Lucky Star

Lucky Star (らき☆すた, Raki☆Suta)is a Japanese four-panel comic strip manga by Kagami Yoshimizu. The strip has been serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Comptiq magazine since January 2004.Cameo strips were published in other magazines such as Shōnen Ace and others.Like many four-panel comic strips, it has no ongoing plot, and typically focuses on the daily lives of the characters.

Plot

Lucky Star's story portrays the lives of several girls attending a Japanese high school named Ryōō with a very loose sense of humor. The setting is mainly based on the city of Kasukabe in Saitama Prefecture.[4] The main character is Konata Izumi, an athletic and intelligent, but also slightly mischievous and laid-back girl who, despite these attributes, is not in a sports club and has to resort to all-nighter cramming for tests. She would rather read manga and play video games than do her homework.

The serialization began with the four main characters in their first year of high school: Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, Tsukasa Hiiragi, and Miyuki Takara. As the story progresses, they move on to their second and third years. However, the anime starts the story with them beginning their second year, and the other high school girls that are seen in the opening are only introduced halfway through the series. The storyline usually includes numerous references to popular past and present manga and anime series.

Main Characters

Konata Izumi



The very representation of an otaku, Konata (or sometimes called 'Kona-chan') is the childish but good-natured leader of the Lucky Star girls. Usually a lazy girl who is 'occupied' with video or online games, manga, anime, or all of the above, Konata is actually capable of intelligence and athleticism, but does not join any school clubs because of her otaku interests. Konata works at a cosplay café with underclassman Patricia Martin. Due to her hobbies she often deals with Kagami pestering her for not working hard enough on her studies. She lives with her widowed father (an otaku who often buys adult games for himself and Konata), as well as her younger cousin Yutaka Kobayakawa, who goes to her school (although she is even shorter than Konata). She has a comedic friendship with Kagami, Tsukasa, and Miyuki, although at widely varying degrees.

Kagami Hiiragi



Kagami is Tsukasa's older fraternal twin sister and is occasionally referred to as "Kagamin". In school, her grades are excellent because she studies very hard. She was even the class president in her first year. She is in a different class than Konata and Tsukasa, but she frequently comes to their class during lunch time to eat with them. Kagami was separated into a different classroom in her second and third year.Kagami is a stereotypical tsukkomi character, however, she is prone to becoming shy and emotional at times, making her appear as a tsundere character as well. Much like Konata, Kagami likes video games, but plays a different genre than Konata; Kagami likes to play shoot 'em up games. She loves to read light novels, but she feels lonely because no one around her shares this interest.

Tsukasa Hiiragi



Tsukasa is the younger fraternal twin sister of Kagami and lives in a six-member family household with her parents. She is in the same class as Konata. While she is not good at studying or sports, she excels in cooking. She is portrayed as the stereotypical friendly, good-natured but clumsy person. She is often portrayed as an airhead who is unreliable and is always compared to her twin sister, who generally does better than her in most areas. It is often implied that Tsukasa is unable to follow the gist of complex conversations. Tsukasa will often ask her older sister for help on her homework, though it usually does not make much of a difference. She is also known for having her hair in the same style as Akari Kamigishi from To Heart, something hinted at frequently in the series.

Miyuki Takara



Miyuki is a young lady from a wealthy family who is beautiful, smart, and well-mannered. She always uses extremely polite Japanese, even when talking with her closest friends. She was the class president for her grade level in her first year, at the same time that she became good friends with Kagami. Now Miyuki is in the same class as Konata and Tsukasa, and is nicknamed "Yuki-chan" by Tsukasa. Miyuki's classmates often rely on her for help with their studies, and she is often shown giving impromptu but highly-detailed, encyclopedic definitions or explanations on diverse and obscure matters.She is described as a stereotypically friendly meganekko, or glasses-wearing girl. She is scared of contacts, and of putting them in her eyes, thus why she wears glasses. Her vision is less than 20/200, though it had been good until elementary school, when she began reading books in the dark after her mother dozed off while reading to her in bed. She likes to read books, but does not read light novels. Miyuki loves to sleep, and she always goes to bed fairly early. She hates visits to the dentist, but frequently has to go to fix a loose crown or because of tooth decay. On the rare occasion that she plays video games, her personality changes. Due to her embodying such a large number of moe archetypes—as Konata said it—Miyuki is the frequent-victim of Konata's playful bouts of verbal sexual-harassment. She is generally seen less than the other three main characters. She is constantly teased by Konata concerning her "protruding curves".

Manga



The four-panel comic strip manga version of Lucky Star started serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's magazine Comptiq on January 2004. The first bound volume of the manga was published on January 8, 2005, and as of September 10, 2008, six volumes have been released. Besides Comptiq, the manga was also featured in other Kadokawa magazines including Shōnen Ace, Newtype, CompAce, Dragon Magazine, Mobile Newtype and Kadokawa Hotline for various lengths of time. The manga has been licensed by Bandai Entertainment for release in English in North America,[9] the first volume was released in June 2009. Lucky Star also has a manga called Lucky Star Pocket Travelers which has the four main characters waking up one morning to discover they have shrunken to doll size.

Anime



The Lucky Star anime, produced by Kyoto Animation, aired between April 8, 2007, and September 16, 2007, containing twenty-four episodes.[12] The director was changed after episode four from Yutaka Yamamoto to Yasuhiro Takemoto. The reason given was: "Our company has determined that the director of Lucky Star—Yutaka Yamamoto—has not reached the standard of director yet, therefore we have changed the director."[13]

Near the end of every episode, there is an additional segment called Lucky Channel co-hosted by Akira Kogami and her assistant Minoru Shiraishi. The humor of this segment takes on a decidedly darker, mean-spirited, more cynical and mature tone than the main show, disguised as an infomercial that skims over characters who appear in the anime, but mainly deals with the progressively abusive and violent work-relationship between Akira and Minoru. The anime also features small cameos of voice actors besides Shiraishi that also have worked with Kyoto Animation which include Yuko Goto, Minori Chihara, Tomokazu Sugita, Daisuke Ono, and Aya Hirano, all of whom voice themselves.

Kadokawa Pictures USA and Bandai Entertainment announced that they licensed the Lucky Star anime with a teaser trailer as a special feature on the volume 4 DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.[14] The first four English DVD volumes were released by Bandai Entertainment in 2008 on May 6,[15][16] July 1, September 2, and November 18.[2][17] The fifth and sixth volumes were released on January 6[2] and March 17, 2009.[1] However, the sixth volume's limited edition release has been canceled due to low sales of the other volumes' limited editions.[18] As much as possible, the English cast was paired with the same characters as those of the Japanese voice actors from past shows, in order to translate the anime references clearly—Wendee Lee voiced the lead roles for both Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star, in reference to their original voice actor, Aya Hirano.

A pre-announcement was made in Kadokawa Shoten's Comptiq magazine that an original video animation project would be produced for Lucky Star.[19] The June 2008 issue of Comptiq reported that the OVA was due out in summer 2008.[20] However, it was delayed and instead was released on September 26, 2008.[3] The OVA features six separate stories revolving around the cast, some of which border on the bizarre; one of which is an MMORPG environment being played by Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and Nanako Kuroi, and another which in which Kagami has a 'suggestive' dream about Konata. The Lucky Channel segment is performed in live-action rather than being animated. The ending theme to the OVA, "Ai o Torimodose!!" (愛をとりもどせ!!?, lit. "Recover Love!!"), is sung by Uchōten, which is composed of the singers Hiromi Konno and Minoru Shiraishi. The song was originally the opening theme to Fist of the North Star. The North American release of the OVA was later licensed by Bandai Entertainment, and was released in a subbed-only DVD on August 4, 2009.

Video Games



A video game, entitled Lucky Star Moe Drill (らき☆すた 萌えドリル, Raki☆Suta Moe Doriru?), was released on December 1, 2005 on the Nintendo DS. A limited edition game with many extras was sold called the "DX Pack" along with the regular version. A sequel, with the title of Shin Lucky Star Moe Drill: Tabidachi (真・らき☆すた 萌えドリル~旅立ち~, Shin Raki☆Suta Moe Doriru ~Tabidachi~?) was released on May 24, 2007. The first game tests the player on various subjects and memorizations. The player's main objective is beating other characters in quizzes. There is also a "Drama Mode" where the game plays like a mini-adventure game as you make your way to Akihabara. Math quizzes and mini games (about five in all) pop up as you play along.

There are two different types of one-person games: "Hitasura Drill" and "Drama Mode". The player can also link the game with another person. When this occurs, the player can use the character that is built up in Drama Mode as a choosable character. Additionally, if the player wants to use a special battle skill against his or her opponent while in link mode, the player must shout out the name of the skill into the microphone. In Drama Mode, the player partners with one of the characters, and tries to increase her parameters and have her learn new battle skills. There are five different types of "drills". One of the quizzes called "Ondoku" requires the player to shout out the answer into the microphone. Several mascot characters of large anime and dōjin shops (like Broccoli's Di Gi Charat, Animate's Anime Tencho and Toranoana's Miko-chan) make cameo appearances.

Kadokawa Shoten produced a visual novel game for the PlayStation 2 entitled Lucky Star: Ryōō Gakuen Ōtōsai (らき☆すた ～陵桜学園 桜藤祭～?) which was released in Japan on January 24, 2008.[10] Kadokawa Shoten will release an SLG game for the PlayStation Portable titled Lucky Star: Net Idol Meister (らき☆すた ネットアイドル・マイスター?) to be released in Japan on December 24, 2009.[