Reviews Azumanga Daiô TV Series Written July 19, 2003 Woah! This has to be the funniest anime I've ever seen. Honestly, I doubt I will ever see another comedy anime that outdoes this one. I first heard about Azumanga Daioh through the Jet Set Radio AMV project. When I wrote this, the link to the JSR AMV project was broken. Make sure that when you're trying that link to make sure it says this: http://w3.uwyo.edu/~worldmap/jsrproject/ because my browser didn't write the tilda out properly. Anyway, VegettoEX mentioned on his website that he participated in the project, so I downloaded and watched it (he wasn't the one who contributed the Azumanga Daiô portion though). I thought this anime looked rather interesting from some of the clips I saw in the music video: a person running down a hallway in a cat constume and a girl doing dramatic, crazy-looking poses. So I checked it out... and was I can see how first-time viewers might turn away from this series, thinking it's an anime made for girls... since... all of the characters except for Kimura are girls. There are also several parts (mostly involving Chiyo) that appeal to the viewer's, I guess I would call it cuteness-factor. For example: some people will be like "aww, how cute" while others will be like "what the heck, this is so girly." But if you give it a chance, more than likely you'll be pleased with your decision. I would say what makes this comedy so effective is its style. Surprise plays an important role in the humor, since most of the funny parts are completely unexpected (especially with Tomo). Other parts are funny because of the way they're over-emphasized and everything is made to look extremely dramatic. It's difficult trying to explain the style any more than this without giving away too many surprises, so just make sure to check out the first few episodes and you'll understand what I mean. The Plot: This anime follows a group of high school girls from their sophomore year in high school up through their graduation. Each episode has its own theme and always wraps up nicely at the ending. What I thought was really cool was how we get to see the girls participate in the athletics festival and culture festival for two different years. Another thing I really liked was how we get to see Sakaki's animal interactions and problems develop and change throughout the series, finally concluding at the end of the series. I was worried for a while that the end of this series was going to be very open-ended, but instead it wrapped up everything very nicely. A very nice, pleasant ending for Azumanga Daioh. The Characters: The characters dealt with in this series are Tomo, Sakaki, Chiyo, Kimura, Yukari, Nyamo, "Osaka", Sakaki, Kaorin, Kagura, and Yomi. I would argue that Chiyo-chan is the main character of the series. My favorite character is definitely Tomo. She is one of the craziest and funniest anime characters I've ever seen and just does the most unexpected things, like laughing insanely a lot and bragging about Chiyo-chan's beach house. The Music: The background music consists of several tunes that are altered and cut to nicely fit the scenes they're used in. These tunes are appropriately used and are pleasant to listen to. There is one opening song and one closing song in this series, both of which got stuck in my head several times. Once the opening song was stuck in my head for an entire evening at work; they're quite catchy. Conclusion: This is a pleasant, light-hearted comedy that I would recommend to anyone who isn't afraid to watch an anime with nearly an all female cast. I am so glad I took the time to check it out. I'm definitely going to watch it again sometime. Moments of Greatness: Kimura wearing the "daddy hat", Chiyo's "dad" in episodes 8 and 25, Osaka with the knife, Tomo's insane laughter, and Nyamo's drunken words of wisdom. Favorite Episodes: 4, 14, 16, 21, 22. Back to Reviews Site design and content ©1999-2007 by James Walker (Sir Viktor) The Next Dimension is a non-profit fansite. Any copyright violations are completely unintentional. I highly recommend viewing this website with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Javascript enabled.