Ranked #300

Azumanga Daioh

Azumanga Daioh took me by complete surprise. I discovered it from a YouTube clip where she meets "Chiyo's father" and I thought it was the funniest thinger I have seen in a long time. I asked around and was wondering if it would interest me. After researching it for a bit I decided that yes, I would watch it. I sure am glad I looked at the related videos that day, that clip eventually led me to watch the awkwardly hilarious slice of life anime known as Azumanga Daioh.

Story : This is a slice of life anime, and what that means is, there generally isn't any story. But I'll tell you what there is. Skits. Alot of skits. Hilariously over the top skits. Such as their teachers terrible driving, the way the other students see the beautiful, athletic and mysterious Sakaki, without knowing of her love of cute animals, Tomo's innuendo and curiosity about the "love life" and Kimura sensei's love for minors. But there are realistic events as well. The new years, studying for exams, trying not to fail school, athletics, snowball fights. This show can be completely realistic or mind bogglingly over the top.

Art : Originally, I wasn't too fond of Azumanga Daioh's artwork. But as I watched the show it grew on me, and then I began to recognize how brilliant it is! The artwork in this show is clean while remaining detailed. But most of all, it's hilarious! Seeing the expressions of the characters as they react to the situations they are in is incredibly funny! The way the artists portray the situations in their clever style is always fun to watch.

Sound : The music in Azumanga Daioh fits every situation very nicely. The music is very unique. It is a nice combination of surprising instruments that I certainly didn't intend to hear. But they all work, and they make the situations funnier. There is also an odd use of a car horn that lasts throughout the show... The "ding ding" noise whenever someone realizes something, or Ayumu's slow, sleepy voice [They honestly couldn't have chose a better voice actor], are all used properly and to humorous effect.

Characters : The characters is where this show really shines! From the grudging Yukari, to the cute and innocent Chiyo, to the energetic instigator Tomo. The characters in this show are varied, and all very likable. Even creepy Kimura is likable! Honestly though, as anyone who has watched it will tell you, the real star here is Ayumu. Anything she says is funny, no matter what the context, where she is, or what she's doing. She often makes a mistake doing such trivial things, has incredibly weird daydreams (she once dreamed that Chiyo's ponytails controlled her and gave her the ability to fly) and has probably one of the best voice actors I have ever heard matching a character. Honestly, there couldn't have been a better voice actor. Every single character in this show is likable, no, LOVABLE, to the point that you will be thinking about them years after this show has ended.

Enjoyment : You will watch this show over and over and over again and still laugh!! The jokes are all well thought out and hilarious. Even when the characters are just standing around, not talking and staring at each other you will laugh. Why? Because the way they are set up is just so brilliant! The gang of Azumanga Daioh will forever be in your heart after this show, and that is exactly why you should watch this show. I can't recommend this enough to fans of the slice of life genre and comedy genres.

*At the time of this writing, it has been months since I have watched this show, I plan on re-watching it soon, though. read more

Azumanga Daioh - Azumazing Show!

It's hard to believe that 11 years have passed since this breathtaking series came along and became the staple for anime comedy for the past decade. You can tell that shows like Nichijou, Lucky Star, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, Acchi Kocchi, and many other anime comedies were built around the realistic high school sketch comedy that this series has inspired. Going into this series, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it since I didn't particularly care for the animation style, but I soon learned that this series goes far beyond it's cheap animation.

Azumanga Daioh's plot is rather simple. It revolves around the everyday lives of six high school classmates and their misadventures together as well as with their high school teachers. However, what really makes this anime go is the characters and scriptwriting. This anime is a staple of how to create great characters. Of the six classmates, you have Chiyo, the adorable, cheerful child prodigy that skipped five levels right to high school, Sakaki, the tall, athletic, and quiet student that secretly loves cute things, Ayumu (Osaka), the airheaded transfer student from Osaka whose mind always seems to wander, Tomo, the eccentric personality of the group that seems to cause trouble, Yomi, the smart, childhood friend of Tomo who's the brooding sense of reason, and Kagura, the athletic rival of Sakaki who seems to always misunderstand Sakaki's thoughts and intentions. Overall, it was a hilarious group to watch interact with each other because of how radically different each character was. Even the supporting cast was downright hilarious with Kaori, the outsider with an enormous crush on Sakaki, as well as the three teachers Yukari, the selfish, self-centered teacher, Kurosawa, the thoughtful, caring teacher, and Kimura, the creepy, possibly pedophiliac that creeped out many of the female students (especially Kaori and Yomi). The adventures that all these characters shared together was a delight to watch and constantly made me laugh...while at the same time, would become emotionally touched toward the end of this series as it came to a close.

I found the last three episodes to be extremely well done for this series, doing a great job of expressing the emotions all of these students went through as their high school lives came to a close. I found Chiyo, Kagura, and Sakaki's arcs to be remarkably emotional during this stretch.

It's hard to believe that this is a J.C. Staff production considering how remarkably well done its storyboard and characters are developed. Although, I'll admit the animation was far from great. While it fit the mood of the series, it still felt a bit lazy and cheap at times. Still, I can hardly complain about the production since I'd call it one of J.C. Staff's best works.

As far as the weaknesses of this series, as I mentioned, the animation is nothing notable. Luckily, it fits the tone of the series so it isn't a big weakness, but it is still glaring at times. Personally, I wish it would've done a little more in developing some character back story with each character. For example, Tomo and Yomi are childhood friends...but we never really got to see why they act the way they do with each other. Or perhaps delve a little bit more into each character's own traits. Another example being Osaka sleeping during class and the friends mentioning that she must not sleep much at night. She never really does say "why" she doesn't sleep at night so I'm curious as to what her late night hobby is. It was little things like these that bugged me at times and wish the series would've went more into this rather than repeat a lot of comedic gimmicks like the sports festival, culture festival, or the summer home visits. Another one of the unfortunate bits about this series is, some of the comedy is EXTREMELY hit-or-miss. One example being the dreaming episode. Not to spoil too much, there's an episode where the series jumps into the dreams of some of the characters. I found it to be a pretty acid trip filled episode that generally wasn't all that funny. It wasn't the only episode, but it was the one that stood out the most. Some people will enjoy that style of comedy while others might be a bit turned off by it.

Overall though, I have no qualms in saying Azumanga Daioh is one of the best anime comedies I have ever seen. I absolutely loved the character interactions of this series and I'd even go so far as to say it was one of the best written scripts I've heard in an anime, as well as the seiyuu work to go with it. I was remarkably sold at how well both these production elements went hand-in-hand. I am really a huge fan of Azumanga Daioh's style of comedy and as I stated, it was really nice that this was the series that paved the way for high school sketch comedy to become so popular in the mainstream. If you really like the aforementioned Nichijou, Lucky Star, Acchi Kocchi, or high school sketch comedy in general, I highly recommend this series. read more