アニ・ノート

I watched a couple of episodes of NieA_7 with some Lucky Star, and the contrast was quite striking. I haven’t seen the 2006 Kanon, but it’s clear that KyotoAni know their stuff.

I mean, you just look at these confining lines! Not only drawing in Lucky Star is better, but the motion is more flowing and natural.

Budget? Maybe it’s a part of it. Although, I think it’s not just just the budget. Hidamari Sketch is also animated better than NieA_7 (wherever animators bothered to do it).

I wish the whole of Lucky Star were made like the few “superpainted” moments, but even as it is it’s great.

In an early beach episode of Lucky Star, I saw a picture of Kuroi-sensei downing a glass:

It reminded me immediately about something else, seen at Penny Arcade:

I also told a story during the panel about the Oblivion comic we did a few days ago. See I wanted Gabe to pass out on the couch because he was so bored. I had this vision of his head just flopping back but I could not fucking draw it. I literally spent four hours trying to make it look right and I just couldn’t do it. So I remembered that I had recently been added to a mailing list by that son of a bitch Scott Kurtz (AKA Steve Kuntz) and it might be just what I needed. See Scott is a real comic book artist so he has all these comic book friends that just happen to be super famous and insanely talented. For some reason (maybe as a joke) Scott added me to this little email group and I decided I’d use it for my own selfish needs.

I sent my concept to all these guys along with what I had and I begged for help. I got some awesome advice and Mike Wieringo actually sent me this little sketch of Gabe.

His sketch was so fucking perfect and he must have just knocked it out in a couple minutes. I would have banged my head against my desk all day if it hadn’t been for his drawing. The title of that strip should have been “this comic brought to you by Mike Wieringo.”

Sadly, Mike Wieringo has passed away recently.

So, simple things about anime often are not very simple, and this is just one example. I think that I am noticing quite a few such things in Lucky Star. It is as if they pretend to be poorly animated (especially in the beginning), but cannot help themselves and the awesome comes out.

Why do I continue to watch this silly show? Maybe because it’s beautiful (this statement is not meant to endorse Kanon 2006).

Almost there… BTW, I was told that A.F.K. is a one man show. There are a few channel ops and host managers, but all of the translation, editing, timing and whatnot is reportedly done by a single individual, known under a nick “Strato”.

Seen at Drastic (there was no attribution, so I presume BigN himself wrote it):

20. Was anyone else tired of the comparisons between Lucky Star and Azumanga Daioh? Is the latter really a paragon of slice of life school comedy anime?

I understand the question was made in jest, but still… Why has nobody come with something like Azumanga so far? It was 5 long years now.

Hidamari Sketch is probably the nearest thing ever attempted to recreate Azumanga. It floundered mostly on the poor implementation quality of the anime (e.g. looked like ass most of the time with short flashes of brilliance), but otherwise was clearly made with the same aim. The 4koma was reshuffled to allow for anime pace, among other things.

The later is what Lucky Star did very poorly. Azumanga and Hidamari mostly had big episodes (even though officially Azumanga was subdivided into 5-minute shorts). Lucky Star, however, seems incapable of any flow outside of huge arcs (such as Komiket), creating tons of disconnected filler. So, even if Lucky Star were not primarily referential like Excel Saga, it would still fail to match Azumanga.

Confusingly, when I write that Manabi Straight matched Azumanga, I mean something entirely different: the overall level of greatness. Manabi is plot-driven and not episodic, so it’s in entirely different camp. It does not match Azumanga as a slice of life, it has its own unique merits.

What a run. I do not recall any such patchwork of brilliance and mediocrity in the same anime. Fortunately, the good parts prevailed.

Liked: On the whole, yes.
Rewatch: If time permits.

Linkage:

Shirukii (Anime Blog ga Arimasu)

And of course how could I forget Lucky Channel, almost a show on its own. These short segments often made me laugh more than the main episode, mostly due to the hilarity of Shiraishi Minoru. It was funny seeing the animosity between Shiraishi and Akira build up throughout the series and then suddenly explode at the end. Many lulz were had.

Oh, and sleeves. You can’t forget about the sleeves.

I wish I could share the sentiment. But many liked it, so…

Suguru (Dame-Dame)

Lucky Star is really two shows in one though, with the Lucky Channel segment at the end of each episode–and Lucky Channel is probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Anywhere. Ever. Sometimes it was better than others, but that episode towards the end with Minoru finally going on a rampage was just Legendary.

Another Lucky Channel partisan. IMHO, the title of the Legendary episode belongs to The Rant. Rampage is trivial by comparison.

Kabitzin (Sea Slugs)

However, the biggest weakness I saw in Lucky Star was Lucky Channel; every time that little cat mewed, I would get a nervous pang and check to the progress bar to see whether or not it was signaling the start of Lucky Channel. I thought the parts where Akira threw the ashtray at Shiraishi and how Akira and Shiraishi hated each other in the last episode were ok, but overall I consistently found Lucky Channel to be an unfunny pandering to those who love Shiraishi.

Indeed.

Avatar

… if I buy it when it comes out over here (doubtless in a cheap box, I can’t imagine buying this show disc by disc), I’ll be skipping the Lucky Channel segments.

Well, if the industry insider cannot take the portrayal of the industry… Hmm.

P.S. I enjoyed the most the moments when Lucky Star stepped beyond the referrential humour, such as the ep.23. Reviewers mostly glossed over how the show gelled together when it hit longer arcs, but I think it was really noticeable.

UPDATE: Steven asks if Kamichu had the the same quality swings. I think not, but perhaps I fail at explaining it. Most obvious difference is that segments of Lucky Star come in all sizes, the longest taking one whole episode (IIRC, Comiket). Best segments after ep.23 and the special visit were in ep.11, which had two: the Christmas cake and the father/daughter duo again. And in general, Kamichu tried to tell a story in each episode, which Lucky Star did not attempt as a rule (the ep.24 being an exception).

Ironically, one of the most grating issues with Kamichu for me was its pretentious art contrasting with bad lapses and poor animation. In contrast, art of Lucky Star remains consistently impressive throughout the worst storytelling since… I don’t even know what. Galaxy Angel, maybe?

UPDATE: fatestaysmart (atamaga warui)

I don’t know about the rest of visual culture otaku fandom, but I was highly disappointed with how the Director, or whomever had the final say, executed the final ending of Lucky Star. I have nothing against Minoru Shiraishi and his playful, shameless antics that took the place of the karaoke endings. However, I do have a problem with them ending the series with him spinning around in an office chair and surveying nature while doing another anime theme song cover (Urusei Yatsura’s “Ai Wa Boomerang” (Beautiful Dreamer)) as the closure to the series. Once again, no gripe against the song, but rather the ending.

The answer, I think has to do with weather one considers the ED a part of the show or not. If ED is a part, then the series finale calls for a suitable adaptation, like in Stellvia. In this case though, the ending is the blinding light. Or I suppose this is the thinking. Average person stops their TiVo when the credits start to roll anyway, right?

I was a bit disappointed, too. But not too much.

Not that I’m a fan or anything, but to follow upon my previous post, Kuro reports that a Lucky Star CD is out:

Surprisingly, I must say, he [Shiraishi] really can sing. And pretty well at that too. Kaorin no Theme is a nice, slowly sung love ballad, which kinda makes me wonder if he, uh, likes Kaori Fukuhara.

He he he. But RTWT.

No, it’s not by me. The Epic Win made mockery of anything I could’ve put together.

[Why so late to link? I ran across a comment by Orion. — But this pours water on the mill of pro-comment party! — Oh shit. Well, anyway...]

Concrete Badger gives Lucky Star his stamp of approval. Obviously he has a strong capability to abstract away less likeable parts. Observe how he managed to review Lucky Star and not mention Lucky Channel even once.

One odd experience of watching Haruhi now is how the history unfolds backwards. When one blogger insisted on calling Shiraishi “Taniguchi”, it confused me. Shiraishi didn’t voice Kyon, so what was it? Well, now I know, and I know where “Wa-wa-wasuremono” comes from. Curiously, both Shiraishi and Ono appear on Lucky Star as themselves, but only Shiraishi became a legend. Poor Ono! If only he were a girl, he could press idol DVDs.

UPDATE: A picture, for the archives.

Taniguchi is an object lesson how an excellent seyuu is unable to move a secondary role to the forefront in the same an actor would (if director permitted it).

Orion engages into a rescan of delights:

In our last poll (man, I really need to make a new one :P), Kagami and Konata were the clear favorites, but each of the other girls have their unique charms. Misao has FANG POWER. Tamura has fangirlish enthusiasm. Patty-chan has her awesome voice and super otaku powers. And of course, Minami and Yutaka have each other. And Tsukasa is, well…Tsukasa. :P

Lucky Star lends itself readily to this sort of wit. One of the more amusing instances that I heard was that Konata, Hiyori Tamura, and Patty form a trifecta: otaku, fujoushi, and a weaboo respectively.

I thought it was only a joke until I reviewed my screencap stash; it turned out that they were actually bracketed together in the show!