Azumanga Daiou The Animation

Chiyo Mihama begins her high school career as one of the strangest students in her freshman class—a tiny, 10-year-old academic prodigy with a fondness for plush dolls and homemade cooking. But her homeroom teacher, Yukari Tanizaki, is the kind of person who would hijack a student's bike to avoid being late, so "strange" is a relative word.

There certainly isn't a shortage of peculiar girls in Yukari-sensei's homeroom class. Accompanying Chiyo are students like Tomo Takino, an energetic tomboy with more enthusiasm than brains; Koyomi Mizuhara, Tomo's best friend whose temper has a fuse shorter than Chiyo; and Sakaki, a tall, athletic beauty whose intimidating looks hide a gentle personality and a painful obsession with cats. In addition, transfer student Ayumu Kasuga, a girl with her head stuck in the clouds, fits right in with the rest of the girls—and she has a few interesting theories about Chiyo's pigtails!

Together, this lovable group of girls experience the ups and downs of school life, their many adventures filled with constant laughter, surreal absurdity, and occasionally even touching commentary on the bittersweet, temporal nature of high school.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kasuga, Ayumu Main

Matsuoka, Yuki Japanese

Sakaki Main

Asakawa, Yuu Japanese

Mihama, Chiyo Main

Kaneda, Tomoko Japanese

Takino, Tomo Main

Higuchi, Chieko Japanese

Tanizaki, Yukari Main

Hiramatsu, Akiko Japanese

Kagura Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Mizuhara, Koyomi Main

Tanaka, Rie Japanese

Kurosawa, Minamo Main

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Chiyo's Father Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Kimura Supporting

Ishii, Kouji Japanese

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Oosawa, Nobuhiro Producer

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Suzuki, Seiji Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jun 19, 2007

jet2r0cks

Recommended

It seems to me that people who have seen Azumanga Daioh are divided into two groups. The first group consists of people who enjoyed it, and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. The other consists of those that thought it was boring and nonsensical. I find myself right in the middle.

It wasn’t so bad story wise – usually I’m all for “anything goes” anime. The problem I had with it was that it wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be. I had a few laughs now and then, mostly thanks to Osaka, but there were times when I thought the ... jokes were too corny for my taste. Even thought I’m not a fluent Japanese speaker, I got the jokes, but I didn’t think they were that funny (I definitely saw funnier before). I guess it’s a matter of taste, and it must be a huge hit in Japan.

Every time I would watch it I kept waiting for it to get better, since for the first few episodes I didn’t think it was funny. I kept wondering why people like this anime so much, and why they speak so highly of it. I seriously think it’s not that funny, like I said there were a lot of corny jokes, and sometimes the jokes lasted too long. There were scenes wherein there was nothing but silence. Some people may think that’s funny, but if it lasts for about a minute I tend to get bored.

I like the characters though. My favorites are Kagura, Osaka and Chiyo. Kagura’s just one cool chick. Osaka is weird but funny, and Chiyo’s adorable. Seeing her in that penguin (?) suit made me squeal like Sakaki armed with 100 furry and friendly cats and Speed. Tomo was a bit irritating, and I can’t help but think in a few years she’ll end up like Yukari-sensei. I didn’t like Kaorin either. She’s like some annoying extra and I felt her character wasn’t that important. Kimura-sensei is one of the weirdest characters I’ve ever seen. His mouth is open all the time, and he has a dirty, school girl lovin’, mind.

The character is simplistic, and for this anime, simplicity was the way to go. It wasn’t as detailed compared to other JC Staff series I watched in the past (although it did have at least one buxom character, like all JC Staff series I’ve watched). I like the fact that the characters all had different body types, which is in a way, realistic. I like the colors too. They were really nicely done and contrasted nicely. There were no clashes in color whatsoever.

The voice acting was done well, because the characters’ personalities were brought out through their dialogues effectively. I like Kagura’s (Houko Kuwashima) tomboyish tone, Osaka’s (Yuki Matsuoka) soft Kansai-ben accent, Tomo’s (Chieko Higuchi) loud and upbeat speech and Chiyo’s (Tomoko Kaneda) tiny voice. I was also surprised to find many well known names among the cast, such as Rie Tanaka.

Despite the fact that the opening song made barely made sense, it was still catchy. It really fit the anime’s mood, which was carefree and random. I liked the ending song better, I thought it had the charm of a folk song, I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s because of the instruments used and the singer’s soft voice that was sort of telling me a story. Generally, the BGM was nicely made and beautifully crafted. A lot of the tracks were upbeat and fit the mood of the series.

My one sentence review would be “I yawned, I laughed, and I’m glad to have watched it.” While it may not be the best for me, anything that ends in a heartwarming beat is good enough for me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 21, 2010

yuki2nagato

Mixed Feelings

I'd heard that Azumanga Daioh was a comedy that no one should miss so I started watching.
Mistake number one. Assuming that 4-5 eps wasn't enough to really "get" this anime for what it was: Mistake number two. Most people fall into one of two groups; those that really really like the series and those people like myself that were not impressed by the series in the slightest. If you don't like the series after 4-5 episodes stop watching.

Art:

The art in Azumanga Daioh is decent, not bad but nothing really ground-breaking either.
Rating: 7

Sound:

The voice acting was just about equivalent to the art of ... the series. My opinion of the voice acting in this series is probably biased by the fact that the nature of each character was tied to the voice acting so take this with a grain of salt. **The Japanese sub is very much better than the dub btw
Rating: 7

Character:
Where to begin. Tomo was annoying; no let me rephase that: Tomo was half the reason why I couldn't finish this series for as long as I did. Chiyo and Yomi were probably the better of the major characters in that they managed to not be either annoying, have ADHD or leave long unnecessary pauses in their speech.
Rating: 4

Story:
There isn't one. This is a slice of life anime that took the genre to the extreme. The "jokes" used in the series that everyone seems to find funny for some reason get old pretty quickly. Sakaki getting bitten by cats for example; funny the first few times but after a while it makes you wonder why the series kept reusing it... So goes every other bit of humor in the series. Ah yes the awkward pauses... How could I forget... This is the only series I could find that does this and for good reason.
Rating: 4

Enjoyment:
I didn't really enjoy watching the series much. I have a need to finish animes once I start them; so Azumanga Daioh ended up being an anime that I've had to force myself to complete. That's not a good sign.
Rating: 4

Overall:
Azumanga Daioh is probably the most overrated series I have ever seen. There is no plot; you've heard this before from other reviews and even some of the fans themselves but we are so very not kidding about this it isn't even funny. You could start midway in the series and miss absolutely nothing of importance in regard to plot. Yes there were times where the series was funny but much more often than not, the jokes were repetitive and punctuated by awkwardly long pauses. Chiyo and Yomi were the show's major redeeming characters and Tomo, the comic relief of the series, just turned out to be (see above) annoying rather than funny.
Rating: 5

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 13, 2008

slpless

Not Recommended

Azumanga doesn't have a plot. There is nothing in Azumanga that even vaguely resembles a story. So it must be character driven, right? However, Azumanga lack conflict and character development. The show covers 3 years of their lives (High School) and after 3 years all the characters look and act the same. umm wait Chyio-chan did change her hair style by putting her pig tails lower…

So what exactly is Azumanga? Azumanga is a gag anime, designed to get a quick laugh out of the audience. They use an ensemble of students and teachers with distinct quirks ... all of which are female (except one). We watch the characters go through a variety of normal everyday situations. Through the characters quirks and exaggerated expressions, we get most of the humor in the show.

The character's quirks and jokes are very funny. That is until you watch a few more episodes. Then the jokes get old and very repetitive. How many times did the same cat bite Sakaki? How many times does Koarin obsess over Sakaki? Yes, we know you are a freak that likes high school girls. The repeated use of the same quirks makes many of the characters seem shallow and one-dimensional. I mean is there anything else beyond the two, three word description you can give to each character (ie "airhead" "pervert" "smart/cute" "athletic" "energetic"). The jokes did not come from the characters, the characters themselves were the joke. What breaks this anime for me is that even the situations are repetitive. How many times did we have a Sport fest, culture fest, and beach episode? By the time I was at the 5th episode I was getting bored, ok I’ll admit there was the occasional funny scene.

An interesting thing about this anime is its pacing. Azumanga is not the fast, hyperactive anime that most AMV's will lead you to believe. In fact, many times it’s pretty slow paced and requires you to be in a certain mood. Perhaps the use of still shots and repeated animation gives this feel. The use of "still shot" sometimes help establishing the mood similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion did, but for comedic purposes. In turn, the use of repeated animation can get tiring and boring fast. Perhaps its a pet peeve of mine concerning repeated animation.

The animation was bright and very vivid albeit fairly simplistic. However, the animation in general was not really note worthy.

Azuamga's greatest strength was its nostalgic mood and feel it often invokes. It reminds us of a more carefree time, especially since there are no real conflicts. My favorite scene was one that invokes a strong nostalgic feel. That scene was in the end of episode 9 were the main characters were walking and laughing in the field of clouds.

Perhaps I’m being too critical on Azumanga, the source, a 4 panel comic can’t really give that much substance, right? However, I think about Lucky Star, also based on a 4 panel comic and realized how Lucky Star is superior to Azumanga in every possible way. In addition, the jokes come from the character in Lucky Star, not the character themselves being jokes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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