Azumanga Web Daiou

This web special predated the main TV series and is a fun individual little story to bring the characters to animation for the first time. Chiyo brings a video camera to school and chaos ensues once Tomo gets hold of it. Tomo’s rampage is captured in a series of brief cuts. The use of the camera’s POV is interesting and well handled, and the very short runtime is used efficiently to cover most of the familiar characters, with everyone doing something characteristic. It’s stylistically somewhat different from the TV series, with a different cast so it has a different feel, and the punchline at the ... end is hilarious.

This is definitely worth watching for fans and is even enjoyable as a standalone, but why would you keep it as a standalone?

Before the TV anime ever came out, two short films were released online by JC Staff to see if the series would be worth a full investment. It was due to their overwhelmingly positive reception that the show was greenlit, and the first one was Web Daioh. This first film features a plot that’s entirely unique to the series and manga, as well as a much more high-budget animation style compared to what was officially released.

After a catchy opening that features the cast on their way to school, this short features Chiyo-chan, the child prodigy, bringing a video camera into class ... to film her friends and leave the tape... A VHS tape, ask your parents what that is if you’re too young to know... and Tomo, the class clown, is immediately taken with the opportunity to goof around with it. She steals it from Chiyo, pans around the classroom(getting a hilarious shot of class space cadet Osaka in the meantime) and plays with the zoom settings, leading to some shockingly good visual effects for it’s time. She puts the athlete Kagura on the spot, and gets roundhouse-kicked for her efforts. She then runs away and films the two teachers of the series(thankfully leaving Kimura out of it), including her own teacher Miss Yukari, who’s asleep on her desk. Her response to being woken up is the third big laugh of the episode.

Finally, the episode leaves off on a fourth big laugh that I’m not going to spoil here, and that’s Web Daioh, the pilot episode of the series. I fucking love it. The animation is creative and way ahead of it’s time, the shaky cam has an actual purpose(and it disappears in the final moments, which was a nice touch) and despite it’s short length, it’s really funny. It manages to feature the entire main cast in some way or another, and while two or three of them might not have featured heavily, they still feel like they were acting naturally and playing their roles.

There’s no music, as the scenario calls for realism more than for a BGM, but you do hear the camera’s noises throughout, and the voice acting is on point. With a pilot like this, showing off the full potential of the material, it’s no wonder the show got picked up.

Short review, I know, but it's a short episode. I give Azumanga Web Daioh an 8/10.

Pros: Its super short

Cons: The animation, background musicc and jokes aren't that good and Chiyo's voice actress will give you a headache.

Bottom Line: Watch if you are really craving more Azumanga Daioh and you already saw the Very Short Movie, otherwise pass it up.

Its a very short series so you don't lose anything from investing 3 minutes of your time, but you won't gain much either. Tomo wanders around with a video camera, and...thats the story. Turn down the sound at the beginning because Chiyo's voice actress (different from the original story) is very shrill.