As far as CGDCT shows go, Lucky Star might well be the platonic ideal. It's not really themed around anything besides random, rambling conversations, yet the characters each have a distinct enough voice (literally in both the original Japanese and the English dub) as well as in the literary sense. It's to the point that it's become a pretty popular meme to script conversations between the four girls in such a way that you can hear your preferred cast reading them, and that wouldn't be possible if it weren't so–quietly–strongly written. Also, while it's an undoubtedly laid-back show, it's also paced such that it never feels slow. It hits a natural clip for a slice of life when compared to its deliberately slowed-down forerunners like Ichigo Mashimaro or Azumanga Daioh.
"That's important because i can watch it while laying in bed." Well, not really. This is the overly personal section. It's been really, really tiring even to sit at my computer recently, so i can't really watch more than an episode or two at a time. Given that i used to try for 12 episodes a day, that's a big shift, and a loss of something i really enjoyed. to say that is an understatement. Anime made me human. Trying and subesequently falling in love with a medium that no one around me understood or knew about was huge for my development of an independent sense of self; its characters like Konata and Persona 5's Futaba who showed me that there's a way to be truly happy even if you don't fit in or think about things in a normal way. Persona 5's depiction of Akihabara, Konata's room and constant reference-speak, the lovingly rendered club room of Genshiken... Even the apartments in Welcome to the NHK. They showed me that even in the depths of despair or as a "failed human" if you're unafraid to go 110% for what you love, be a little "cringe" in the eyes of the people you'd struggle to fit in with, there's so much love and happiness in the world. You can never fall too far to be irredeemable in the huge, melty eyes of moe.
But at a time, i was very close to someone who acted like that so much happiness had to be fake, or even wrong in the face of a broken world. i lost so much motivation back then, to try and find myself in places nobody knew anything about. Those obscure arts and stories were just "weird", even as they weren't hurting anybody. And worse yet, some of my dearest friends, people who found that same belief in "turning miracles into the everyday" from otaku art, they were "weird" too. Obviously i'm not in contact with that person anymore, and luckily i never broke contact with my friends. But getting back to my point–it really struck me how seriously nonjudgmental Kagami, and the show itself, is of Konata. She's not a failed human for having hobbies and interests, nor for wanting them more badly than other people do. Quite the contrary. If there is a theming to Lucky Star, it's "relatable sitcom bantz 4 otaku". She's able to bring new joy into their lives not in spite of her interests or personality, but because of them; i think about Kagami's slow understanding through her visit to the cosplay cafe a lot. The happiness of others is, if not infectious, then at least moving, and these are the kinds of people she would have thought of as freaks, geeks or outright failures of humanity. The show wouldn't exist without that weird pursuit of happiness. And in the end, it really was all those lovely weirdoes (in both 2d and 3d) who helped me along my path of self discovery with the "outlaws".
Patty's cheerleader dance in the final episode is a massive celebration of that. Love of all kinds between people who would never really want to change each other, at the end of the day, but who look forward to seeing each other grow.
Speaking of love, how about the yuri in this show ? And how moe it is ?
As truly moving as my most recent rewatch was, i wanted to make this post to gush over the ship between Minami and Yutaka. (Well, squeeing is still being moved, but you know what i mean.) They're handily the strongest pairing on this show and one of the strongest of history. they can't scratch HatsuSaki or MadoHomu in terms of how much i could talk about their layered writing or anything, but its sort of a rite of passion to have at least a few side character pairings you care a logically outsized amount for. i think i've mentioned Love Live Sunshine's Saint Snow as one of these, and Maya/Ritsuko from Evangelion are definitely another. As side characters, they aren't really supposed to upstage that iconic main quartet, and they never do; at the same time, they don't fall into the same trap as a lot of moe show side characters, even others in Lucky Star. Having two characters like this in such a lovely setting is prominently romantic in the CGDCT Sphere in and of itself. i'm reminded of what Miyazawa Iori said in Yuri Made Me Human:
KyoAni always crafts beautiful worlds, plucked straight from our own and rendered as through a lover's eyes. A lover... of the Earth itself. How fleeting~ Well, in a setting like that, characters this aware of how much they like each other, how much they worry they won't see each other again, even if they don't understand what that means or speak it into being... it's just what it is, right ? And something like that being allowed to just "be" is one of the highest peaks of loveliness a story can achieve. i mean, one of the first things Minami even says to Yutaka is an unspoken confession, right ? "i wanted you to have my handkerchief, i didn't think we'd ever see each other again." Not to mention the symbolism of something like that, for a meet-cute, i mean a first meeting, i mean... gweh !! My lavender-tinted glasses !! My sick-in-the-head yuri freak goggles !! They're fully fused to my eyes for them. Sorry ! i had to let that out.
How do i love them ? let me count the ways... Well, the big one, cool girls. i'll talk more about this later, but for as much as Konata spoke to me in the aspirational sense (and still does, though we're a lot more similar now) i think i most identified with Minami on my first watch, at least on a surface level. Her height and apparent aloofness make people see her one way, but she's actually struggling past her flat affect and cool looks to express emotions as big as as the ones tiny cute Yutaka makes clear. Her insecurity about her flat chest is perhaps her most classically moe trait. Every time someone makes an offhand remark that triggers it i just wanna hold her close and comfort her. She's so quiet that there's a real sadness imparted with her comedic reactions and that protective feeling is only strengthened by how much she doesn't elsewise fit in.
And Yutaka being as openly head-over-heels as she knows how to be is just precious !! i feel like her moe qualities don't need much explaining, she's very traditionally cute compared to Minami's more esoteric adorableness. i love her messy hair and twintails so much, they're the perfect representation of her flustered but earnest cuteness. Also, her status as sickly girl moe is reflected nicely in that constant bedhead too. In terms of sickly moe girls, she's probably the one who looks the most like she spends a lot of time in bed resting, but her design isn't any less cute for it. It's an impressive needle to thread !! More than anything, i love how strongly Yutaka defends Minami from imagined attacks on her intelligence after having just met her, because she blushed when they did.
That gets at my main point. If they're so moe seperately, then together... i'm 110% with Hiyori on this one. They're perfect !! The height difference ?? Being as tall as i am, that kind of thing sort of necessarily speaks to me. Leaning into it as much as these two designs do, while letting even the cool one be cute and moe, feels like there's a real care for these characters. Minami doesn't just exist to be dashing and princely, as aforementioned she's sensitive and as genuine as she can be despite her aloofness. That deliberate complexity just makes them more moe in the effort and care put in. An incidental height difference is fine, but for side characters to have such a dynamic that either ignores or lampshades most of the associated tropes without drawing too much focus from the main story is just impressive writing. Whisper Me A Love Song also does this kind of thing really well. As far as their personalities, it's hard to think of two types more aligned than the "weird" quiet girl and the sickly girl. Both of them have, even already, had completely different experiences to most of their peers. Despite her good looks Minami is mostly left out of normal social life for being too quiet and Yutaka straight up couldn't attend school much of the time. As outsiders in this way, they fit perfectly together. Even more than that, though, without knowing any of that, Yutaka got all blushy from the moment they met. They're perfect together. When i said Hiyorin had it right i meant it !! Minami as the dashing groom to cute-as-a-button bride Yutaka... perhaps expectedly, i've always loved bifauxnen/adjacent types. along with BanG Dream!'s Seta Kaoru, Minami was probably one of the earliest examples i'd seen who really stuck in my head. i just love how throughout her flusteredness, Minami's still fixated on Yutaka; staring at someone you know well and really like, like that, without even realizing, is a totally moe expression of love, especially if you do it without even realizing...
And that gets at something i've thought about a lot: people tend to derive their moe from their past, right ? i mean, it makes sense to be attracted to traits that remind you of formative moments in your discovery of attraction itself (this is what many of Shuuzo Oshimi's manga are about) but it goes beyond that. "Oh, i've always loved–" is how a lot of more normie people express this kind of feeling, right ? "i've always loved pink" or "i've always loved this traditionally cute animal." It's just that when it goes beyond the boundary of "acceptable" and "cringe" that there's a differnt word for it, if you bond to your favorite character in a series because she has pink hair and end up loving her story more than anything ? Or if your favorite animal is something like, i dunno, a squid or an oarfish. That's not different from liking cats, but humanity has arbitraily decided it's weird. We're gonna regret that when the hyperintelligent coalition of dolphins and octopuses invade the surface world and put all us surface dwellers in our place !! At any rate, i think it's interesting that such a strong connection to something healing can also be created in the past, almost like a sort of reverse trauma, at least for me at this stage in my life. It'd be irresponsible not to note that feeling after explaining why this rewatch meant so much and why my favorite ship is so lovely, so dear to me.
At any rate, thank you for reading !! Hope 2026 is treating everyone as well as it is me, and i hope to see you back here next week !!