Lucky Star (manga)

• 1. Introduction

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  Lucky Star began, in its creator's own words, as nothing special. Kagami Yoshimizu told Newtype USA in June 2005, "I don't really think my production process is anything special." He added that "my personality is very well suited to doing four-panel comic strips, and I really enjoy creating this one." Then, almost offhand, he made a prediction: "one day, I wouldn't mind seeing these characters moving around on screen." Back then, four Japanese high school girls carried a four-panel gag strip with barely any plot to speak of. Yoshimizu's daydream did not stay small. The girls eventually starred in an anime and spun off into games, novels, and chemistry textbooks. They also drew real crowds to a small shrine in Saitama Prefecture. How did a comic this modest reach that far?

• 2. Four Girls, No Plot

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  Konata Izumi, the story's lead, spends her time watching anime, playing video games, and reading manga instead of doing her schoolwork. She neglects her studies out of laziness, yet the series makes clear she is intelligent and athletic underneath it. The setting draws mainly on Kuki, a city in Saitama Prefecture, standing in for the girls' everyday world.

  That gap between what the opening credits promise and what the show actually delivers points to a franchise that kept branching out long after these four started high school.

• 3. Print Empire

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  Comptiq, Kadokawa Shoten's magazine, first printed the four-panel strip in an issue cover-dated January 2004. That issue actually went on sale on the 10th of December 2003. The manga's first collected volume followed on the 8th of January 2005. By the 26th of October 2013, ten volumes existed. Beyond Comptiq, chapters also ran at various times in Shōnen Ace, Newtype, Comp Ace, Dragon Magazine, Mobile Newtype, and Kadokawa Hotline.

  Regular serialization stopped in 2014. It did not resume until the 10th of November 2022, when the strip returned in Kadokawa's Mitaina! magazine. Bandai Entertainment had licensed the manga for English release, publishing its first volume in June 2009. Only eight of the ten volumes ever appeared in English before Bandai closed. Viz Media picked up the license afterward, having already secured digital publishing rights to the series in 2014.

  Five light novels appeared under Kadokawa's Sneaker Bunko label. Tōka Takei wrote the first three, illustrated by Kagami Yoshimizu. They were published on the 1st of September 2007, the 1st of March 2008, and the 1st of October 2008. Touko Machida wrote the fourth, illustrated by Yukiko Horiguchi, published on the 1st of April 2009. Heisei Izu and Kei Tanaka wrote the fifth, illustrated again by Yoshimizu, published on the 1st of February 2012. A spinoff novel tied to the Miyakawa-ke no Kūfuku anime followed on the 1st of February 2014. Machida wrote it, with art by Harapeko and Tsubomi Hanabana.

  Chukei Publishing found an unlikely use for the cast: chemistry textbooks. Takashi Matsubara wrote a theoretical chemistry title illustrated by Yoshimizu in 2010. He followed it with an organic chemistry title in 2013, built around Konata, Tsukasa, and the other girls. Masashi Inutsuka wrote a companion inorganic chemistry book that same year, illustrated by Yoshimizu and Sayoi.

  Two more spinoff manga carried the world further. Lucky Star Pocket Travelers had the four leads wake up one morning shrunk to doll size. It was serialized in Comp Ace between the January and August 2008 issues, collected into a single volume on the 10th of October 2008. Miyakawa-ke no Kūfuku follows sisters Hinata and Hikage Miyakawa, whose poverty comes from Hinata's wasteful habits. It began in Comp H's magazine in January 2008 before moving to Comp Ace from its June 2009 issue. It later got its own anime, streamed on Ustream between the 29th of April and the 1st of July 2013. A parody by Eretto called Boo Boo Kagaboo ran in Comp Ace between the July 2008 and December 2009 issues, collected on the 18th of March 2010. A further Miyakawa-ke spinoff, by Tsubomi Hanabana and cuisine supervisor Etsuko Ichise, ran in Comp Ace between the November 2013 and May 2014 issues. Its volume followed on the 10th of July 2014.

  In November 2022, shortly after that eight-year hiatus ended, Kadokawa announced yet another spinoff. It was tentatively set fifteen years after the original story.

• 4. A Director Fired

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  Kyoto Animation's anime version ran 24 episodes, airing between the 8th of April and the 16th of September 2007. Four episodes in, the studio replaced series director Yutaka Yamamoto with Yasuhiro Takemoto. The company explained the change directly: "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."

  Every episode closes with a segment called Lucky Channel, co-hosted by Akira Kogami and her assistant Minoru Shiraishi. Its humor runs darker, more cynical, and more mean-spirited than the main show. It is staged as a fake infomercial, built around the increasingly abusive relationship between the two hosts. Akira acts like a cute, excitable girl while reading her script. She turns bored and annoyed the moment the segment ends, sometimes even before. Voice actors Yuko Goto, Minori Chihara, Tomokazu Sugita, Daisuke Ono, and Aya Hirano all appear as themselves in small cameos tied to their other work with Kyoto Animation.

  Kadokawa Pictures USA and Bandai Entertainment first announced their license for the anime with a teaser trailer. It was tucked onto the volume four DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Bandai released six English DVD volumes between May 2008 and March 2009. It later collected the series into a six-disc box set on the 6th of April 2010. Wendee Lee voiced the lead roles in both Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star for the English dub. That choice echoed how Aya Hirano voiced both parts in the original Japanese. European distributor Beez Entertainment announced its own rights to the TV series and OVA at AmeCon 2010. Bandai closed in 2012, and Funimation Entertainment, now known as Crunchyroll, announced at Otakon 2014 that it had licensed the series. It released the show on Blu-ray and DVD on the 12th of July 2016.

  An original video animation episode was first previewed for summer 2008 in Comptiq's June issue. It ultimately arrived on the 26th of September 2008, alongside its own companion drama CD. The OVA packed in six separate stories, including an MMORPG session played by Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and Nanako Kuroi. One story gave Kagami a suggestive dream about Konata. Its Lucky Channel segment was shot live-action instead of animated. Its ending theme was sung by Uchōten, the duo of Hiromi Konno and Minoru Shiraishi. That melody was originally the opening theme to Fist of the North Star. Bandai released the OVA in North America, subtitled only, on the 4th of August 2009, and it too was later relicensed to Funimation.

  That borrowed Fist of the North Star melody was just one thread in a much larger tangle of songs, singles, and character CDs still to come.

• 5. Beyond the Screen

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  A Lucky Star game reached the Nintendo DS on the 1st of December 2005. It was sold alongside a limited "DX Pack" edition loaded with extras. A sequel followed on the 24th of May 2007. The first game quizzed players on assorted subjects and memorization, built around beating other characters at trivia. It included a Drama Mode sending the player toward Akihabara through math quizzes and a handful of mini-games. Players had to shout skill names into a microphone during link-mode battles. One quiz, called "Ondoku", required shouting the answer aloud. Mascot characters from real shops made cameo appearances, including Broccoli's Di Gi Charat, Animate's Anime Tencho, and Toranoana's Miko. In an August 2007 survey, Dengeki G's Magazine readers ranked Shin Lucky Star Moe Drill: Tabidachi the 17th most interesting bishōjo game. It tied with Ever 17: The Out of Infinity.

  Kadokawa Shoten also produced a PlayStation 2 visual novel, released in Japan on the 24th of January 2008. A PlayStation Portable port followed on the 23rd of December 2010. A separate PSP simulation game arrived on the 24th of December 2009. An original novel written by Osamu Kudō shipped as a pre-order bonus for Shin Lucky Star Moe Drill: Tabidachi: DX Pack.

  Frontier Works released the Drama CD Lucky Star on the 24th of August 2005. A video game vocal mini-album followed on the 22nd of December that same year. The anime's opening theme single, "Motteke! Sailor Fuku", arrived on the 23rd of May 2007. Lantis followed with a remix, and on the 11th of July 2007, a collection of the show's first twelve ending themes. Character song CDs followed for the four leads, Aya Hirano as Konata, Emiri Katō as Kagami, Kaori Fukuhara as Tsukasa, and Aya Endo as Miyuki. They came out on the 5th of September 2007. Further character CDs for supporting cast members followed through the fall, with a thirteenth arriving on the 26th of March 2008. Alongside nearly every DVD release, a separate line of albums paired Haruhi Suzumiya composer Satoru Kōsaki's background music with new Lucky Channel audio dramas. That series ran to seven volumes, released between June and December 2007.

  Budokan hosted a live concert on the 29th of March 2009 that ran four hours and forty minutes, hosted by Hiromi Konno and Minoru Shiraishi. A DVD of the concert followed on the 25th of December 2009, packaged with a 24-page booklet across two discs. A stage musical then ran between the 20th and the 30th of September 2012, staged at the Tokyo Dome City Attractions venue "Theatre G-Rosso".

  None of that spending explains why the manga's very first volume had already sold out in Japan before most of this even existed.

• 6. Reception

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  Newtype USA reported that Lucky Star's first manga volume sold out so quickly that Kadokawa Shoten had to rush out a reprint. By April 2008, the first five volumes had collectively sold over 1.8 million copies.

  Analyst John Oppliger of AnimeNation pointed to one reason for the series' success: its kinship with Kyoto Animation's earlier hit, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Lucky Star itself references that show repeatedly. He also pointed to the series' own "unique" composition. He wrote that it "panders to the tastes of otaku, but does so with good humor and sly wit". He called it "the ultimate in fan service" and a "witty, self-indulgent, guilty pleasure".

  A Special First Edition release of the first DVD volume, containing the anime's first two episodes, arrived on the 22nd of June 2007. It sold out fast. Coverage at the time noted that "Amazon Japan has already sold out its entire supply of the DVD" and that "the majority of the stores in Akihabara with special displays for Lucky Star have run out." Anime News Network described the series as "extremely otaku-centric".

  That same Akihabara crowd would soon carry Lucky Star out of the shops and into the real Saitama towns the anime was based on.

• 7. Pilgrimage to Washimiya

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  Fans began traveling to Lucky Star's real-world settings starting in April 2007. Newtype's August issue that year ran a feature on the actual locations. It named Konata's home in Satte, Kagami and Tsukasa's home in Washimiya, and the school grounds in Kasukabe, all in Saitama Prefecture. The magazine even printed directions from Akihabara, and fans followed them in what the press called "pilgrimages".

  Washinomiya Shrine in Washimiya, where the Hiiragi sisters work as miko in the anime, became the most visible destination. Japanese news outlets described a shrine "teeming with photographers trying to replicate scenes from the anime, cosplayers wandering around, and ema prayer plaques ridden with anime drawings and strange prayers like 'Konata is my wife'". Those same ema plaques appear in episode 21 of the anime. Locals split over the attention. Some welcomed the extra worshippers, while others worried about security.

  In December 2007, the shrine hosted a Lucky Star event featuring Yoshimizu himself alongside voice actors Hiromi Konno, Emiri Katō, Kaori Fukuhara, and Minoru Shiraishi. It drew 3500 fans. The Hiiragi sisters were subsequently registered as official residents of Washimiya. They joined Astro Boy of Niza and Crayon Shin-chan's family of Kasukabe as fictional characters granted the same honor elsewhere in Saitama. By the 30th of July 2008, sales of Lucky Star food and goods had brought income to the town. The Wall Street Journal described that income as a source of relief for a local economy still recovering from Japan's economic slump of the 1990s.

  Astro Boy still holds his honorary residency in Niza, and Crayon Shin-chan's family keeps theirs in Kasukabe. Konata Izumi and the Hiiragi sisters now share that same small distinction on Washimiya's town registry.