[Lucky Star] Ten Percent (rewrite)

[Arakawa]

Dumping ground for my Lucky Star rewrite project. I'm posting it to FFML as a primary venue, but throwing a copy up on here seems to be a good idea on the off chance someone wants to see what I'm up to most recently. I'm not really sure how well it fits with the interests on the forum, though. It involves (1) Lucky Star (though hopefully not to a degree requiring obsessive familiarity with the series) (2) weird logical paradoxes and (3) strange answers to stupid questions that only ever seem to bother me and not other people, such as "why is their hair all different colours in the anime?"

Still, commentary would be appreciated, even if somewhat unexpected.

EDIT: attaching markdown file as well, since the HTML conversion was acting up for some reason. The HTML might work fine, or it might be a bit slow to load...

[Muphrid]

Good to see you're still plugging away, Arakawa.  I've been working on a rewrite of something myself, so good times.

Mechanical stuff:

Spoiler: ShowHide

All this and a couple of other traits were what made her 'Legendary Girl A', famous, and even somewhat sought after as a customer by bored storekeepers and greasy-faced producers of doujins. The staff of this particular Animate, however, had a couple of additional facts on her that were not public knowledge. Facts that explained why they were particularly desperate to sell something to her. Most days, the had terrible luck doing this. (Being so close to downtown, Konata considered the Ikebukuro location fun to visit, but low on her list of places likely to have good deals.) But on this particular day...

Maybe "all these"?  Also, possibly "sought-after".

As she came in on this particular day, Konata was spotted by a brown-haired assistant named Giro. He matched the entering girl to the description he'd been given: long-haired blunette with ahoge, check. Short, appears to be about twelve years old (despite being in her upper year of high school already, the mission briefing had stressed). Perpetual sleepy-satisfied catlike facial expression, check. It was her!

I think in some circles "bluenette" may be frowned upon.  I am not familiar with "ahoge".  The general rule of thumb I go with is that if it's not obvious what the word means from context, it may bear some additional explaining.  I can guess this has to do with hair, but that's all I can guess.

The staff cheered their leader wildly, and went through a quick Employee Morale Ritual. It involved pumping their fists and screaming like maniacs, and it put them in the correct mood to perform their assigned roles with efficiency and precision.

The comma in the first sentence gives makes it ungrammatical.

Hmm, here was a promising title. She picked it up, wondering why it suddenly felt like she was doing something momentuous and kind of stupid, as though she was Gendo Ikari about to unleash Third Impact.

Momentous.

"Which is why you are not going to fail this time, Anizawa," he was admonished sternly. "After all, with this scheme I have devised, you have every incentive to succeed and every incentive to not fail. The logic is utterly flawless."

I'm not sure repeating "every incentive" is effective.

As Konata suppressed a mild and very easily-suppressed urge to sort through the Bin of Shame and satisfy a morbid sense of curiosity, Tencho suddenly saw his ending.

Is there some way to avoid repeating "suppressed"?

Something was not right, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it. She'd have to cancel her other store visits and drop in on the Hiiragis' an entire three hours earlier than they'd invited her, and put off that evening's gaming session to make room for an extra long all-nighter spent scouring the Internet for any details she could find on this apparently obscure anime!

The second sentence has a stray comma here as well.

Calling Kagami a tsundere would in fact be part of a concerted effort on Konata's part to touch a nerve, as twin-tailed girl's response might be along the lines of: "and what the hell does my hair have to do with my personality type? In case you haven't noticed, there's not even such a thing as natural lavender hair! It's dyed, you clueless nocturnal mutant!"

Perhaps "as the twin-tailed girl's response..."

Perhaps Kagami's character was due solely to Konata's baleful influence, always keeping her on edge? But no, that couldn't be the only reason. For instance, Kagami and Konata were in different sections at school, which meant hours upon hours of time when Kagami would be free to express any contrary tendencies not being brought out by Konata's presence. However, she generally chose to spend that time acting irritated at the frankly bizarre antics of one Misao Kusakabe, whom she'd known since grade school. In short, she definitely had the makings of a tsundere, and was moreover inevitably drawn to anyone who might bring out her sarcastic edge.

The comma at "makings of a tsundere, and was moreover..." is also unnecessary.

However, Konata mused to herself, being truly tsundere has to involve an entire character development arc, including a romantic foil who would eventually crack open the character's spiky shell to reveal a gentle interior world. In the meantime, constantly goading Kagami was Konata's one great public service to the world. For the tougher and spikier Kagami's *tsuntsun* shell turned out to be, the more soft, gooey, and wonderful her *deredere* inside would turn out for whoever persevered to crack that shell open. Or at least, such was the otaku rationalization for the deed; mostly, Konata just found it fun to rile her friend up. And, deep down, Kagami didn't even mind the routine *that* much.

Kagami doesn't mind--this statement plays with the perspective.  It sounds like Konata should know this, but it reads like a perspective switch.  I'd suggest language that puts it like Konata believes Kagami doesn't mind it or that Kagami had said so herself.

Huh... well, it was surprisingly easy for Konata to think about her friends' futures when she imagined them as leading characters in an anime. It occured to Konata that she wouldn't be able to think about herself that way, though. Who would want to watch an anime with *her* as the main character? No, maybe the actual main character goes to school, or maybe they're a regular at the cosplay cafe Konata works at, and she's always there in the background, always saying something ridiculous or interesting, but never actually advancing the plot. So there was no realistic character arc that Konata could construct for herself. So there was nothing to do but go home from whatever day job she'd end up drifting into and do otaku things every day for the rest of her life.

Occurred.

Well, Konata was quite happily resigned to her own fate, but she still felt morally obligated to do something to ensure Kagami's further development! The character potential was there, and it would be a crime to waste it! The only question was, what could a blue-haired otaku -- whose very words would not be taken seriously by anyone -- manage to accomplish?

Miyuki mentioned reading this weird thing on the Internet, what was the name again...

インテンショーン・マニフェステーショーン立場

... "the intention-manifestation viewpoint"? She couldn't remember a single thing about what that had meant. Storyboard artist, please insert yet another convenient flashback here if you please!

It might be a little more clear that the reason we're going into this flashback is because Konata is thinking about what she can do with her life.  I mean, this is exactly what you say, but you could spend more time with Konata trying to think about other things to do and then happening on this idea that she doesn't quite fully remember.

People who interacted with Konata quickly figured out that the reason she looked perpetually sleepy was because she really was perpetually sleepy due to endless unproductive all-nighters.

I would restructure this to avoid the repetition.  Possibly, "she perpetually looked sleepy because she really was, all thanks to endless unproductive all-nighters."

"MIYUKI-CHAN IS A SECRETARY?" screamed Konata, startling the entire classroom, the classrooms adjacent to it, and the classroom one floor below.

Just a couple lines before it was "Miyuki-san."

"Wow, Miyuki is studying things even when she's wasting time!" Tsukasa exclaimed in admiration.

And just a few lines before, it was "Miyuki-chan" from Tsukasa.

"... I'm not even sure myself... but I mean, for instance, most people organize their time in such a fashion that they would not be able to spend as much time on recreational activities as Konata-san, while still being able to interact with her friends as she does. So according to Pavlina-san's theory, it's possible that the key reason for this is simply that Konata has become firmly convinced that she has time to do both these things. The fact that Kuroi-sensei," she looked at the clock, "is now almost ten minutes late for class might simply be a coincidence Konata has manifested in order to gain an additional ten minutes of social interaction time!"

We go from "Konata-san" to just "Konata" in the same paragraph.

"Americans really do have bizarre ways of thinking, don't thay?" Miyuki finally concluded.

Is "thay" deliberate?

Oh, certainly... so that's what it had been. Miyuki had just made the mistake in giving the lecture that Konata cared to expend brain cells on such topics as homework, one way or the other. It just wasn't a worthy cause for Konata.

I don't understand the structure of this sentence.  Is it equivalent to "Miyuki had just made the mistake of giving a lecture that Konata cared to expend brain cells on about homework"?  Actually...no, I just have no idea what this sentence is saying.

Tencho struggled with a sudden and unaccustomed wave of black despair. No! He woul carry on! One way or another, he would have to see his task through, for the very safety of this universe depended on it!

Content:

Spoiler: ShowHide

The depth and intricacy of Konata's thought process regarding which stores to go to and the staff's attempt to manipulate her are pretty amusing.  The latter scene in particular reads like something straight out of anime for its ridiculousness, all played seriously of course.

The flashback with Tencho's boss stating that he might tell Tencho why Konata is so important if he feels and that the truth is awful hints at the higher planes and stuff, doesn't it?  My memory is a little fuzzy on that part.

The tangent on the nature of this obscure DVD is either part of the humorous charm or too long a distraction from what's going on.  I, for one, appreciate the level of detail and background, but I would also think hard on whether that much text on the DVD is important...unless it turns up later as a plot point.

There's a whole tangent with description of the Hiiragi sisters and Konata's thoughts on tsundere and such that...also doesn't seem quite relevant, or it may be overextended compared to the description necessary for introduction--or I felt that way until Konata got to thinking about what a character arc for herself would be like.  Still, the flow of the story still seems very stream-of-consciousness.

I think I see the ideas all in place.  What strikes me is that the flow of things is just all a little random...not at all unlike Lucky Star, huh.

[Gotonis]

Alright, now to (hopefully) be helpful for once.

Spoiler: ShowHide

The staff of this particular Animate, however, had a couple of additional facts on her that were not public knowledge.

I may be misinterpreting what you're trying to say, but I think 'facts about her' may work better.

The director had been not merely annoyed but also horrified; in a rare loss of self-control, he expressed his horror by hot-headedly flinging the DVD case into the ocean while visiting the coastal village of Tomonoura, at which point, like a cursed Amazonian artefact, it was immediately recovered from the bottom of the bay by a garbage dredging barge.

I believe the 'but also' requires it to be a 'not only/but also' construction. In either case, I'd take the first clause and rewrite it, then drop the semicolon and just make the second clause its own sentence. I suggest something along the lines of:
'The director hadn't merely been annoyed; he had been horrified...'

She worked hard at becoming the queen of otaku.

This disagrees a bit with the viewpoint she seems to have in the anime that there are otaku out there who are far more hardcore than she is.

"Miyuki-chan, onee-chan, good morning!" Tsukasa called as she and Konata rolled into the classroom.

strolled into the classroom?

Even her uniform was paradoxically a shade pinker than any other schoolgirl's in spite of the fact that they were supposed to be dressed according to a strict standard.

I'm not sure 'paradoxically' is the best word choice in this instance. Actually, I'm starting to question how much this sentence as a whole belongs in the paragraph it's in. Maybe it could use a rewording to put more emphasis on the fact that the uniform seems to be different rather than how it's different, assuming your intent is to outline Miyuki's uniqueness/conflicting personality.

"it didn't occur to me to make the connection with the Haruhi novels, though..."

You know, I don't remember any mention of Miyuki's involvement with the world of light novels, anime, and manga, so I'm not sure she would've had any reason to make such a connection. It's possible, but it doesn't seem like she'd know TMOHS beyond Konata mentioning the series.


Also, I did want to mention the names; they are a bit inconsistent, as Muphrid mentioned. I'd double-check the canon and get them straightened out. For example, I believe Miyuki always refers to Konata as Izumi-san, though I may be wrong.


Another thing: the perspective seemed a bit inconsistent during the store scene; the narrator objectively refers to Konata by name, though seeming to be leaning over the shoulder Tencho, a pairing I find no problem with. However, the narrator then questions the name of the assistant, which seems to undermine said objectivity. Soon after, there is questioning from Konata's viewpoint about the location of the Sgt. Frog comic.