Slice of life is a tricky genre to get right, because essentially it tries to capture mundane realism in an entertaining fashion, and many shows don't get the latter right at all; nobody wants to watch an anime of something lame that they might as well experience in real life, so what's the key to a compelling slife of life story? Good characters. This is where Azumanga Daioh excels. The show revolves around six eccentric high school girls and their two teachers, and along with skillful voice acting, beautiful audio and visuals, it radiates a charming and relaxing atmosphere that never gets old. I know, it's easy to disregard Azumanga Daioh as boring today if you read the synopsis, but you're wrong.
There is no story in Azumanga Daioh, but the character-driven writing makes up for that, and J.C.Staff captures the essence of Azuma's four-panel form manga masterfully. In short, whatever "story" you get is pretty much a large variety of situational scenes, events, and mundane chatter among the main characters, and that is more than enough. You get attached to the characters from the very beginning, and the more you get to know them the easier it becomes to immerse yourself in the anime, and that's what slice of life should be about, right? It's not an anime that tries to be edgier-than-thou or filled with slapstick cheese--it's simply a relaxing show that you can sit down and enjoy, and because of its episodic nature there's no continuity, so anyone can sit down and watch it. It's an anime that I'd recommend to most people, regardless of their experience with anime. Most people have probably already seen the famous viral clip of Osaka kicking off her shoe at anyone from Fidel Castro to Italy's Marco Materazzi anyway, so you might even get some "ah, so that's where it's from!" moments as well. Those are always fun.
I vaguely mentioned sound and art earlier, and it deserves some comments. Because slice of life is so mundane in nature, I think that it's vital that it has stunning audio and visuals. It sets the overall atmosphere and tone of the show after all. There's nothing breathtaking about Azumanga Daioh's visuals, so too bad if you expected delicious eye candy. Go watch K-On! or some other moe blob show. While the art isn't great, it really compliments the audio (great music and seiyuu!) so overall I wouldn't criticize it too much. Getting lost in details is stupid, and the overall vibe the anime radiates is still top-notch.
Azumanga Daioh has aged well, and it is still as hilarious, engaging and relaxing as it was back in the early 00s. This is a timeless anime classic, and judging by the current trend of high school comedies it'll probably stand as the epitome of the genre for many more years to come. Give this anime a shot if you haven't already. Seriously.
