Reviews

When producing a slapstick-comedy-slice-of-life-high-school-anime, you COULD dump duffel bags of money onto the floor of the animation department, dispense to each employee a drip feeder of amphetamine salts, and look over them with a knowing grin and a sparkle in your eye that says, "it's a long shot, but, God willing, it just might work."

And, in return, you would get Nichijou.

Azumanga Daioh takes the opposite approach. Held together by twigs and glue in comparison to the more modern, sleek, slice-of-life anime, Azumanga Daioh is nonetheless the ur-"cute girls doing cute things" series, and its purity of essence is still unparalleled twenty years after the fact. Azumanga Daioh makes good use of a seemingly modest budget, which is complemented by an excellent localization by A.D. Vision (of Ghost Stories fame). Gags that were given no more than a page in the original 4-koma manga are allowed much more room to develop, with minutes of runtime every episode dedicated to stretching out the joke, focusing on characters' reactions, often nonverbal. While there are a couple particularly dated, out-of-place gags (Kimura), the style of comedy in Azumanga Daioh is undeniably so influential as to be foundational for the genre yet executed so perfectly that it stands alone. Considering this is an adaptation of a work by Kiyohiko Azuma, that is just par for the course.

To some degree, the pacing and structure is just as much a product of studio limitations. The animation is unimpressive. Cells are constantly reused, and you'll see frequent panning & zooming across still frames, or loops of 1-3 frames for several seconds, usually (but not always) with dialogue in the background. Bordering on the avant-garde, it is not uncommon for Azumanga Daioh to have periods of 30 seconds at a time where you are shown just two or three different frames and no dialogue. This doesn't really matter. Azumanga Daioh uses the medium for exactly two things: jokes and moe. Trying to do any more than what it does is just a liability.

You probably won't even notice how thin this show spreads itself visually, because the score and voice acting are perfectly done in both languages. This is one anime where it is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged—if only by the reviewer—to occasionally swap between the sub and the dub, to taste. If you have done so, the reason should be obvious. If you haven't, do.

Actually, that is my sentiment on watching Azumanga Daioh in the first place.