Azumanga Daioh: The Animation is an anime produced by JC Staff based by the four-panel comic strip of the same name by Kiyohiko Azuma that was serialized on Dengeki Daioh from 1999-2002. The series is about the daily lives of six Japanese schoolgirls during their three years in high school and in some point, the daily lives of their teachers.
The series is about the daily lives of six Japanese school girls in an unnamed high school in which we are introduced to Chiyo Mihama, a child prodigy and is five years younger than the other main cast. Then, we are introduced to the other girls. Sakaki, the big busted and silent one in the group who loves cats but cats hate her, Koyomi “Yomi” Mizuhara, who has an obsession in dieting while trying to maintain her composure because of her hyperactive best friend, Tomo Takino who thinks she is the best but it’s the complete opposite of it. To add up to this crazy bunch, we are introduced to Osaka, I mean, Ayumu Kasuga who is a transfer student from Osaka, spacey and had a different perspective of the world around her that in some point that she thought that Chiyo’s ponytails are unscrewable! And thanks to Tomo, she gain the nickname, Osaka and it stucked ever since. Oh, I forgot Kaorin, their classmate who has a crush on Sakaki and that’s all you need to know!
During the course of the series, we are introduced to their homeroom adviser and English teacher, Yukari Tanizaki and her friend, the more serious (By serious, I mean she is not as crazy like her friend) Minamo Kurosawa. We are also introduced to a pedophile Math teacher only known as Kimura-sensei (Or Sir Kimura if you watched the Filipino dub like me.).
On their second year, because of Yukari-sensei’s obsession in winning their school sports fest, Kagura was added to her class. Kagura is once part of Kurosawa-sensei’s class and part of her swimming team, sporty and has a one-sided rivalry with Sakaki.
On to the review, even after countless reruns that I watched this series, I still have a hard time in making my final thought about the series but I will try my best to review this one.
Anyways, because of the rather weird title, Azumanga Daioh which turned out to be a play of the name of the author, Kiyohiko Azuma and the fact that it is a manga which was serialized in Dengeki Daioh, I am not sure is worthy to be watched. But because of some good advertising, I watch it and end up loving it!
The series is about the daily lives of six Japanese schoolgirls during the course of their high school education in Japan. Aside from the fact that we have a glimpse on the Japanese education system, the series wins with the good timing of their humor and where to insert the series’ recurring humor such as Osaka’s spacey attitude. The moe factor is a plus point in the series plus, having a pedophile math teacher adds up to the series’ humor.
Even if the show is humor filled, there are some parts of the series that they insert some drama, and saw the other side of our crazy characters. A perfect example is the last episode in which Kagura had a conversation with one of her teachers (Its Yukari or Kurosawa I forgot.) about bringing a desk to her home as a remembrance in her high school years.
Because this series chronicles the daily lives of schoolgirls, there are some recurring episodes and from those recurring episodes, the episode that I always look forward too is the episodes in which they will stay in Chiyo’s rest house beside the beach. This is where I saw the evolution of the characters… if they had a character development or saw if their static-ness as characters has reached new heights… like Osaka!
Speaking of which, I want to talk about one of series’ weirdest and spaciest (If that term exist) character, Osaka. There are some instances that she carries the entire series at her back making her one of the most recognizable characters in the series. Due to her spacey attitude, you don’t know what is the next thing she will do! During their last visit in Chiyo’s rest house, we saw Osaka carry a knife and she just want to wake up Yukari-sensei!
Aside from the daily lives of the students, we also took a glimpse of the daily lives of their teachers. The fun thing about this series is that they broke the gap between student-teacher relationships. Their teachers are too close with their students that they even go to the annual rest house trips and even provide transportation to the girls! To top it all of, there is one episode in which Kurosawa-sensei got drunk and started teaching the girls about “the birds and the bees” and obviously, Chiyo doesn’t understand due to her age!
Because of its focus, we also saw the growth of the friendship of various characters, from Chiyo accepted in their class aside from the fact that she is cute until their various conversations about random topics. My only problem with the series about this part is that there is no episode in which Yomi was totally fed up with Tomo. By totally, Yomi never spoke to Tomo in the entire episode or caused Tomo to change her character. Yes, we saw her change in the series… well just her hairstyle. That’s it.
Overall, Azumanga Daioh: The Animation is one of the series you might consider an epitome of its genre; you might even say that this series is a classic. Considering that its humor is properly timed and they know where they will insert a recurring joke or when we will saw them saw their other side as characters. At the end of this review, Kimura-sensei being a pedophile with a cute daughter and a beautiful wife still bothers me.