Lucky Star: An animated kind of stand-up

Kyoto Animation takes the season off, although if one only had the above screenshot to go on, they might be inclined to disagree. Why must they tease us so? They're KyoAni: It's because they can.

Likewise, they were (rightfully) confident that their random Shiraishi endings would be mostly tolerated, being no worse than the terrible singing or fireworks kicking found on YouTube, and people watch that stuff in droves.

Lucky Star is easy: easy-going given its slice of life nature, probably easy to produce given KyoAni's magic, and easy like taking a picture given today's digital cameras. The series as a whole is a well-executed snapshot, of the lives of the characters over the course of a year (or two?), of (Japanese) fandom, even the state of technology, although Blogger and other publishing systems now have caching mechanisms so timeouts don't toast a post.


It seems incredibly convenient, art imitating reality in a more extreme sense, but I welcome it as it speaks of and points out things that I'm aware of but wouldn't usually speak to others about, much less form a conversation around. It need not be about geeky things, although a lot of them are. For example, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable talking about how much of a slacker I am (and hearing about how much of a slacker the other person is) with just anyone. I also can't get away with a thirty second rant about how difficult it is to crawl out of bed in the morning. Even though many would nod their heads in agreement, what follows from such a declaration?

Where one can get away with this, though, is stand-up comedy. Punchlines are expected to be copious and frequent, and there are many instances where situational jokes are short, to the point, and have little to no correlation with the one that came before and the one that will follow.

Lucky Star only has some structural and pacing similarities to stand-up, so the comparison is somewhat superficial. For me it's not even funny most of the time, although what many find at least chuckle-inducing I just find clever or amusing. At the end of the day, Lucky Star dares to codify many observations into scenes and dialog that are not totally absurd, and for that it was an interesting watch.

So will Lucky Star stand the test of time? If nothing changes in a decade or more, perhaps. More likely is that years from now, it will be watched like one would watch archival footage: with merely academic interest. What was it like to be an otaku, Japanese or otherwise, circa 2007? More to the point, what were we like? Lucky Star would shed some light on those questions, covering such topics as the popular character tropes, series, gaming habits, food, and the immense response to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

The IRONY

The last item on the list may suffer from bias via conflict of interest. Just a tad.

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Tripping over my shoelaces

I tried to marathon Azumanga Daioh the other day. This turned out to be a grave mistake as I was in dire need of a break just two episodes in. The next day went a bit better, clearing 10 episodes, but by that point I had come to the conclusion that Azumanga Daioh was one series for which more than two episodes at a time was simply a bad idea.

While slice of life and high school randomness, Azumanga Daioh is certainly not a sitcom. There is no problem that is resolved in the span of an episode, nor is there any ultimate goal other than graduation, which is a pretty automatic process. This early into high school, it's not yet time to stress over university admissions and the general future.

There may be some over-arching theme for an episode but, probably as a result of its 5 minute segment roots, there can be no expectation of continuity within the episode itself. I'm not bored unto passing out, as I have this unreasonable attention span for pretty much anything except lectures, but I begin to get fidgety after continuous exposure.

Lucky Star is structured in a similar fashion, but many of its scenes and gags can be measured in tens of seconds. It's not quite a punch line Gatling gun, but it is a better approximation than Azumanga Daioh, which has a tendency to rely on relatively lengthy still shots to emphasize the point. I think this is the source of my discomfort. Awkward silence is effective only when used sparingly, while abusing it evolves comedic awkwardness into nervous fidgeting or other irritations.

I realize now that there are plenty of other series I've seen that can only be consumed in one or two episode doses, but I have never had cause to try otherwise, seeing as how they're currently airing. If nothing else, it's a garish display of neon green on my part.

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Lucky Star - Episode 13

This episode deserves special mention because it stands out, which is ironic but only if you ph33r the 13. I think it was loaded with more ah-ha! moments than any other episode that came before it, or it might just be that I understood a higher proportion of what was there. A few of what I picked up on after these messages.

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Beyond the usual rapid word-play and smack talking, and the universal kinds of send-ups that don't require much prior background (such as having to play a dating sim) to understand, there were references to more recent series such as:

Jigglypuffed? (Could be anything, though)

Yu-Gi-Oh

Kanon (Uguu!)

Kanon (Ichigo jamu?)

lol? I just threw this one in

Haruhi (obligatory)

Geass hax

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

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Lucky Star - Drinking the Kool-Aid

Lucky Star QUALITY

KyoAni is still executing, just on their terms. The animation can be fluid and detailed, but only when they really want to make a point, as in the car chase, MariMite parody, the sprint-video game analogy, etc.

Just as the source material has no continuity, the series doesn't either. Each episode is like an anthology of gag scenes strung together by a sometimes jarringly minimal amount of transition time. Episode structure accepted, moving on.

I like trains

Lucky Star has its moments. I suspect that the older you are, or the more series you watch from back in the day, the more moments there will be. I think comedy is generally lost on me, with the exception of really stand-out acts, like Russell Peters, and even those are funny only because they're just crazy and offensive (to the politically correct) enough to be true.

Lucky Star's moments are not crazy nor offensive, but they are true, and they elicit that kind of warm smugness that you get when you share an inside joke. It's as if the hook offered by the series is along the lines of empathy: We've all been there and done that, too, gotten the shirt while we're at it.

Lucky Channel is more of the same. Most of the (attempted?) humour was lost on me after the subversion of moe via Akira was reused over and over again. Then again, Lucky Channel is all about showing Akira's two faces, and incidentally commenting on the show itself, or promotional events on websites or magazines.

Lastly, the karaoke credits, like much of the episode content, is a salute to veteran watchers.

Kommander Konata

In terms of characters, I find a bit in common with perhaps their sorest points. I'm skeptical like Kagami, absent-minded and prone to losing things like Tsukasa, slack and play games but not nearly as many or as well as Konata, and know things that no one really cares about like Miyuki. Yep, you're reading the writings of one of the finest specimens humanity has to offer.

I freely admit that I'm watching as a mostly clueless observer, given that I'm essentially green when it comes to number of shows watched, and most are recent shows at that. But for veteran watchers, this is a perfectly fine show to rally around and reminisce about the Golden Age.

Admittedly, this was pretty awesome

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For the love of it

While we're all playing purist, as inspired by the tenth episode of Lucky Channel, let's talk about another term that has been butchered modified due to the passage of time. While there are plenty of terms that have changed throughout history, this one has the benefit that it's in the language that I'm writing in, and one that has some bearing on what (and how) I write.

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That term, is amateurism. The opposite, of course, is professionalism. I generally have a disdain for -ism's, as usually any -ism has a polarizing extreme opposite. While I've forgotten the first place I read about -ism's, Beware of isms because they very quickly move to schisms by Huston Smith will suffice. In this case, I aspire not to amateurism, nor professionalism, but some data point in between.

Anyone who can take down a Zaku with a compact grenade launcher is PRO in my books.

That amateur and its derivatives are frequently used in a negative tone, while professional and its derivatives are generally referenced positively, reflects heavily on the kind of society that most of us live in. The general consensus is that professionals make lots of money. They're lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, and various other licensed occupations that traditional Asian parents want their kids to become.

By contrast, amateurs are unskilled n00bs who are generally unemployable.

Money is but one view. At its root, amateur means to be a lover of. Whether or not you make a living out of doing what you love is a different issue entirely, although those who can are often the subject of much envy.

Just because you love whatever, be it music, or games, etc. does not automatically mean you are bad. Nor does the fact that you do whatever for a living make you good. Digitally re-mastered, heavily marketed pop acts are professionals in every sense of the world: they sing for a living; multiple studio sessions and a mixer ensure that every song is error free and extremely shiny; public perception is key, with the hype machine and marketing department being indications that such perception can be easily bought. Believe it or not, some acts are quite good, and others not so much.

Most of us, and I suppose I mean those who write about anime and related sundry topics, are amateurs, hopefully. We love to watch anime, and want to talk about it, choosing a written medium to do so. At least, that's the plan.

Although I can be inconsistent about it, I try to be a bit self-conscious when writing. More than mere polish — writing technique is on a continuum orthogonal to content — to be self-conscious is to be aware of others and concerned about how others view you. Most times, people want to be viewed in a positive light and I'm no exception. I don't want to be thought of as having shoddy writing, so I edit my entries, although I'm still working on those skills. If I have to censor myself to head off disrespect, so be it.

Some people have no self-consciousness, using their posts to vent, to lash out, i.e. to cry, in game parlance. That's fine; it's up to each individual to figure out where they're comfortable at, how they wish to be viewed by others. At times I wonder if some have given any consideration at all, or whether such soul-searching is some triggered event, scheduled to fire off around middle-age. I look for meaning all the time, sometimes in the silliest of places. But that's just where I stand.

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