First Impressions / Lucky Star

Yutaka! Yui’s little sister is moving in with Konata~

She’s a real cutie, this one! She’s voiced by Hasegawa Shizuka, the same girl that does Yukino in Nagasarete. They’re similar characters in that they’re both the youngest of all the characters, both seem quite sharp yet inexperienced, and get pushed around and overall led astray by their legal guardians. Luckily for us, Yutaka is a much cooler character, probably because she’s very much her own person and not chasing after some idiot with a tendency to bleed profusely from his nose.

Yutaka makes good with Minami, a classmate of hers who is a good 5 inches taller and a whole lot quieter. Minami is voiced by Chihara Minori, and she sounds just like Nagato Yuki, albeit a bit more talkative and a bit less… alien. Still, Yutaka and Minami look great together – hopefully there will be more of them in future episodes!

How does Konata see her little cousin? Short. Gets sick easily. Really cute. Walking, talking, moe in the flesh!

Then, the fateful meeting with Kagami and Tsukasa.
“Ohh, I’ve heard a lot about you guys!”
“Oh really, what have you heard?”
“….well, um…”

Still other Yutaka snippets:
– She’s worried about not getting any boyfriends because she’s always sick and absent from school and too childish looking… “You’re doing Great!” says Konata
– What do you do with your middle school uniform? Kagami gave hers to a neighborhood girl. Konata has hers… for cosplay reasons…
– Yui shows up and wants to treat them all to booze!
– Shadowing Konata onee-san: she makes her own lunches! she’s great at video games! she’s got a huge communications network! she can do chores and cook as well! Konata-oneesan is such a complete person… unlike Yui-neesan the drunk, Yui-neesan the vicious driver, Yui-neesan the slacker.

Other happenings (thanks mewmew!):
– Getting preyed on by college phone recruiters. Miyuki’s mom is so bored at home, she just strikes up a nice conversation with one of them…
– Some talk about the position of the smoking and nonsmoking sections relative to the bathroom in a restaurant
– The Hiiragi family sits around the TV to enjoy an episode of Japanese Millionaire. Mr. Hiiragi is quite a lucky guy, with his hot wife and four cute miko daughters. Konata’s dad is probably off somewhere playing an eroge with the exact same setup.
– Lucky Channel 14: Akira’s bipolarity at an all-time high

edit: I just noticed that Yutaka uses different ribbons in her hair – a different color for every day of the week? 😀

Special ED

ED: 「ハレ晴レユカイ」 (Hare Hare Yukai) by 白石稔 (Shiraishi Minoru)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Another live action Shiraishi ending – this time, he sings the epic song that started it all, with an ocean twilight backdrop and a fighting game foreground. Even the button sequences are listed. Wtf is going on!!

Preview

Thoughts

If there’s one thing I noticed about this episode, it was how colorful it was. I’m reminded of a Momotato caption for that loli anime Uta Kata where all the girls are standing in a line, their hair colors all different, the caption reading “taste the rainbow~” – that’s all I could think of this episode, lol.

Yutaka is a great character and a welcome addition to the Izumi household – I particularly liked the scene where the four were sitting around the square table just chatting away – you can’t play mahjong with 3 people! Maybe Yutaka will fill in that 4th character role that Miyuki never seems to have time to be. Either way, she seems completely at home with the rest of the girls and fits in real nice without disturbing any of the character dynamics. Minami is a bit too much on the generic side, but Chihara Minori is voicing her, so I’ll let that one slide.

As Lucky Star enters the second half of the season, things are really starting to fall into place!

-jaalin

38 Comments

  3. finally some other the other characters are getting screen time! and man I can’t even begin to comment on these shiraishi endings. I wonder if they’ll do more of them lol

    aspartame
    Reply

  9. 🙂 things are getting nice in lucky star ^^

    quite a lot of dialogue (yet again), so here goes…
    -yutaka moves in ^^ she blushes when minami hands her the handkerchief ^^;
    -konata sees her cousin as a walking moe, like miyuki
    -miyuki and kagami talk about annoying phone calls from jyuku and prep. institutions
    -dialogue on “number display” (a machine that basically displays the number of who is calling…in japan caller id is not common in phones…)
    -miyuki’s mom was so bored she decided to talk to one of the jyuku recruiters..on the phone
    -random convo on why bathrooms in a famiresu (family restaurant) seem to always be located near the “smoking permitted” tables
    -tv new on pedo/loli stalkers (kona’s dad is jeolous of them! D:)
    -MINOMONTA! on millionaire! xD and his trade “fainaru ansaa?” (if you ever watch the japanese version of millionaire, its 10x more interesting to watch, because the host, minomonta toys with the contestants and takes FOREVER to reveal if s/he answered the question correctly)
    -tsukasa judges by the time left (10 more min) during the commercial break to “predict” that the contestant on millionaire will get the answer wrong
    -talk on graduation, and the tradition of boys giving the 2nd button on their gakuran to girls they like
    -konata keeps her middle scl uniform for cosplay purposes
    -yui was about to ask everyone out to a bar! (or maybe an izaka-ya…which is close to a bar)
    -yutaka is horrified to know that konata’s dad…doesnt close the bathroom…when he’s using it…

    -akira is irritated more than usual, and vows to appear in the show. she also compares and calls herself “an oscar-winning actress” compared to the 4 main girls
    -shiraishi madness.

    -it looks like “motteke seerafuku!” surpassed hare hare yukai in terms of physical CD sales…

    mewmew
    Reply

  22. The way things are going, Akira’ll have killed Shirashi before the series is done. Still, between Tsukasa and Yutaka, we’ve got almost all the elements for “Moe Moe Paradise”, minus a contacts-wearing Miyuki in meido.

    Haesslich
    Reply

  33. I’m so shocked that Chihara Minori is doing the only voice she knows how for Minami, boring and monotone. What a genius casting choice, get the VA that did Yuki and even though she’s talentless they’ll love it for that, and you don’t have to worry about anything complex, and it kind of fits too. What an amaaaaaaazing voice actress…. what unpredictable casting……yeaaaah…..

    Kaioshin_Sama
    Reply

  35. yeah, ‘Motteke Serafuku’ got to No.2 on Weekly Orikon Chart. source-Newtype Aug’07
    the ED sequence with Minoru Shiraishi doing Hare Hare Yukai is reminiscent of those Kungfu films, especially the ‘The End’ sequence.
    really had me laughing…

    tonbo
    Reply

  38. Minami and Yutaka somewhat remind me of Shizuma and Nagisa from Strawberry Panic, especially with Minami’s voice. Makes me wonder who I think she’s most like, Shizuma or Yuki.

    Anonymous
    Reply

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