If you want screenshots or an in-depth summary, look elsewhere.
Now, I wasn’t expecting a lot from the Original Visual Animation but I found it humorous throughout its 40 minute run time. Almost all of it pleased me satisfactorily: (1) a daily life look at Minami’s pooch, Cherry-chan, with some good POV shots; (2) the Hiiragi sisters, Konata, and Nanao-sensei taking on a online RPG together; (3) Kagami as a reluctant Cinderella with a surprise ending; (4) a volleyball match where Tsukasa on Misao’s team tries to beat her sister and her team; (5) the usual quartet gets lost in the woods on the way to a class campsite; (6) a strange story involving a pet shop, frogs, and dialogue reiterated through text cards à la silent film; (7) Anime Tenchou approaching Konata in the MMO - the stinker of the lot; and (8) Lucky Channel with Hiromi Kanno and Minoru Shiraishi sans animation on top of a roof. The background music composed by Satoru Kousaki was good as always and his involvement in fall title Kannagi may get me to sample that new series.
For those stalwart legal viewers out there, I would speculate this OVA coming stateside in summer 2009 after television series vol. 6 comes out in mid-March or early April. About possible pricing, this should not retail for more than 15 American dollars since mediocre Mave-chan came out at $10 with negligible extras and there will surely be on-disc bonus material on par with the regular Haruhi and Lucky Star releases, namely, behind the scenes production and special event footage.
UPDATE 10/13:
A few hours after the post went up, Fanboy.com’s Michael Pinto made a comment (above) on Twitter that I heartily second - Cherry-chan needs more screen time! You should check out his site - he beat some of the technorati to a few new Japanese iPhone ads.
I’m gonna throw in my two cents on my current feelings about Lucky Star (albeit possibly tardy…or maybe not) as a slightfussarose 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. Read the rest of this entry »
The first DVD volume of Lucky Star shipped yesterday (the earliest I expect to get my copy is the 15th) and I figured this would be a good time to kick off an experimental, new feature for the blog. I’m calling it “Reading Out Loud” because that’s basically what the posts will be about: myself reading print articles, columns and reviews out loud with dramatic emphasis when appropriate. Read the rest of this entry »
Lucky Star’s first US volume got dated about three weeks ago and now we find out about the extras that limited edition purchasers expect to find inside the pretty art box come May 6th. The $35 “upgrade” will yield you pack-ins in the vein of the Haruhi LEs but tweaked a bit: the opening theme and Konata character single CDs, a T-shirt version of Ryou-ou Gakuen’s winter girl’s school uniform that frankly looks kinda lame, and a chocolate cornet screen wipe that actually might be useful. The regular edition will still feature liner notes so you can understand the more obscure references as well as “The Adventures of Minoru Shiraishi” which may or may involve footage from the fan events he hosted.
Considering the Haruhi CD singles are individually priced at $10 each and T-shirts sell for about, you’re getting a bit of a deal. One question: will all the tees be the same size, e.g. large? If so, that may cause trouble for some buyers. I remember the FLCL Ultimate Collection included a postcard to send in for your free shirt but it took over a year and a month to finally get it in the mail so there’s definitely a tradeoff between speed and getting the right size.
Lucky Star Vol. 1 regular edition cover (Japanese Vol. 2 LE cover)
Anime on DVD spotted new listings on Right Stuf for Lucky Star Volume 1 (episodes 1-4) with the release date currently scheduled for May 6th. It looks like Kadokawa Pictures USA is going down the same release path that they did with Haruhi by releasing a $29.98 standard edition and a $64.98 limited edition plus box. The extras in the limited edition aren’t known right now - the pics on TRSI only show the outside of the box - but I’m guessing there will probably be some pack-in items. LE pics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
I found out from reading the Wikipedia entry on Lucky Star’s characters that “Anime Tenchou” Meito Anizawa was the main character in a 2 minute promo video done by Gainax (date: 2002) for the Animate retail chain. Some quick searching led me to the above video, which has pretty good animation but it’s not that great of a promotional device IMHO. Also, there was apparently a short-form (3 pages per chapter) Anime Tenchou comic that you can read online here with 10 chapters posted.
Someone on NicoNicoDouga last Wednesday posted a MAD for the fifteen-minute long Lucky Star character song medley from ”Motteke Sailor Fuku Re-Mix 002″ and it has already gotten about 240,000 views. I had been waiting for something like the album came out and it looks pretty nice with different colored frames that slide on-screen to introduce each character’s portion and the utilization of a four-videos-at-once method that allows for more character screenage during the shorter segments of the medley. There was even a Densetsu Shoujo A segment paired with “Ore no Wasuremono”. Watching it helped me recognize some of the songs I hadn’t caught onto before (like Minami’s) as well as reminding me of a few moments I had forgotten like Miyuki supervising her younger relatives playing that “find the legend being described” card game, whatever it’s called.
P.S. Is it bad that I forgot that Ayano (pictured above) was a character until I watched this video? I mean, it’s not terrible because she was really a “background” character and didn’t seem to do all that much but that moment of realization still irks me a little.
Bet you never thought of this way of giving presents?
Yes, I am aware that today is Boxing Day but I won’t consider this twelfth and final entry in this year’s “12 Days of Christmas” retrospective (sponsored by the Anime Blogging Collective) to be very late since I got some of my presents, including a new wristwatch, today, For this last highlight, I will return to Lucky Star and not focus on any particular moment (e.g. the Inital D parody, Comiket, the cosplay cafe) but rather something that spanned the series and carried it through its twenty-four episodes - the variety of topics that were discussed between Konata, Tsukasa, Kagami, Miyuki, and others. Read the rest of this entry »
Okay, the ninth anime-related thing that interested me in 2007 is something that actually hasn’t been revealed that much: Akira Kogami’s life before Lucky Channel. The basic fact we find out about Minoru’s co-host is that she was a former idol but not much else. I was interested in the mystery so I rewatched Lucky Channel segments and took note of all the references Akira made to earlier in her career in an attempt to construct a short back story for her. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the weekend, the dub casts for both Code Geass and Lucky Star were announced. Johnny Yong Bosch now has another high-profile protagonist role as Lelouch and Wendee Lee will be following up her Haruhi performance by taking on Konata. There are also two overlapping actresses: Kate Higgins will voice CC in Geass and Kuroi-sensei in LS while Karen Strassman will be Kallen and Miyuki. Both titles are being distributed by Bandai with Code Geass v. 1 debuting on Adult Swim next spring while Lucky Star is TBA with 6 volumes planned and special editions in the works. I can’t help thinking how poorly Konata’s opinion of dubs would likely be, if she cared at all about them in the first place. Fuller casting details after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
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