Azumanga Daioh
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Wikipedia-Article "Azumanga Daioh"
| あずまんが大王 | |
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| あずまんが大王 (Azumanga Daioh) |
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| Genre | Comedy, High School |
| Manga あずまんが大王 | |
| Authored by | Kiyohiko Higashi |
| Publisher | MediaWorks |
| Serialized in | Electric Shock Daioh |
| Original run | February 2000 – June 2002 |
| No. of volumes | 4 |
| TV anime あずまんが大王 THE ANIMATION | |
| Directed by | Nishikiori Hiroshi |
| Studio | JC Staff |
| Network | TV Tokyo |
| Original run | April 4, 2002 – September 30, 2002 |
| No. of episodes | 26 x 23min |
| Related works | |
Azumanga Daioh (あずまんが大王 Azumanga Daiō) is a manga by Kiyohiko Azuma that was made into an anime in 2002. The title directly translates to "Great King Azumanga" which is short for "Azuma's manga for Dengeki Daiou magazine" and is simply a portmanteau that includes the title of the magazine it was published in and the name of the artist.
Published in the magazine Dengeki Daioh, the manga consists of four panel comic strips that are known as yonkoma in Japan. A full-length manga series being composed entirely of them is almost unheard of to a western audience. The manga is published in English by ADV Manga
The anime, which aired from April 4, 2002 until September 30, 2002, is published in English by ADV Films. The anime was broadcast in five-minute segments every weekday, and as a 25-minute compilation each weekend. Thus there are 130 five-minute episodes which can also be seen as 26 25-minute episodes. Besides these episodes there were also "The Very Short Azumanga Daioh Movie" (which is a 6 minute trailer to promote the show, also known as an episode 00) and "Azumanga Web Daioh". There were 6 volumes of videos released on VHS and DVD. The soundtrack to the anime is published by Geneon.
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Plot
Both the manga and the anime follow the trials and triumphs of everyday life in a Japanese high school. The readers and/or viewers follow Sakaki's obsession with neighborhood cats, Chiyo's struggle to find acceptance in an age group far above her own, and Yomi's patience with a rather silly best friend. They get to see yearly accounts of summer vacation, holidays, tests, and athletic events. Although it generally follows everyday life, this series is occasionally marked by bursts of surrealism and absurdity, such as a regular feature showing the characters' New Year's dreams.
Highly regarded by fans
The series has accumulated the status of a Cult classic because Azumanga Daioh is distinctly different. There is no overriding goal, be it as simple as Character A and Character B finally announcing they love each other, nor is there a grand event such as saving the world from some horrible doom. There is no struggling romance to prolong the series or be used awkwardly for the comedy inherent in misunderstandings. The only goals the series can be said to have are the same goals that high school students everywhere have, that is to achieve good (or at least passing) grades, make friends, put up with said friends, and eventually graduate and have a life of their own. This makes the series, despite its wacky characters and occasional steps into absurdity, very "real" and easy for almost anyone to associate with.
Characters
Six schoolgirls and two teachers make up the main cast alongside a few secondary characters, including a creepy male teacher and another girl in the same grade who seems to have a crush on Sakaki, the most distant of the main characters.
Four of the girls were included in Newtype Magazine's top 100 anime heroines of 2002: Osaka was awarded 7th, Chiyo-chan 11th, Sakaki 21st, and Yomi 78th. Together they made Azumanga Daioh the joint 2nd most popular series of 2002 for female characters.
Main characters
Character profiles are given in Western order, with the surname after the given name.
Chiyo Mihama
(美浜 ちよ Mihama Chiyo) a.k.a. "Chiyo-chan" -- A child prodigy, Chiyo has skipped five grades to 10th grade (the first grade in Japanese high school) at the start of the series and is still at the top of the class. Although extremely smart and responsible for her age (she packs her own lunchbox every morning), she still has the naïvete, desires, and especially fears of a child. Her parents are fabulously wealthy, but are never seen in the story (although the strange yellow cat-like creature seen throughout the series claims to be her father). When she first enters high school, she is said to be 10 years old. Chiyo is the only character whose age is directly referred to, and her birthday parties are an annual event celebrated by the girls. The girls in her class she is closest to are Osaka and Sakaki. (Interestingly, while Sakaki covets Chiyo's small stature and cuteness, Chiyo seems to long for the respect she could garner if she only had Sakaki's height and imposing air.)
Tomo Takino
(滝野 智 Takino Tomo) a.k.a. "Tomo" -- Tomo is extremely energetic and competitive, and yet a slacker at the same time. She tends to irritate everyone around her, affecting Yomi most of all, the two having been classmates since elementary school times. She is the de facto leader of the "knuckleheads" ("Bonkuras" in Japanese), along with Osaka and Kagura, but is capable of great academic feats when she wants to (generally to annoy Yomi). In fact, Tomo seems to spend most of her energy on annoying others. She is mischievous in a somewhat malicious but ultimately playful way, constantly making fun of the rest of the girls (particularly Chiyo, for being a kid). Essentially, Tomo expresses her affection to friends through teasing and ribbing. It should be noted that in the manga, when Chiyo announces that she is turning 12 years old on her next birthday, Tomo states that she (Tomo) is already 17.
Koyomi Mizuhara
(水原 暦 Mizuhara Koyomi), a.k.a. "Yomi" -- A grade-school friend and general antagonist of Tomo's, Yomi carries herself as the most mature and serious of the group. Yomi's seriousness and stability is often used as a humorous counterpoint to the other characters' silliness. Yomi is almost always watching her weight, despite appearing quite healthy and fit. Yomi is also a terrible singer. Among the girls her grades are second only to Chiyo's.
Sakaki
(榊 Sakaki), a.k.a. "Miss Sakaki", "Sakaki-san" -- Sakaki is tall, quiet, and mysterious. Sentimental, introverted and socially awkward, Sakaki is uncomfortable with her tough looking exterior, as well as her busty physique; she would much rather trade her cool demeanor for Chiyo-like cuteness. She is a natural athlete, even though she's not particularly interested in sports. Rather, her secret passion is all things cute, especially animals, and very especially cats; unfortunately, cats hate her for some unknown reason (one of them, a gray cat known as Kamineko, in particular). Because of her affinity for cuteness, she is often seen with Chiyo and Chiyo's dog (Mr. Tadakichi).
Ayumu Kasuga
(春日 歩 Kasuga Ayumu a.k.a. "Osaka" 大阪 Ōsaka) -- Ayumu is a transfer student from Osaka; she was given the de facto nickname "Osaka" which she considers "too simple" and "icky" but seems relatively fine with the nickname. It was chosen by Tomo because she was expected to act very stereotypically like a "typical Osakan". However, her behavior is the complete opposite of the common stereotype of Osakans as loud, exuberant, and fond of cracking bawdy jokes. The English dub by ADV Films equates her Osakan accent to a Southern American one from around Houston, "which shares the business-oriented attitude with Osaka as well as the country image that color both the Southern and Osaka accents" (as said by ADV translator notes); in the manga, which was translated first, her accent was rendered into a New York City one, which is a small tradition for anime characters with Osaka accents, such as Naru/Molly from Sailor Moon.
Osaka often acts like a "dim bulb": slow, inattentive, and stuck in her own world. Although she seems slow and easily distracted, she merely has a mind that works quite differently than most people. Although this makes her prone to daydreaming, absentmindedness, and non-sequitur, she's unusually good at answering trick questions. She is especially close to Chiyo, since even though they are miles apart in purely intellectual development, both lack physical ability, and both seem to approach the world with the same sense of childlike wonder and curiosity (though Chiyo's is usually tempered by common sense and information, while Osaka's is not).
Kagura
(神楽 Kagura) -- Kagura is a later acquaintance, joining Yukari's class in the 2nd year (Yukari selects her as a ringer to win the school athletic competitions). She was originally in Nyamo's class. She devotes most of her time to the swim team but is an all-around good athlete. She has a rather one-sided rivalry/friendship with Sakaki, and is similar to Tomo in sheer energy and low I.Q., but is less prone to impulsive outbursts. Unlike Tomo, Kagura is good-natured and eager to help her friends. Kagura is in many ways the stereotypical "tomboy with a soft heart." Like Sakaki, she is sometimes embarrassed when Tomo calls attention to her large breasts.
Yukari Tanizaki
(谷崎 ゆかり Tanizaki Yukari) a.k.a. "Miss Yukari" -- The girls' English and homeroom teacher (class 3), but a teacher with very unconventional methods and a rather close relationship with the class. Depending on the day, time, and her mood, she can be either a horrible tyrant or one of the sweetest, most touching teachers ever; she ranges from torturing Chiyo and hitting students with blunt objects to kind and gentle words and simple, encouraging notes on tests telling students she believes in them. She is often selfish, irresponsible, miserly, and generally dysfunctional, and shamelessly expects Kurosawa to not only tolerate all of this, but to enable it. Off the job she frequently drags Nyamo out on extensive drinking parties, which Nyamo usually has to pay for. She drives without concern for the rules of the road, running into people, cars and signs along the way and going way over the speed limit, all of which has impacted Chiyo's psyche rather profoundly, and has even caused Sakaki to briefly lose her composure (although Tomo is a fan, being the only one who ever actually wants to ride with Yukari instead of Kurosawa): ironically the infamous "Yukari-mobile" is actually owned by her parents. Her homeroom class is the central focus of this series.
Minamo Kurosawa
(黒沢 みなも Kurosawa Minamo), a.k.a. "Nyamo" にゃも Nyamo -- A gym teacher at the girls' school. In the girls' first year of high school, she is the homeroom teacher of class 5. In their last two years, she is the homeroom teacher of class 2. An old high school friend and rival of Yukari's she is far more in-control than Yukari, although she has her own faults (often related to past romantic relationships).
Minor characters
- Mr. Kimura (木村) - Creepy classics teacher who openly admits to his students that the reason he became a teacher was because of the high-school girls; he is consistently lewd and very open about it. He especially likes Kaorin, much to her chagrin. His eyes cannot be seen behind his glasses, and his mouth hangs open almost constantly; however, he did not always look this way. In his first appearance in the manga, he looked almost entirely normal, glasses and all. It is only when he is asked why he became a teacher and has his famous outburst about liking high school girls that he adopts his newly creepy, gaping-mouthed look, indicating that he may have had some sort of mental break. He has a wife and daughter, who love him despite his strange obsession; his wife even claims to find him very handsome. Oddly enough, he seems to be a perfectly good person aside from his obsession with schoolgirls; he donates generous amounts of his money and time to charitable causes.
- Kaorin (かおりん) - A girl with a major infatuation for Sakaki. In her senior year, Kimura transferred her into his class, much to Kaorin's dismay. Her given name is actually "Kaori" (かおり), but she is almost always addressed by her nickname of "Kaorin" - adding an 'n' to the end of a name is often used among Japanese youth for those they are familiar with.
- Chihiro (千尋) - A classmate and friend of Kaorin. Little is known except her name. In the manga, Chihiro dressed as Chihiro from Spirited Away during the sports festival, an in-joke for those knowledgable about the series. Chihiro, when she appears, is usually keeping Kaorin company, indicating that they may be, depending on your feelings about the series, either friends or romantically connected.
- Chiyo-chichi - A strange looking and even stranger acting cat-like creature which appears in Sakaki's dreams, claiming to be Chiyo's dad. (Chiyo-chichi has also appeared in Osaka's dreams, with the same claim, despite the fact that Sakaki has apparently never really explained these dreams to other people.) Polite but taken to fits of uneasing anger, he may be bullet-proof, a great baseball player, and/or Santa Claus. Osaka gives Chiyo a stuffed animal shaped like Chiyo-chichi on her birthday. In addition, Chiyo-chichi can levitate from place to place, finds the color red discomforting, is occasionally followed by lines of code, and is voiced by Norio Wakamoto, the same seiyu that performs Vicious in Cowboy Bebop.
- Miruchi and Yuka - Chiyo's friends from grade school. Despite being in high school herself, Chiyo still treats them as peers.
- Kamineko (噛み猫, literally "biting cat") - A cute grey cat that Sakaki occasionally sees on the way to and from school. Having a great soft spot for cats, Sakaki tries to pet it, but it ends up latching its huge, bear-trap mouth onto her hand. This becomes one of the series' biggest running gags. Kamineko seems to bear Sakaki strong malice, and at one point attempts to rally an entire neighborhood's worth of cats to attack her.
- Tadakichi-san (忠吉さん), a.k.a. "Mr. Tadakichi" - Chiyo's pet dog. A Great Pyrenees, he is mild mannered and gentle, and is large enough for Chiyo to ride on his back. Sakaki particularly likes him, as he allows her to pet him without biting her.
- Mayaa - Sakaki's pet cat, whose name is derived from a local name for his species, "Yamamayaa". An Iriomote Mountain Cat, he followed Sakaki home from Okinawa after his mother was killed by a car. Because Sakaki cannot keep pets at her house (her parents have allergies), Mayaa is temporarily staying at Chiyo's place until Sakaki goes off to college. Due to being a wildcat, Mayaa has displayed the ability to manifest an imposing "battle aura", scaring off dozens of domesticated cats and routing Kamineko's Sakaki-chomping ambitions.
- Neco Coneco/Nekokoneko - not a living character, but a popular stuffed animal franchise that appears frequently in the series. The typical example is a white cat with a white kitten sitting on its back. Sakaki adores it. Conventional romanization spelling of the pronunciation yields "nekokoneko" ("neko" Japanese for cat; "koneko" Japanese for "child cat", or kitten); however "Neco Coneco" is often used for aesthetic purposes. During the class trip to Okinawa, Sakaki buys an Iriomote Cat version of Neco Coneco.
- The Yukari Car, aka The Yukarimobile - While, again, not a living character, the Yukari Car seems to have a personality and history all its own. While it actually belongs to Yukari's father (Yukari still lives at home), and was at one time a rather nice automobile, Yukari's tendencies at driving have rendered it into a scarred, beaten thing suitable for a Mad Max film, with each new dent and crumple in the fender marking another way in which Chiyo has been mentally damaged forever. Even the sight of photos of the car can cause terror and flashbacks for those who have lived through a ride in it, with the up side being that said survivors claim that they no longer fear any roller coaster.
Viewpoints and Speculation
- Although the series has a cast of cute girls and an obvious lack of men for the most part, it is not considered a shōjo series. It also has some popularity among fans of yuri and shōjo ai, due again to the lack of presence of male characters and the distinct relationships (close friendships, for the most part) between the girls.
- Among yuri/shōjo ai fans, Tomo and Yomi are often considered to be a couple. Yukari and Nyamo are also often considered to be a couple. Kagura and Sakaki are also a popular fan-pairing, though there is not quite as much canon support for this as the other couples mentioned here.
- If one looks closely, Miruchi and Yuka look like younger versions of Nyamo and Yukari, respectively.
- Tomo's actions can be interpreted as showing characteristics of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and some fans believe "Osaka" may have Attention Deficit Disorder
- Fanfiction to the contrary, there is no evidence that Mr Kimura's inapproproriate behavior has ever extended beyond peeping on the girls in their swimsuits and inappropriate remarks.
- Some fans maintain that Kaorin's surname is "Aida" (相田), but this is based only on a single and inconclusive reference in one panel of the original manga. Officially her surname remains unknown.
Important Places
Numerous places play an important role in the series. The most important is The High School itself, which is never explicitly named. Apparently it is a prestigious school and not that easy to get into (Yomi frequently expresses annoyance that Tomo and the other "Bonkuras" were somehow able to pass the same entrance exams she did). Many episodes revolve around important annual events at the school, such as the Sports Festivals (on which Yukari frequently places extravagant wagers) and the Culture Festivals.
Chiyo Mihama's Mansion, the most impressive home any of the girls have ever seen, eventually becomes the de-facto headquarters for the group, where they meet to study and socialize. The group also made annual trips to Chiyo's Summer Home on the coast, an hour-long drive from Tokyo that Yukari finds utterly irresistible. These trips frequently became crucibles for embarrassing revelations about Nyamo's past.
Magical Land is a theme park of relatively recent vintage modeled on Tokyo Disneyland. Among its attractions is a roller coaster considered "the best in Japan". A group trip to the park, and plans for a repeat visit after graduation, caused great difficulty for Yomi.
A class trip to Okinawa, with a side trip to Iriomote Island, would prove to have important implications for Sakaki in particular, who met Maaya there.
Differences Between Manga and Anime
Azumanga Daioh is a relatively short series, both in manga and anime. In collected format, the manga totals a mere four volumes, and the anime only six (with twenty-six episodes split among them). This, coupled with the fact that the series has a very straightforward premise, without adding the various things that a typical manga/anime series would have to cause differences (romantic subplots, action/fighting, an overall goal such as saving the world) means that there are few outright changes between the two.
There are, however, still a few differences. Some jokes simply could not be adapted to an animated format, and were either changed significantly or excised completely. (Both of these are few in number.) The anime also contains some "filler", perhaps to help round out the number of episodes, or simply to explore aspects of the characters that weren't. (In the anime, Miss Kurosawa actually goes out on a date at one point. This episode, while still comedic, has a somewhat more serious tone, and gives us a look at the adults when they aren't annoying the daylights out of each other.) The slight re-arrangment of episodes within the anime as well has given rise to one minor character point: in the manga, Yukari-sensei's birthday occurs on summer vacation, (presumably in the space between the annual summer trip and the start of school on September 1st), while in the anime it is moved to be during the spring holiday in March.
Voice actors and their characters
Japanese
- Houko Kuwashima - Kagura
- Yuu Asakawa - Sakaki
- Tomoko Kaneda - Chiyo Mihama
- Yuki Matsuoka - Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga
- Chieko Higuchi - Tomo Takino
- Rie Tanaka - Koyomi "Yomi" Mizuhara
- Kouji Ishii - Kimura
- Norio Wakamoto - Chiyo-chichi
- Akiko Hiramatsu - Yukari Tanizaki
- Aya Hisakawa - Minamo "Nyamo" Kurosawa
- Sakura Nogawa - Kaorin
- Akane Omae - Chihiro
English
- Allison Sumrall - Kagura
- Christine Auten - Sakaki
- Jessica Boone - Chiyo Mihama
- Kira Vincent-Davis - Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga
- Mandy Clark - Tomo Takino
- Nancy Novotny - Koyomi "Yomi" Mizuhara
- Andy McAvin - Kimura
- Jason Douglas - Chiyo-dad
- Luci Christian - Yukari Tanizaki
- Monica Rial - Minamo "Nyamo" Kurosawa
- Tiffany Grant - Kaorin
- Hilary Haag - Chihiro
- Cynthia Ann Feaster - Kaorin's Mother
External links
- Everyone's goin', "What in the heck?", the official English site by ADV Films
- Azumanga TV Daioh, the official Japanese site
- Azumanga Daioh at the Internet Movie Database
- Azumanga Daioh at the Anime News Network Encyclopedia
- Wonderland, an Azumanga Daioh fansite
- Azumanga Daioh Joy, a new Azumanga Daioh fansite
- Great King Shezotaku's Episode Guide, an Azumanga episode guide
- Sata Andagi!, another Azumanga Daioh fansite
- Numbnuts Unite!, yet another Azumanga Daioh fansite