Lucky Star can be described with two words: Epic Randomness. It’s 8 hours of hilarious random, character-driven, top-class humor. There’s essentially no plot, zero character growth, a ton of references to other Animes and the entire show just oozes of quality. The so-called story centers around Konata Izumi, who is something as uncommon as a female otaku and too lazy to study despite she is pretty smart, and her life. That’s the entire story, did you expect something more from a show described as “epic randomness”?

Lucky Star’s main strength doesn’t lie in it’s nonexistent story, but in it’s characters. The main character, Konata Izumi, is 17 years old, but looks like 12. She’s too lazy to study, despite she is pretty smart, and doesn’t join any sports clubs despite being very athletic, because if she did she would miss her Anime shows. Konata is well-known as “the queen of comedy” for good reasons – she’s simply the funniest character ever made, and one of the most easily recognizable ones too. She makes completely epic faces, has one of the most unique voices ever (she’s voiced by Aya Hirano who has done Haruhi in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Misa Amane in Death Note and Lucy Heartfilia in Fairy Tail among others), that is, she always sounds like she’s talking through her nose while having a cold, which is a lot cuter and funnier than it seems. Konata’s best friends are the twins Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi, who are essentially Kyou and Ryou Fujibashi from Clannad. Kagami is is a typical Tsundere (acting tough while she’s actually soft on the inside), or a “Dere-Tsun” as Shiraishi classifies her as later. Kagami (aka “The Great Kagamin”) is constantly being made fun of by Konata, and while she isn’t made fun of she acts as the Straight Man. Her twin sister Tsukasa on the other hand is more like Konata in that she enjoys reading and playing games a lot more than studying, but unlike Konata she doesn’t study because she loses focus not because she’s lazy. She also tend to sleep in all day (she sleepwalks and turns her alarm clock off), is extremely unlucky and generally feels that the entire universe is dead set against her. Then there’s their overly smart classmate Miyuki Takara, who just like Hanekawa from Bakemonogatari “just happens to know” everything, and who according to Konata is “a wandering pillar of moé” with her unreal clumsy cuteness. Later in it also introduces Yukari Takara (or “Yu-chan” for short), who is a first year high school student who looks and acts like a grade schooler, who is the only person Konata can feel superior to and she is generally clueless about everything. Along with Yu-chan there is her best friend Minami Iwasaki who has the most obsessive flat-chest complex ever seen (if you’ve played Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, think Etna and Flonne together) and who is essentially Korone from Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou in all other aspects – except for the fact that Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou was 3 years later. Some other notable characters are Konata’s father who openly admits that he’s a pedo, a cop that drives like a car thief, the homeroom teacher who has formed a guild with Konata in an MMO, and an american transfer student who lapses into english or pretends not to understand what people are saying when it’s convenient, a Doijin author who writes perverted Doujins based on her friends because she can’t find anything else to write. Also, Soujirou (Konata’s dad) is the only male character in the entire show not counting Shiraishi Minoru and Daisuke Ono, the former who has a total of two lines in the actual show and mostly appears in Lucky Channel, and the latter who only appears in Lucky Channel.

In case you have problems keeping up with the show, they added the mentioned “Lucky Channel”, which is apparently supposed to be an explanatory corner. However, they left the role as “navigator” to Akira Kogami, who is a child idol who frequently falls out of character, to the point of it appearing like a split personality, whenever she gets annoyed the slightest. She also wants to appear in the real show, but after finally managing to get an appearance, she catches a cold that week. Along with Akira, there’s Minoru Shiraishi (a real voice-actor playing himself), who just ends up being ordered around by Akira or shouted at by her whenever she gets annoyed at something. They’re apparently there to introduce new characters and explain stuff, but Akira always either gets annoyed at some detail, gets jealous of the character they’re introducing or goes out of character for some other reason. Lucky Channel is also filled with 4th wall-jokes, starting with Akira’s wish to be in the real show up to when she sprouts water onto the camera lens and the cameraman wiping it off with a piece of cloth, or even the background falling apart.

The entire series is crammed full of references and parodies, like Konata doing her own MMO-version of the song Bokuen Desho Desho from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, “Solo-Hunting Desho Desho… (hm hm hm hm hm hm) Will make you strong… (hm hm hm hm)”, and suddently getting a backpack with wings and saying “Uguu~” (Ayu in Kanon), Kagami being Hatsune Miku(Vocaloid2) and Cinderella at the same time, or Konata spening an entire episode talking like an 18th century upperclass-lady because she’s reading Marimite (short for “Maria-sama ga Miteru”). Unlike a lot of other shows, like Hayate no Gokoku! or Seitokai no Ichizon, you don’t have to get the references to have fun, the only exception being the parody of Cinderella, and having seen Haruhi is recommended since there’s scenes that’ll make even less sense than usual otherwise, so you can watch this without having to watch a lot of other shows. Of couse, it gets funnier if you get at least a few of the references, but since there’s tons of them I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of Japan to get them all.

To say that the art style is unique would be an understatement. Everyone looks like a doll and everything is chibified and cute, and all facial expressions (especially Konata’s) are over-the-top and exaggerated to say the least. The backgrounds are generally abstract or one-colored, but never feels rushed or out-of-place. It also has a certain liking of bright colors, something which is evident from just about every character design. It all fits neatly into the overall unserious tone of the series. The soundtrack is not on par with masterpieces like Clannad or Pandora Hearts, but always creates the right atmosphere (that is, create an 8 hours long unserious atmosphere without equal) without ever being repetitive or annoying. The opening theme, Motteke! Sailor Fuku, is the most hyper song since Love Hina’s Sakura Saku, and is extremely upbeat, fast and fits perfectly into the series. The ending themes are different every time, and is always parodies on existing Anime songs. Actually, Lucky Star’s only fault is that it has an end. And after it ends, there’a 45 minutes long OVA too.

Watch it here, or grab the PSP/iPhone-files here. To put it on an iPhone, read here for instructions.

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