Azumanga Daioh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Azumanga Daioh is the third anime I’ve completed off of my shoujo anime list and it was quite good. I’ve never really watched anything like this show before. It is completely all over the place, but in an extremely pleasant way. I found myself laughing out loud a lot during this show and being quite touched at other times. This anime is great to watch because it is so relaxing and utterly unique. It takes so many aspects of an average life and makes them unique and special while still allowing you to relate to them. I enjoyed this show a lot because I have never seen anything like it.
The plot of Azumanga Daioh is very simple. The story follows a group of girls through their three years of high school. The thing that makes the show interesting is the personality of each girl. Having seen a lot of amine myself, I couldn’t really find a single character in this series that was a complete stereotype. If anything the show took typical stereotypes and threw in the unexpected. The plot has the typical elements of school focused anime, a sports fest, a cultural fest, and the infamous gym class, but this average events do not make the anime boring in any way. Although the plot is good, it does not drive the anime in any way. The characters are what makes this anime so good.
As I mentioned above, the characters in this series are very unique. It seems like every character starts off as something typical and branches out. Sakaki starts off as the super cool girl who is good at everything, but is revealed to be a cat lover at heart who only wishes to be cute herself. Chiyo begins as the token small cute character, but ends up being the prodigy who is overly conscientious in all situations. The best part about these characters is that they all have another layer to them. There is an immense amount of detail given to all the characters, even the side characters. People like Yukari Sensei and Kimura Sensei seem to be entirely one characteristic, a selfish teaser and a crazy pervert, but at times they take you completely by surprise. A particular moment I remember is when the girls realize that Kimura is married with a kid. He is still completely creepy, but you can’t help but wonder about that part of him as well.
The times when I really noticed the real feeling put into these characters could seem like pretty mundane events. There was an episode in which Tomo and Yomi hang out it Yomi’s room and Yukari and Minamo go out drinking. The moment with Tomo and Yomi was just so normal and mundane that it really helped me to see why the two were really best friends. I was also really touched by Yukari and Minamo’s friendship in this episode because they were talking seriously about relationships and their futures. It made me realize why these two had stayed together for so long. The behavior of these characters really made me invested in what happened to them. I was super happy when Sakaki finally found a cat that wouldn’t bite her and I was so touched by the connection that Chiyo cherished among her friends. I can’t forget to mention Osaka, who cracked me up every time she talked. The most comforting thing about the show is that these girls are so unique and crazy yet they still managed to find each other as true friends. I think it’s easy to find these characters appealing because they are completely themselves, not a stereotype. They don’t fit into a certain group of people because they are unique in themselves, but they still have people to trust in and confide in. That is something cool that many anime to not have.
I really enjoyed this anime. My only problem with it might be the pacing. It can feel a bit slow at times, but this is coming from a big shounen fan as well. I am known to need breaks from shoujo and slice of life at times because it moves slowly for me. The first half of the show took me a long time to get through and I had to start watching some other anime at the same time. Things move more quickly in the second half. This could be both a flaw and strength because I love the relaxed and normal feel of this anime as well, it just takes some time to get through. I still enjoyed this anime quite a bit and would give it a 3.5/5 for my anime review.
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