HAVE FUN :D

In some way… yes. That doesn’t go for the characters because a calm person has a soul, too, but it goes for their presentation (how their expressions are depicted by the artist).

They never learned how to express feelings in artworks so they can be around for another 26 years and they won’t reach professionalism. They just do proper handcraft that everyone can learn but they are not artists. Actually I cannot blame them for doing so because apparently many people like their poor animation style.
Haruhi was their only well animated character (especially in the band scene) but unfortunately it was just an exception.

Well, I’ll stop annoying you now because it is obvious that we have totally different views on this topic.

Lucky Star isn’t otaku humour so much as it is normal humour, just from a Japanese standpoint. I mentioned PPD because you won’t get PPD without watching anime, in the same way you won’t get Lucky Star unless you’ve experienced what the characters have experienced. The otaku humour in Lucky Star is simply icing on the cake.

“No, that’s not what I meant. “Artistic” is when the characters express themselves through movement and the body language is overdone (plus individually concepted for every character). That is, in my opinion, something that every bishoujo and moe anime lacks so far because those works rely on standardized beauty/cuteness and elegance but not on expression (”soul”).
Check out Denno Coil for professional animation and you will see what I intend to say and what can be achieved with a TV series’ budget when you have real pros in your animation staff. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is another good example for the art of animation.”

So stuff has to be stupidly over done for it to have soul? The characters in Lucky Star have their own mannerisms, they’re just more subtle. KyoAni is not one to skimp on details like that. Also, I know you saw Haruhi. That girl was always moving.

Also, it’s unfair for you to suggest that KyoAni aren’t professionals. They’ve been around since 1981, so I’d say that have plenty of experience under their belt, and the quality of their work is enough to attest to their professionalism. Madhouse has been around for about 10 years more, and have a wider body of work, but how much of that is consistent?

I’ve seen both Denno Coil and Tokikake (actually, I probably saw it before you did as I saw it before it was released publicly in anyway– I even met the director!) and liked them both. I however don’t enjoy stuff that makes it a point to be different. In the case of Denno and Tokikake, they don’t make it a point, they just are. However, I feel you lean towards stuff that likes to be in your face about not being mainstream. It’s not so much that one is better than the other. I’d say Lucky Star (ok, maybe Kanon, Lucky Star is pretty subdued) and Denno are on the same level, just cater to totally different audiences. It’s unfair of you to say that one is lacking in something that it’s not supposed to have. Works like Kanon have more subdued expression, while works like Denno Coil and Tokikake are meant to be a bit over done.

No, that’s not what I meant. “Artistic” is when the characters express themselves through movement and the body language is overdone (plus individually concepted for every character). That is, in my opinion, something that every bishoujo and moe anime lacks so far because those works rely on standardized beauty/cuteness and elegance but not on expression (”soul”).
Check out Denno Coil for professional animation and you will see what I intend to say and what can be achieved with a TV series’ budget when you have real pros in your animation staff. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is another good example for the art of animation.

Yeah, that’s what I’m guessing too :P. I didn’t know that the livejournal guy was some kind of recognized cartoonist before I googled him. I figured it wasn’t directed at me given I know K somewhat well, and I haven’t made any books, thusly none of my books would make into a bookscan!

The “oh. I see” was an “oh. I see why he may have written that rant now”

Re: My theory about Fred’s attention shifting toward longer-form presentations incompatible with page-at-a-time, see this interview in Publishers’ Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6442270.html

harakiri: you’re not Japanese enough. A lot of that is observational humour, so if you’ve not had a lot of those same experiences, you just won’t get it. It’s quite a funny show, actually. However, I imagine for some people that it’s the same as having PPD as their first anime. They lack the proper experience so it’s lost on them.

I would jab you in the stomach for the “lack of artistic merit” remark but we’ve gone over that countless times. Badly drawn !=artistic

I’ve checked out Lucky Star to get a better understanding of your latest mini-series of Lucky Star related comics. I even thought the moe factor was okay (I am normally not fond of moe) because the girls did not seem as stupid as their Kanon-alikes. There was just a problem with the comedy: Erm, I don’t know if a comedy without jokes can work for 24 episodes. I don’t intend to bash the series brutally as I normally do with bad anime but Lucky Star ep. 1 just wasn’t good. The animation lacked any artistic merrit as well but that’s what I am used to at KyoAni. Unfortunately it wasn’t even dynamic.

I bet you’re riding the success waves of your KyoAni conspiracy theories.

dm: Ah, I didn’t know that Colorful was part of something bigger. I can understand how the subject matter would grow old (hell, I can only handle it in small doses) but I do find it to be very funny. I like it in the same way I like Golden Boy.

Re: MT– yeah, I think that’s probably a problem too. I’ve found I enjoyed MT a lot more while reading it collected. I’ve yet to buy volume 4 simply because my opinion of the strip has soured over the years, but I may consider at least reading through it now. I do think there is a problem in the subject matter though, in that I feel it is a bit too “fanboyish” or something. I dunno. He’s no Kazuo Koike :V

I think the livejournal essay you linked to has got Megatokyo wrong. The problem is that the narrative focus has shifted to the collections. Fred’s writing a novel, not a 2.5th-weekly strip, and the strip suffers (though I think he’s done an okay job keeping the strip functioning). I wrote more, but I just went over to leave a comment at that fellow’s place.

Course it seems to me that Fred does have a plan, but he’s taking an awful long time to finish setting it up. :P