Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 19, 2013

Are there really such things as good luck and bad luck? We humans tend to try to invest meaning into our lives, probably most especially when things seem the most meaningless, which can often be the extremes of our experience— when things go incredibly well or, conversely, spectacularly badly. A lot of people are probably cursing their “bad luck” after not walking away with close to half a billion dollars with the recent Mega Millions lottery phenomenon, but as any statistician will tell you, there’s a scientific reason for that so-called unluckiness, which of course is wrapped up in probabilities and the insane odds of correctly guessing the right numbers to win the jackpot. But we humans are a stubborn lot, after all, and along with hope springing eternal, there’s a side of us that no doubt believes in elemental forces which shape our destiny in both positive and negative ways. Good Luck Girl!, a frequently pretty funny anime based on a long running manga series, starts out with an explicit description of pantheism, alleging that each and every thing on the planet is imbued with some piece of divine energy. Among these snippets of the Deity are good luck and bad luck, and it just so happens that a young girl named Ichiko Sakura, has been blessed with an inordinate amount of the former. Ichiko is gorgeous (the anime doesn’t shy away from more than a bit of fan service with regard to her physical attributes), she’s smart, and her life is filled to the brim with every comfort one could ever hope for. That doesn’t mean Ichiko’s life is perfect, however. She’s the butt of nasty comments by the “mean girls” at her school, and, even worse, Yamabuki, the Goddess in charge of all unhappiness and bad luck, isn’t at all pleased that Ichiko has apparently upset the balance of the two disparate kinds of luck on Earth, threatening everything around the young girl. Yamabuki sends her petulant underling Momiji, to supposedly right the situation. What transpires is a frequently manic comedy that pits the ever scheming Momiji against the inordinately lucky Ichiko, as Momiji desperately tries to suck the luck right out of the young human. Good Luck Girl! is patently silly and frankly never really adds up to much, but it has a fairly consistently amusing (if inordinately goofy) sense of humor that helps it to remain relatively fresh and entertaining over the course of its thirteen episodes.

Good Luck Girl! is rather unexpectedly smart in the way it sometimes plays off of audience expectations and skews things rather liberally, leading to some decent comedy. Early in the series, Ichiko is holed away in a stall of her high school bathroom while a bunch of her female classmates talk about how much they hate her (in a nice self-deprecating nod to the series’ own penchant for fan service, one girl calls her “Tits-iko”). We see Ichiko curled up in a near fetal position in the stall, seemingly about to break down in hysterics after having heard all of the insults being flung her way. Well, she does break down into hysterics, though not in the way one might expect—she breaks out into delirious laughter, engaging in a brief but comic soliloquy on how stupid these girls are, and how their laments only make Ichiko’s own happiness grow stronger by the moment. Obviously, Ichiko has absolutely no sense of empathy whatsoever, and just accepts her good fortune as her birthright.

Ichiko starts to wake up a little bit to the fact that there are actually other people in the world after Momiji informs her that Ichiko is actually sucking the positive energy out of everyone around her, and that those who love Ichiko the most will suffer the most as a result. When Ichiko’s beloved butler Suwano suddenly suffers a severe health crisis, Ichiko begins to realize that a certain price is going to be exacted for her thus far uninterrupted run of good luck, and the young girl finally has to confront the fact that a bit of altruism may finally be necessary. It isn’t easy, of course, and that provides a bit more comedy for the series.

Good Luck Girl! settles into a sort of quasi-shōnen approach once Momiji decides the best way to keep track of her ostensible target is to enroll in Ichiko’s class. Momiji’s presence is of course annoying to Ichiko, but it also begins to spark a bit of understanding in the girl, especially once Momiji helps Ichiko to help others. This doesn’t necessarily mean Momiji has seen the light, though, for the unlucky spirit still has her eyes on Ichiko’s good fortune, and is focused on getting it by hook or by crook.

The bulk of Good Luck Girl! plays out in the oftentimes frenetic interplay between the two main characters, though occasionally supporting characters show up to provide tangential plotlines. The anime attempts to delve slightly into the backstories of both the focal girls, but while that perhaps gives a bit of emotional heft to the characters, the real allure here is the comedy. Good Luck Girl! isn’t especially smart, but it’s often pretty boisterously amusing as Ichiko learns that being lucky doesn’t necessarily breed eternal happiness, and Momiji finds out that even a seemingly eternal unlucky streak can finally come to an end. The series' thesis that there's a fine line between being friends and enemies isn't any earth shattering achievement, but it's handled well here, providing some raucous entertainment on an admittedly fairly unambitious scale.

Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Good Luck Girl! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a very bright, colorful and vivid looking series that looks sharp and beautifully saturated in high definition. While there's nothing very remarkable about the backgrounds, the character design is quite well done, with nice elements like Ichiko's bright silver-gray hair and more than ample bosom (which drives Momiji slightly crazy) offering a stark contrast to Momiji's wrapped arm and significantly flatter chest. Line detail is strong, and aside from some minor banding in fine gradients, there are no troubling issues to report.

Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Good Luck Girl! features Dolby TrueHD mixes in both Japanese (2.0) and English (5.1). Though this is a pretty noisy series at times, the 5.1 mix doesn't really provide an overwhelming amount of surround activity. The 5.1 mix does significantly up the low end of the mix, which helps add some boisterous activity to both effects and the enjoyable score. Dialogue is cleanly presented in both tracks, but the Japanese track is considerably less aggressively mixed than the English track.

Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary 4 features Brina Palencia and Todd Haberkorn, but which includes a patently odd intro by Joel McDonald offering up a conceit for this commentary that means fan questions will be thrust at unsuspecting commentary participants.


• Episode 8 Video Commentary (1080p; 24:26) is the first PiP commentary that I personally can recall on a FUNimation release (I'm sure our expert members will correct me if there have been others). The episode plays out in a small screen on the lower right side of the frame while the bulk of the image is given over to Joel McDonald, Brina Palencia, Colleen Clinkenbeard and Martha Harms discussing the episode.


• Episode 12 Commentary features Patrick Seitz as this commentary's introductory participant, who then makes way for Colleen Clinkenbeard and Martha Harms.


• Textless Opening Song "Make My Day!" (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Koiboudou" (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song "Make My Day!" (Episode 13) (1080p; 1:37)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:06)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Good Luck Girl!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Good Luck Girl! may not be the best way to introduce yourself to Japanese religion and/or folklore, but it's an overall amusing series that features two worthy combatants who, like all good nemeses, end up learning a little bit from each other even as they attempt to defeat each other. The series is funny in a sort of manic way a lot of the time, and if the attempts to inject a little emotion largely fall flat, the good news is the series doesn't dwell on them and instead goes for its strength, which is its lunatic ambience. This Blu-ray features some creative commentaries (in what is perhaps an overt effort by FUNimation to keep their commentaries from being incoherent "party hearty" outings), and decent other supplements, as well as solid technical merits. Recommended.