Over the weekend, I read the first ten chapters of the K-On! manga because I wanted to experience the original characters and flow before reluctantly dipping my toes into the KyoAni adaptation. I was unconsciously recognizing certain things that I read from my followees on Twitter (which I once called the “backchannel” – the moniker still holds) and in my Google Reader feeds, e.g. Yui in awe of Mio’s fingers. I enjoyed what I had read and will continue to keep tabs on it. However, I now feel little to no ambition to watch the anime since I believe it will cover the same bases and I’d rather spend those 25 minutes per episode on something else. I could see how certain people could be head over heels for Mio but I just wasn’t feeling much for her; my favorite characters so far have been Sawako-sensei and Ritsu.
On Monday, I thought about the comparisons some made to Lucky Star (this one in particular) and saw some credence to that theory. (I personally felt a slightly stronger comparison to Manabi Straight but I’ll humor this route at the moment.) Mio and Ritsu could be roughly mapped, like Kagami and Konata, as a studious tsukkomi and bullheaded boke duo; Yui, like Tsukasa, as an airhead who means well; and Tsugumi, like Miyuki, as a nice girl from a rich family. I’m not saying that these are exactly the same – of course not! Among the differing aspects: Konata took after her father’s perverted tastes, Yui’s parents always seem to be away on trips overseas, and Tsugumi’s vacation home and her busily-booked house.
A tangential thought slowly grew regarding the quartet structure of main characters of slice-in-life comedy series, viz. “why does it appear as often as it does?”. I’ve already mentioned Lucky Star and K-On! but there is also Hidamari Sketch. Scott of Anime Almanac suggested that the artists may be thinking in fours due to the structure of the strips but that would imply the artist being unconsciously influenced by the form, something I’m unlikely to buy into – though I would accept conscious playfulness within such restrictions. When I try to think about “regular order” manga with core casts of four, two come to my mind immediately: Hyakko and Ichigo Mashimaro, though I’m not too familiar with the latter. (For the sake of inclusion in this post, I’m considering Nobue as an “adult” figure.)
I suspect there is much cross-influence in the slice-of-life manga arena and I think four recurs as a number of core characters, constituting a solid square of sorts. Even though I could extend this inquiry into other genres, I would rather not because that would require possible explanations to strain in encompassing a breadth of dissimilar series. Examples include Asu no Yoichi (the Ikaruga sisters), Noir (Mirelle, Kirika, Chloe, and Altena), Yozakura Quartet (the freakin’ title), Burst Angel (the four girls), and Weiß Kreuz (the four guys). I don’t have much to contribute on the already existing concept of relationship squares, or quadrangles, in comedies such as Kannagi and Maburaho so I won’t at this time but may in the future if I do think of something.
While writing this, I also thought of the number five and how that frequently appears in sentai/magical girl series, e.g. Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya, and played upon by comedies like Negima and Bamboo Blade. However, I currently lack enough deep analysis spark to speculate on that. Besides, I’m certain that subject has been written on a fair amount.
I was browsing around online to see how the covers from the first Haruhi novel and the manga’s first volume differed visually (they’re similar but not close enough to cause confusion) and saw that Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon all currently list Volume 1 of the Lucky Star manga with a release date of May 15th, a price point of $9.99, and a page count of 150. Both its standard ISBN of 1604961120 and ISBN-13 of 9781604961126 checked out when I cross-checked them on ISBNdb.com.
Granted, Bandai has not officially announced anything nor have they sent solicitations to specialty retailers like TRSI or yet but the date looks right since it would be two months after the sixth and final DVD volume comes out on March 17th. I would expect them to announce this date along some more details at NYCC next month during either their general panel (Saturday Feb. 7th 12:30 PM-1:30 PM) or their Lucky Star panel (Sat. 1:45PM-2:45PM).
Here’s the product description that may show up on the back cover:
From the studio that brought you The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya! When eating a chocolate cornet which end do you begin with, the top or the bottom? Which side is the top and which is the bottom? For that matter, what is a chocolate cornet? The proper way to eat pastries is only one of the many every day occurrences explored by the girls of Ms. Kuroi’s class. Meet Konata, an athletic and intelligent girl too dedicated to her favorite primetime animes to excel in anything but otaku culture; Miyuki, the cute, bespectacled living example of Moe with an encyclopedic knowledge of all subjects; Kagami, the bitter-sweet, tough but shy sister; Tsukasa, a kind but air-headed klutz. Witness this study in the human condition as our heroines explore the unexplored in questioning the ordinary!
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 »
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