What is there to say? I’m hooked.

The anime parodies seem to have reached a stable amount - as opposed to earlier where they threw in Kanon, Shuffle, Haruhi, and god knows what else that flew over my head, now there’s one or two big ones and a bunch of side references.

As has probably been said millions of times over, the Initial D parody was absolute gold. It’d be interesting to see Lucky Star in a bunch of different animation angles - the serious and highly CG style here fits I.D. well and doesn’t look too bad for Yui either.

All we’re really missing is Tsukasa and Kagami getting tossed around in the back like ragdolls, preferably in normal animation fashion (to depict the wild difference between the two worlds at this moment).

The little things are what make the parody great - the references to the 5 hairpin curves of Akina, the yellow FD, the cup of water in the cupholder, and yes, Yui using the gutter technique during a turn. Someone’s been practicing.

And yes, the speedometer. 40 miles an hour at most, 40 kilometers per hour at least. The blinding speed of it all! 500 bonus points for Yui the awesome meganekko/gamer/doriftoer.

Oh, and in random Initial D related news, there’s word of a Wangan Midnight anime coming up later this year. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out - WM doesn’t have particularly interesting nor good looking character designs (except for maybe the hilarious ricer Gatchan) but I enjoyed the arcade game much and still look forward to the racing scenes - which hopefully will look as good as this one.

More Lucky Star and less racing after the jump.


Did I mention it’s a beach episode? Lucky Star’s getting theirs out of the way rather early. Not sure what’s with the dumbfounded looks by all the girls when they finally get to the beach after much hairpin action, but they’re all great poses.

Anyway, blah blah blah swimsuits. Unsurprisingly Lucky Star’s, em, flat art style doesn’t make for as much guilt during the Obligatory Swimsuit episode, and it’s nice to see some modest characters at the beach for once.

Although Konata’s attempts to taunt her lolicon-ness with a 6th (!!) grade swimsuit and an inner tube is kind of scary. Also, Miyuki’s the only one with a two-piece - strange given her sort of reserved and shy nature, but I guess use what you’ve got. Wink wink.

Also, Nanako the teacher and Yui the psycho driver are in the usual adults-separate-from-children-at-the-beach scene, where they discuss yuri romantic matters - of which Yui is already very much tied up, to, uh, viewer amusement or something.

A nice moment of calm in the water for Konata and the twins, who are just floating, almost sleeping on Konata’s inner tube. See, it came in handy! As a Miyuki fanboy second, I must say though, there’s not much of her in Lucky Star anymore. Aside from the whole talking-about-blowing-watermelons-up-bit (which was amusing in it’s own regard, and apparently a reference) she doesn’t really show up in this swim scenes at all.

She’s there, but she’s not there. Hopefully things will change next episode with the addition of what passes for foreshadowing with Miyuki and her mom talking about the dentist. Drama ensues!

Anyway, the animation quality of Lucky Star is typical top-notch KyoAni, when it feels like it such as this scene of a bird at the beach. For some reason I was really reminded of Sora from AIR (except the wrong type of bird)…if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry. Go watch AIR, I’ll see you in 6 hours.

Anyway, the girls eat and wash up and we move on to better things, like Konata getting one pulled on her for once - it’s not like her to disregard such truths as ‘the water is cold.’ Not even arguably the one most aware of these gags can avoid falling for them every one in a while.

We come back the eyecatch and we get more of what passes for fanservice. We also discover the real reason why everyone has so much long hair, and that is to cover up their backs and butts.

Actually, we turn out to get another Miyuki scene, as we get a very long explanation on why your hair gets squeaky after you go to the beach. *ahem* It sounds plausible enough, although sometimes I wonder how she knows all this stuff. Is it the typical ojou-type education kicking into play (see: that one girl from To Heart 2 that Taka played air hockey with), where they must be highly educated to take over the family business of whatever?

During this point the very visual-novel minded Konata gets an idea (referred to as ’setting a flag’ XD) and provides some off-screen physical hijinks by setting a bar of soap by Miyuki for her to slip on. Note Konata’s very hilarious warrior-ish pose.

Also, am I the only one who thinks slipping on a bar of soap and falling onto a wet floor would hurt? Seriously. Although, hospital Miyuki might have some bonus moe charm, for all we know, eh Konata?

Also from the same scene, we get a Public Service Message from Konata. The More You Know~

Meanwhile we get another scene of the adults separated from the rest of the group in Mysteriously Murky Water. Lucky Star’s talked about eating food, talked about periods (simultaneous alienating 99.5% of their fanbase), and now they’re talking about not having anything to talk about.

And it works, especially as a “hey, that’s happened to me” slice of life thingy.

Konata’s ridiculously funny :3 expression kicks in again when Kagami talks about guys hitting on them. Between this and the preview for next week it seems the highly-skirted topic of romance is becoming a subplot very slowly but surely. Can’t wait! We need some more pathetic guys in here for more awkward interaction (imagine a non-gamer with Konata), call Shiraishi down from Lucky Channel or something after Akira’s given him a good talking to or something.

And now for the Tsukasa Checku~ Seriously, Tsukasa has a lot of great shots in this episode, whether you’re a Hiiragi fanboy or not.

It’s odd to see a blank look like this from both the girls, which is what gives it awesome point. Also, note the difference in the eyes. If the mindset of everyone in real life could be determined by the slant of their eyes…

And also the embodiment of all that is awesome in Lucky Star (aside from the parodies, and Konata’s gamer talks, and…ok, fine, the embodiment of all that is cute), during one of Konata’s horror stories that’s a reference to…something. Again.

And the following ’scared to death, can’t sleep’ scene that for some reason is screaming Cardcaptor Sakura to me (see: Sakura after any Naoko story, episode circa 64 and more?). Note the difference in sleeping positions for all the characters XD Great detail.

Tsukasa walks around for a bit and talks with Yui about nothing interesting at all - as typical, of course! - and then gets scared around a bit more by Konata who has forsaken such normal needs such as sleep for more CG scenes. Seriously cute pose there.

And the ‘holy shit where’d the really awesome graphics come from’ scene with Tsukasa listening to the ocean. It sounds like it could be another reference but it’s very adorable good on its own.

And of course it ends on a humorous note when a bug comes scurrying out of the shell, kicking us back into normal art and sending Tsukasa running to onee-chan for some yuri action comfort. (Konata so should’ve brought that up)

Anyway, Lucky Channel as always and Akira is a little bit more abusive than usual, scaring ShirishirisomethinghowthehelldoIspellhisnameguy witless, giving him the finger, and then following by a tirade on otakus. Good stuff as always, especially with the rapid fire genki/…notgenki? mood changing.

Finally….AKIRA BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMU!

-CCY

This post is tagged Lucky Star, Single Ep