Lucky Star is based upon the manga with 24 episodes. This is a slice-of-life anime with the characters in high school and mainly follows four girls. Unlike the manga though, the anime adds in a heavy dose of references to other popular anime and manga of the time. Konata Izumi is the main character. She is into anime and games while being lazy at school as a result. However, she is naturally gifted and able to get somewhat decent grades through last minute cramming. She's very carefree and don't have a care in the world.
Then we have the twins Kagami Hiirage and Tsukasa Hiiragi. The older Kagami is diligent and have strong study ethics with excellent grades to back it up. While the younger Tsukasa is more of an airhead and forgetful. Last is Miyuki Takara and she tends to get the least spotlighting. She is smart and wealthy although she is not snobbish at all. Konata does like to describe her as the ultimate moe character.
Lucky Star starts off with random scenes that will set the tone for the rest of the series. It goes from scene to scene, each one with a random topic. To really put the viewer into perspective, the first topic was extremely mundane that it somehow works. It talks about how to eat a certain type of bread "properly" and how the characters eats other types of food like strawberry shortcake and curry rice. While you may struggle through the first few episodes where it is disjointed, it gets funnier and more natural as it hits its stride. While the humor isn't absurdly funny it'll still elicit a few chuckles and smiles out of you with its seemingly endless supply of random everyday topics.
We slowly get to know the various characters and their individual quirks. Konata's addiction with gaming and anime is her downfall at times. This is because it causes her to sleep in and be late for school such that even when she is actually sick, no one believes her. Her relationship with her teacher, whom they both play the same online game, is interesting and often played for laughs.
On the other hand, Kagami’s commentary on Konata is a highlight because it’s to the point. The things she says is true yet it does not seem like a flaw of Konata. There are times when Kagami even seems to be a little bit envious. Her sister Tsukasa is naive to the point of being a massive personality flaw but makes her endearing. The twins provide most of the humor, with Kagami often covering for Tsukasa’s clumsiness and forgetfulness. All the characters are deliberately designed to be overly cute.
While the anime mainly focuses on the four characters, there are various recurring side characters. Some of them are fairly stereotypical like the “older” teacher that is still single and the overly chilled adult that drinks a lot. Konata’s dad is really weird. It makes sense considering the personality of her daughter. Despite that, it can be totally creepy and funny at the same time. There is a really good scene involving the Konata’s family towards the end of the anime which brings out all the good things of familial bond and warmth.
In the second half of the series, it focuses more and more on the side characters. There are gems such as Yutaka who is even more excessively cute and innocent than the main characters. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how much you like the new characters. Lucky Star tends to rely on a lot of recurring gags. We get the ones such as Konata never doing her homework in time and ends up relying on others. Then we get the constant references to Haruhi Suzumiya (particularly since Konata shares the same voice actor). And this is hit or miss but we get an art shift every time Konata visits the anime shop. The staff are all hyper with over exaggerated dialogue and body language. It’s very over the top and works only half the time, with the other half being overwhelming.
There’s a short segment at the end of every episode called Lucky Channel. This features Akira and Minoru. Minoru is the poor guy who suffers while Akira is supposedly a cheery girl but hides a darker self. Like the main portion of the series, it takes some time to hit its stride but can get very funny. The ending of the anime feels like it tries to close things up but stops just short of it. The episode just kinda… finished. It had a good atmosphere, saying goodbye to the characters as well them having hope and looking towards the future so you can’t help but feel that there should have been more.
And yet there is more in the form of an OVA but doesn’t really conclude it any more. The OVA is really random with some wacky scenes that do not actually make any sense at all. At the same time it does contain some of the best humor in the series. Overall, despite showing its age since it references a lot of old popular anime and manga, Lucky Star is still enjoyable. The slice-of-life aspect is fun and it has charming characters. The simple art style works well. It’s not the amazing stellar piece of comedy that you might hope for but it is pretty enjoyable all the same.
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