Azumanga Daioh Highly recommended

Director
Hiroshi Nishikiori
Production
GENCO, J.C.Staff, Kadokawa Shoten
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2002

Azumanga Daioh DVD V. 2

By David Rasmussen
2nd Apr 06

It’s not often that you find a series that really really hits it out of the ballpark for just about everyone.
A good series that fans really really dig and really really get into is a rarity. This is one of those rarities.

By now you know the story if you’ve seen it before, but in brief…
The Seinfeld of Japanese Anime/Manga, Azumanga Daioh is an experience for the senses in both formats you must see, read, and experience for yourself.
Experience three years in the life of a special class of girls from Miss Yukari’s English class, their quirks and up and downs, and their lives as you get to know them better until graduation day.
The manga is a bit of four panel refinement. The four panel format, best known from some of the classics like Peanuts, Garfield or Hagar the Horrible, works well here with an easy to get into format that readers can easily pick up and get into from the first minute the reader starts flipping the pages.
The anime is a cult classic in it’s own right. The loving work of it’s staff from Director Hiroshi Nishikiori right down the production line, a sure hit with viewers. The results? A superbly crafted and designed adaptation which is true to the series and takes it steps beyond which makes it solid viewing.
And yes, I am still sticking to my reversal of opinion on the English Dub and still think it’s good.
Now the notes and then the DVD.

NOTES TO NOTE
FOR ADVFILMS
This is a Region 1 review, covering the release of Azumanga Daioh in North America (and wherever else the Region 1 of DVDs cover). This means only those in Region 1 can watch this… or anyone who owns a Region Free DVD Player, they can watch it too! This may (by the way) include the upcoming release of the PS3 which is supposed to have a region free DVD playing option. We’ll see.

FOR LANGUAGE
The entire review is on the English language version, just so you know that I do watch those from time to time when I do my reviewing.

Volume 2
Episode 6
The first Sports Fest has come! Watch the titanic struggle between star athletes Sakaki & Kagura!
Also watch other things like the scavenger hunt, three legged race (who the heck thought Chiyo-chan and Osaka was a good match for this) and tug-of-war. Oh, and watch as Yukari places a side bet with Nyamo and becomes obsessed about winning because of that bet. Go figure.

Episode 7
From a Sports Fest we swing to the first Culture Festival, which has a cute animal theme as the class sets up the stuffed animal store which is nice… but is no Stuffed Animal Café. Anyway it’s the Fairyland Class’ first go with the first mascot (the cat costume) which was designed around Osaka’s body, and worn by everyone including Tomo (who terrorized the school in it) and Mr. Kimura (the weirdo… wait a sec, considering the costume was based on Osaka’s body specs how the hell did HE fit into the suit…)
And it ends with a parade… cool!

Episode 8
New Year is coming and that means New Years dreams. Watch as…
Osaka dreams of a flying Chiyo-chan which leads to the death of Chiyo-chan after Tomo yanks her -- and then she -- uh… you’ll see.
Tomo dreams of being better than she is, and she talks of her obsession with being a certain somebody from Lupin the III… Lupin…!! Ah… sorry. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget about it. Forg… never mind, forget about -- ack.
Oh, and then the episode combines TWO dreams of Sakaki from two New Year dream moments into one episode as Sakaki meets Chiyo-chan’s dad, and then gets invited over to Chiyo-chan’s house to eat red things and see the March of the Assistant Butler Penguin… oh, then Osaka shows up and wakes Sakaki up.
Finally unlucky in love Kaorin has an all original to the Anime dream about Sakaki coming to her rescue of a large white horse… yeah, it’ll never happen, but it’s cute nevertheless. Ahh… cute.

Episode 9
Chiyo-chan turns 11 and the girls celebrate her birthday over at her house. Nuff said.
You’ll like it better if you watched it instead of me telling you about it.
Let’s break it down now.

Azumanga Breakdown the 2nd
What’s Hot?
Second verse same as the first.
Once again It goes without saying that ADVFilms is going to pull Chiyo-chan’s dad out of a hat by delivering a quality series worth raving about, worth talking about, and worth forming two dozen fanclubs and organizations over. Oh, and don’t forget that it’s also worth owning in your collection regardless of whether you live in R1 or R2 land.
Without a doubt Azumanga Daioh is one of those home runs that hit’s the mark and scores high for the home team, which makes it worth checking out.
And now, now that you can probably get the thinpack in both the UK and US (still waiting to hear if the thinpack is available in R2 format yet) you can own this series today and enjoy it forever.

What’s Not?
Still can’t think of a thing except for the thing about the extras which just don’t seem extra enough.
That and I have a problem with the episode count which is plentiful at the start, but winds down until you’re expected to pay $30 for a 3 episode DVD at the end, which is just plain wrong, but unavoidable since it’s the only way to keep the DVDs in year cycles (Vol. 1 and 2 equaling Year 1, Vol. 3 and 4 equaling Year 2 and Vol. 5 and 6 equaling Year 3) so I guess there’s no way to avoid that.

Moments to Remember?
Once again just about everything is good.

What to Ignore?
The English voice acting is smoothing out now and is working better. By the time you get to the next review and DVD V. 3 it’ll be flowing fine… so nothing to ignore here.

Overall?
Three words. Buy-this-series. Nuff said. Own it, watch it, enjoy it. You’ll be glad you did.

-- David Rasmussen 2nd Apr 06

Azumanga Daioh Images