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.

This is one of the worst Ova(s) I've ever seen. It focuses on a group of high-school girls (ncluding a ten-year-old child prodigy Chiyo-chan) who have her bring her videocamera to school one day. Then the overreacting Tomo-chan comes and messes everything up (which is funny as the usual, but not here).

Story: It still focuses on the group of high-school girls, but the story just wasn't my taste. It has the anime switching to video-game likeness and then realism, like it's flash-animated. And the story's really short like it should be a 27-minute special.

Art: The art was amazing as it always was, but this one ... is even more dreadful. The characters look sloppy and unoriginal and it just seems like a bad flash on Newgrounds.com.

Sound: The Japanese dub was really annoying and irritating and where is the bouncy music they always play? it's like everything wound down and you're in the show.

Character: I disliked Chiyo-chan, but there's not much of her in this. Characters are taking the videocamera all around the school and meet friends and it just seems like everything went too quick.

Enjoyment: I never enjoyed this special. I was watching Lupin III while I was wondering why this pilot (or whatever) deserved so much hatred and I had to watch it and what a big disappointment it was. I was bored throughout the whole thing even the opening was too short and uninteresting.

Overall: I don't think this is very violent or profane, it just seems like it should be rated G - for all ages. Well, everything was all messed up and all, but please do not watch this crap. It's as horrible as Winx Club.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Azumanga Web Daioh, while very short, is probably one of the best-looking animes I have seen. it's art style is extremely good, and looks different than Azumanga 1-26. The lighting, colors, and animations of character movement is superb. If only the original Azumanga series looked like this!

The art style is probably the most unique aspect of this anime. Some scenes are done in 3d, so that it looks and even feels like you are actually in the anime, and the perspective puts you in the shoes of Chiyo-Chan and Tomo via a first-person perspective.

It is a great treat for Azumanga fans or just anime ... fans in general.