Azumanga Web Daiou

If you are into comedy anime like myself, than you most likely have seen Azumanga Daioh, or at least heard about it. However, some may be surprised to learn that there are actually short specials made for them. Well, "Azumanga Web Daioh" is one of these.

The concept of this short is quite simple. Chiyo brings over here special camera to school, in order to help in a project that the girls are working on. Well as soon as Tomo sees it, and gets a hold of it, you know some havoc is about to happen. Most of the jokes are quite simple, and are only ... spoken through actual dialog. If you have seen the series, you may be dissapointed that none of the odd random scenes happen in this. Since 90% of this short is only seen through the cameras eyes, which gives this more of a realistic feeling. Considering that this special is only about 3 minutes long, they were actually able to cram most of the lead cast into it. Whether it be them making silly poses to the camera, to getting spied on. That’s basically the main point to this. However, the ending is quite humorous, and done in true Azumanga Diaoh fashion. So while it might not pack the punch for the TV show, it will leave you with a smile on your face afterwards.

The animation was quite good on this. They tweaked things from the series, and now the characters are animated in a bit more detail and color. In fact, the art style is probably the thing that will stand out most when watching this. The eyes of the characters look a bit more anime friendly, and during one of the scenes, a bit of 3D animation is thrown into the mix.

Regarding the music, it’s pretty sparse overall. There is a nice opening theme at the beginning, but none of the tracks from the show make it on here, and there is little to no background music to speak of in this. Which I have to admit, was dissapointing, but at the same time, did give it a certain feel in atmosphere. The voice acting in this, was quite nice to listen to as expected.

The characters (of course) didn’t get the time they had from the series, but they still had time to do some funny one liners, and even a bit of action thrown into the mix. And fans of Osaka will like how she is used in this.

Overall, if you like Azumanga Diaoh, then this special should please. It won’t leave you with any kind of side splitting pain, or make your face hurt from laughter. It will however, leave you with a smile at the end. And really, sometimes that’s all you need.

Story: 7, good
Art: 9, great
Sound: 6, fair
Characters: 10, outstanding
Enjoyment: 7, good
Overall: 9, great

Well, I just thought I'd do a quick review on this. This is basically just Tomo playing around with a video camera, nothing special. It was very cute though, and abit funny, so I did enjoy it. If you like Azumanga Daioh or have nothing to do, I suggest you watch it.

While this really was cute and all, it really needed to be longer because I really did want more. The storyline was cute in that it was about a video time capsule and introduced almost all the main characters from the anime show. It was a great bit to see the different personalities of the characters in their more basic form. Some you really didn’t get everything that made them who they were but it was interesting enough that you may want to see the anime after this.

The art style is very basic compared to its anime counterpart and yet since it was mostly in ... ‘first person filmed’ mode, it didn’t feel to lacking. The jarring of the camera and the strange art styles they used once in a while was explained based on the camera settings and how the person holding it moved.

The voices were cute, and though it was not dubbed like I would normally like to watch, the voices were not making my ears bleed. They were cute and fit the personalities of the characters pretty well. I’m not sure if the voice actors were the ones that did the Japanese dub of the anime but I really did like them.