Azumanga Daioh

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

I'm surprised that there are no reviews written for Azumanga Daioh, although there are many for the anime.

Story

I adore slice-of-life manga, which would be the genre that suits Azumanga Daioh best. It's plot is nothing heavy, certainly nothing dramatic or romantic, and sometimes it doesn't even make sense. Yet it's amazing. The humor is random and strange at times, but that makes it all the more funny.

Art

Although I can't say I like the art as much in the first volume, the art in Azumanga Daioh is rendered well in most of it. Since it mostly consists of four-panel strips, the art is not detailed, ... but simple. Kiyohiko does a better job with the art in Yotsuba&!, even though the art in Azumanga Daioh is also pretty well done. Azuma obviously improves throughout the series, and cause the artwork to be a bit inconsistent (as you'll notice with Chiyo-chan's pigtails!).

Characters

The characters, I'd have to say, are the strong point. Tomo is the wacky and annoying hyper-energetic girl, there's Yomi, who is level-headed and even a bit of a cynic, there's Osaka, who is the spacy girl with logic no one understands, there is Sakaki, painfully shy with a seemingly hidden love for cute things, there's Kagura, athletic and blunt, and finally, there is Chiyo-chan, an adorable naive 10-year-old genius.

Then there are the teachers as well, the irresponsible Yukari, the reliable Miss Kurosawa (aka Nyamo) and the perverted Mr. Kimura. Each character has interesting personality traits that make them unique.

Azumanga Daioh is one of my favorite manga, I own all four volumes, and would greatly advise anyone to pick it up and give it a try.

Azumanga Daioh doesn't actually have a storyline. Well, there's 10-year-old Chiyo, (Who is so unbelievely adorable), who's so smart that she's in high school, and she brefriends the most weird, yet hilarious classmates.

Azumanga Daioh is a set of 4 panel stories, and yet it works! The comedy is fresh and funny and the characters are amusing as well. There's Osaka, probaly one of the most slowest manga characters EVER! There's a time when she and Sasaki (a tall girl which the other charaters think she's cool and hard but in fact she has a secret love for cats but they are always biting her) are ... talking about an abbreviation of hemeroids (don't ask) then they start talking about I think about dolphins, then another character ask what are they talking about then Osaka comes out with hemeroids again. Tomo is another charater. She's loud and overly competetive with Chiyo. Then there's the absolutely lazy teacher who sleeps in class and forgets where she's supposed to be. (That's the very first scene, she walks into a class and says she won't tell them her bra size then a student says her class is next door). There's a competitive teacher, a lesbian student and so on so forth.

Most of the cast are girls but there is a male.... Mr.Kimura.... an out and out perverted teacher who is a teacher souly for teenage girls. All the characters try to ignore him but he just appears!

Anyway, Azumanga Daioh is perfect for you if you just want a laugh. It's easy to pick up and read and will have you laughing all the way through reading it.

It's the earlier comedy manga from Kiyohiko Azuma but not as funny or clever as Yotsuba. The humour relies more on the traditonal young girls in school type that's been overdone in anime & manga, the funniest character was probably the pervert teacher. The art isn't nearly as good as in Yotsuba and the cast isn't as lovable, I didn't find myself getting attached to them.

Still it's got some decent jokes and there are far worse attempts at comedy out there so you could do worse than Azumanga Daioh. It has the same uplifting happy feeling that Yotsuba has which is a point in ... it's favour.