LogFAQs > #968875516

70. Lucky Star
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1887/Lucky%E2%98%86Star
Spring 2007 (24 episodes)
My Score: 7/10, MAL Score: 7.74/10
Best Character: Kogami Akira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iseNlvH2_s

Premise: This follows the daily lives of four cute girls, including otaku Izumi Konata. They encounter bizarre and mundane situations and often have humorous conversations about them.

The Good: Lucky Star is a really solid cute girls gag anime. They take conversations like which end is the correct one to start eating a chocolate cornet and make them fun to watch. Konata was my favorite of the main girls, but I remember liking all of them, including the large cast of side characters. I also loved the running gag where lots of transitions would enter a scene where the girls are in the middle of talking about how stinky something is. We never learn who or what smells so bad, but this made me laugh every time. It gave the impression that the conversations we saw them have were only a small fraction of the total. Still, the main show was not my favorite thing about this. The Lucky Channel segment every episode were brilliant, but I'll talk more about that in my write-up for the surly idol Kogami Akira.

The Bad: I don't remember Lucky Star doing anything terrible. I enjoyed the gags in the main show well enough, but on their own they werent amazing or anything. They were just consistently fine. The Lucky Channel segments vastly outshone the main anime, which I think might've made the main show seem worse in comparison.

Overall: Lucky Star was a fun cute girls gag anime, though the main anime was merely fine. I spent most episodes eagerly awaiting the Lucky Channel segment featuring surly idol Akira and her long-suffering helper Shiraishi. The main show wasn't bad, but Lucky Channel is the reason this ranks as high as it does!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/8/AAcDcBAADzZU.jpg

CHARACTER: Kogami Akira (Lucky Star)
https://myanimelist.net/character/2309/Akira_Kogami
Voiced by: Konno Hiromi
TOP 100 RANK: 82nd

SPOILERS FOR LUCKY STAR

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=132v8ujH9NQ
(That video is an hour long and features every single Lucky Channel segment, but you only need to watch the first two minutes or so to get a feel for Akira's character)

Lucky Channel was way more enjoyable than the actual Lucky Star anime. Accompanying each episode, it features the famous child idol Akira and some nobody named Shiraishi who's there to help her. Akira often bursts into the scene with a cute voice and an energetic "OHILUCKIES!" (Morning Luckies!). When she's in-character, shes an over-the-top cutesy idol in an oversized school uniform. I would've liked that well enough. The real charm of Lucky Channel, though, is the frequent times when Akira's character slips.

She's only fourteen years old, but she's been in show business since she was three. Akira has long since become jaded and surly. She still desires the spotlight, but her attitude is so entitled and abusive that it's clear her career is already on the decline. It's a running gag that she wants to appear in the main anime, which even Shiraishi manages several times, but Akira never does. The one time she was going to, she wound up getting sick and was easily replaced by a cardboard cutout. As the Lucky Channel segments progress, she wears her idol persona less and less. Akira gets angrier and more abusive, putting Shiraishi down whenever she can, attacking him with things like ashtrays (implying fourteen year-old Akira smokes!), and sending him on a literally pointless fetch quest into the wilderness which nearly drives him mad. Akira is unapologetically a piece of shit, but thats why I loved her so much. She was hilarious.

The Lucky Channel segments get increasingly meanspirited as they go along. They also get more bizarre, ending with a battle that trashes the set and gets them chewed out by real life famous voice actress Gotou Yuuko. Then there's a final Lucky Channel in real life with the voice actors acting out their roles, because why not? I loved Akira, I loved her dynamic with Shiraishi, and I loved the bizarre little story those segments told. The idea of an idol already being surly and burnt out at fourteen is a great idea for a character, and Akira was perfect for it.