Crystal Tokyo Anime Blog

     Lucky Star 3, starts off with change of uniform day at the girl’s high school, in the Japanese school system the changeover day for summer/winter uniform is set by the school’s administration. Just as Kagami is thinking that Konata will be wearing the wrong uniform to school, her sister walks in wearing the wrong uniform. Then while walking to school the girl spend time discussing the best way to enter contests, handwritten cards vs printed cards, and so-forth. Also on the way to school Konata asks why Kagami and her sister don’t act more alike since they are twins, Kagami explains that she and her sister are fraternal not identical, its a pretty funny skit. On the way to school the girls ride a hot train to school, and one of the girls gives an accidental flash to one of the male riders. How come this has never happen to me?

     Also, at school, the girls discuss weddings, and a Japanese girls’ dilemma (wedding dress vs kimono), Japanese Cultural Note (in modern Japan many girls wear both, the kimono for the Buddhist ceremony, then a western wedding dress later on at the reception). After school the girls play video games, and talk about Kagami and Tsukasa’s upcoming 17th birthday. Their birthday falls on 7 July, Konata tells them the that day is called ponytail day (an old Japanese folktale). Japanese Cultural Note (this day is also called the Tanabata festival, one of five major traditional festivals held in modern Japan). Later, Kagami and Konata have a discussion at a manga shop on how a collector should properly collect manga. Then Kagami, Tsukasa, and Konata have a talk about guys at a cafe, and if any guys have had the guts to confess to Miyuki, later on at school the girls talk about how Moe Miyuki really is (that’s pretty funny). Then we get the next installment of the fictional show Lucky channel, the Kogami character is quite cute, but can turn into a bitch in a second. My impression of the series so far is that it is a pretty laid back, enjoyable, funny, and innocent little anime. Lucky Star contains plenty of anime homages, and few Moe elements, if you like your anime slow pace, with a touch of Moe then this is your show.

Below are somescreen shots.

Lucky channel screenshots.

The following pictures say it all!

For the love of short skirts.

And for the love of thigh highs and tights.

     Towards the Terra 1, in the introduction voice-over, the viewer finds out that in the future the Earth is in ecological ruin, and the people felt cornered, so they develop spacecraft, and leave the Earth in search of a better place to live. Towards the Terra’s opening song is nice, lively, and upbeat. After the mildly downbeat opening voice-over, the upbeat opening song is a nice contrast.

     The story starts off with a man who is called soldier going into a room, that contains a woman reading tarot cards (haven’t we seen plenty of anime with tarot cards). The one called into the room receives a terrible vision, and screams in terror, at that point he wakes up to a alarm clock going off in his bedroom,  was it a dream, or a vision? Just as he is called to breakfast by his parents, we find out his name is Jomy, and tomorrow will be his 14Th birthday, and he will have to undergo his test of adulthood (or day of awakening).

      Jomy mother is worried about him being late for school, so he rushes off to school, gets called into the school’s counseling office, and later he tells his friends about his dreams. Jomy then smashes a referee robot during a school soccer match, and gets called back into the counseling office again. The school counselor tells Jomy that this is the first time anyone has ever gotten into trouble twice on the day before their test of adulthood. The counselor then tells Jomy to go say goodbye to his classmates, and he does so in a funny manner. On his way home from school Jomy expresses his doubts about becoming an adult to his best friends, they wish him luck, and say goodbye. Later, at home Jomy and his mother have a very touching moment, he expresses his anxiety about leaving home, but his mother says all humans must become adults, and can’t remain kids forever.

      Just as Jomy’s mother is preparing for is adulthood party, a group sent from Universal Control receives orders to evaluate Jomy, apparently because of his dream contact with the “mu”. They gas him, and take him away for examination at the medical office, his mother gets very upset, and the leader of the team asks why she’s getting so upset about someone shes not even related to. At the lab they test him for physic activity in very unpleasant ways, they return Jomy to his house. The next day Jomy leaves for his adulthood test, with his parents saying the test will be over before he even knows it. Jomy boards a bus wondering where to go, so he decides to head to dreamworld, a place were he has fond childhood memories. Jomy gets a telepathic message froma animal at dreamworld. The people following him conclude the he definitely is someone called a “mu”, he moves through the park, the group that is monitoring him says he is approaching test station 99, he boards a underground roller coaster and enters test station 99.

      In the test station he encounters a floating image called Terra computer 5, it tells him it will begin the adulthood test by starting with a memory erasure, he screams for help, and his dream visitor shows up, he tells Jomy to resist in order to keep is fourteen years of memories. At this point, we find out that the dream visitor name is Soldier Blue, a fight with Terra 5 takes place with Soldier Blue defeating the computer, the monitoring team orders the disposal of Jomy. As Jomy is leaving the park the animal that he spoke to earlier breaks out of its enclosure and leaps into his arms, at the same moment the disposal team shows up. The disposal team tells him he will be disposed of as a non-qualifier, the episode ends with that cliffhanger. Well, the ending song is very melancholy and somber, with the music being very low key. The contrasting opening and closing themes, gives the viewer conflicting musical messages. I found the first episode of Towards the Terra  to be quite interesting, and entertaining. The story unfolded at a smooth and even pace with no boring pauses. I felt that the main characters were very pleasant and likable, especially Jomy’s family. This series appears to have been digitally animated, but not in a in your face manner like some anime series, and the colors were done in bright but semi muted-manner. Overall, I think that anime viewers whom like anime belonging to the sifi genra will enjoy this series.

Here are some screenshots of Jomy’s family.

A final thought.