"Azumanga daiô" (2002) TV series

User Rating:

9.1/10   

Director:

Nishikiori Hiroshi

Seasons:

1

Genre:

Animation | Comedy

Tagline:

School goes crazy

Plot:

A humorous and highly unpredictable animated series following a group of high school girls and their teachers.

Plot Keywords:

High School | Love | Manga | Friendship | Emotionally Vulnerable

Cast

Tomoko Kaneda	...	Chiyo Mihama (26 episodes, 2002)
Yuki Matsuoka	...	Ayumu Kasuga / ... (26 episodes, 2002)
Chieko Higuchi	...	Tomo Takino (26 episodes, 2002)
Rie Tanaka	...	Koyomi Mizuhara / ... (26 episodes, 2002)
Yu Asakawa	...	Sakaki (26 episodes, 2002)

(more)

Series Directed by
Hiroshi Nishikiori		(26 episodes, 2002)
Nishikiori Hiroshi		(unknown episodes)

Series Writing credits
Kiyohiko Azuma		(26 episodes, 2002)
Tomoyasu Okubo		(4 episodes, 2002)
Ichiro Okouchi		(3 episodes, 2002)
Aya Yoshinaga		(2 episodes, 2002)

Series Produced by
John Ledford	....	executive producer (unknown episodes)
Mark Williams	....	executive producer (unknown episodes)

Series Original Music by
Masaki Kurihara		(unknown episodes)

Series Art Direction by
Chikako Shibata		(unknown episodes)

Series Sound Department
Cesar Inserny	....	sound designer / sound mixer (26 episodes, 2002)
Yota Tsuruoka	....	sound (unknown episodes)

Series Animation Department
Takashi Wada	....	animation director (unknown episodes)

Series Other crew
Carole Pavlik	....	production assistant (unknown episodes)

Production Companies

• J.C. Staff

Distributors

• ADV Films (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• King Record Co. (2002) (Japan) (video)
• TV Tokyo (2002) (Japan) (TV)
• Universum Film (UFA) (2006) (Germany) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Azumanga Daioh (International: English title)

Runtime:

Japan:24 min (26 episodes)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-PG | Germany:12 (episodes 1-7, 20-26) | Germany:6 (episodes 8-14) | Germany:o.Al. (episodes 15-19) | New Zealand:PG | South Korea:12 | Australia:PG | Canada:PG | UK:12 (part 1) | UK:PG (part 2) | Australia:MA

Company:

J.C. Staff

Trivia:

The show was originally broadcast in four-minute segments every weekday on the TV Tokyo satellite channel. Each week's daily segments were reshown as a single 24-minute episode on Saturdays. The Saturday episodes also featured additional footage not screened in the daily segments, including longer opening and closing credits, a preview of the next week's episodes and in some cases a short prologue or epilogue, which accounts for the longer running time than that of the individual segments.

Quotes:

[Yukari is trying to urge her class to win the sports fest]
Tomo Takino: Hey! If we win, you should treat us all to a can of juice!
Yukari Tanizaki: Juice, huh? Let's see... If we're looking at 120 yen a can...
[Counting on her fingers, deep in thought, and suddenly grins and shouts out]
Yukari Tanizaki: Okay! If you guys win, I'll treat you all!
Koyomi Mizuhara: Just how much did you bet on this?

Movie Connections:

Follows Azumanga daioh (2001)

Soundtrack:

Soramimi Cake

loveable, oddball characters at a Japanese high school

This animation is based on a Japanese comic strip, kind of like Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" in North America. Like the "Peanuts" cartoon each episode is built on short segments taken from the comic strip. It has been shown at a few Toronto anime clubs and I also have seen it on DVD. It was jarring watching the show at first because the episodes are really just a series of short gags and then suddenly we see the next episode preview. We have some anime stereotypes like the loudmouth Tomo, the dimwitted Osaka and the pushy Yukari but some characters seemed fresh like Chiyo a bright ten-year old girl who was advanced all the way to high school. Since Japanese high school covers 15 to 17 year-olds Chiyo is much shorter and physically underdeveloped compared the rest of the class. This leads to recurring gags like when Chiyo acts like an elementary school student or when she can't keep up with the rest in phys ed class. If you search the Internet you should find a few translated comic strips so you can see if this series is right for you but I give it a "thumbs-up".