Azumanga Analysis
Mar. 17th, 2007 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dagas_isaMuusu and I finished watching Azumanga Daioh a couple nights ago, and I've been wanting to do a review/analysis of it, simply because it's a lot more intelligent and complex then one might expect a humor/high-school anime to be.
I liked this series, and it was probably one of the few crack-humor series that had me laughing out loud for most of it. Excel Saga is more insane, but overall, Azumanga is funnier. I also enjoyed the fact that it was pretty innocent. I can see, however, how it can be off-putting to others.
First, it has no extended plot, and no real goal. In a lot of other anime, there's at least a pretense of questing towards something. Everything has a goal. In Azumanga, the girls go through high-school, and very few of the episodes are based on accomplishing anything. Yukari drives her class to win the athletic festival every year, in order to win 10,000 yen from the other teacher, Nyamo. To motivate her class, she promises to buy juice if they win. However, even when they win, Nyamo ends up taking the 10,000 yen right back because Yukari owes her money, and Yukari, without the money, runs away before her class can demand juice. So the goal becomes unimportant. The journey becomes more important than the destination, to put it in a cliche'd term.
Second, there is only one male character who regularly appears. This is Kimura-sensei, slack-jawed, with a fondness for high-school girls particularly poor Kaorin. He's creepy, to be sure, although essentially a good man, who recycles, donates to charity, etc. This also means there's a complete lack of romance in the canon. Only Kaorin's crush on Sakaki, one that I don't think Sakaki even notices much less reciprocates, is canon. Anything else is the product of a hyperactive shoujo-ai imagination. Also, note that of the student characters, Kaorin is the one who ends up becoming a peripheral character compared to the main six.
Third, it's impossible to start with an episode other than the first. With most series, there's usually enough flashbacks or explanation of previous knowledge to get the viewer caught up, and if not, the episodes are completely independent of each other. This does not apply with Azumanga Daioh. Some of the best jokes build up over several episodes, or require knowledge gained in previous episodes, and pretty much all of the jokes depend on knowing the characters. So, part of the problem I had with watching Azumanga that one time at JAC freshman year, was that we were watching the third episode, and the characters looked completely insane. Oh, okay, they are insane, but their insanity is internally consistent.
Fourth, many jokes require a knowledge of Japanese culture. The fansub version did a good job of priming for the most culture-specific jokes, but someone who has no clue about Japanese culture and stereotypes will find a lot of the situations more bizarre than normal.
Fifth, despite the nearly-all female cast, there is almost no fanservice.
Characters
Students:
Takino Tomo (Tomo): Overeager-hyperactive-pain-in-the-ass provocateur. She's too lazy to put forth effort in most things, unless it's a competition or she's trying to annoy someone else. Pretty much, she only studied to get into their exclusive high-school, because her best friend Yomi told her she couldn't do it. Also, she has a habit of making things harder for others because it's more fun/rewarding when they get it.
Mizuhara Koyomi (Yomi): She and Tomo make up a sort of comedy-duo in the series, with Yomi giving the proverbial straight-man reactions to Tomo's antics. Most of her personality/humor develops within her relation to Tomo, just as a lot of Tomo's develops in relation to Yomi, but there's also a hint that Yomi has a problem with controlling her weight and laying off of sweet foods. Of all the Azumanga students, she's the one I would least like to meet in a dark alley.
Mihama Chiyo (Chiyo-chan): She's a 10-year-old genius who skipped straight from 5th grade to 10th grade (first year of high-school). On one hand, Chiyo is incredibly intelligent and very responsible and mature for her age. On the other, she's still a child, who scares and gets panicked or traumatized easily. Oh yes, and she is absolutely adorable, although she resents being treated as a child.
Sakaki-san (Sakaki-san): She's presented as an opposite to Chiyo, if that makes sense. Sakaki is the tallest and most 'well-developed' of the girls, and the best athlete of them all. Yet, she is also the shyest although this gets interpreted as a mysterious air or a cool aloofness. In reality, she has a love for all things cute (especially cats, even if most of them seem to hate her), and wishes she could be cute. No one knows this until later on in the series though.
Kasuga Ayumu (Osaka): A completely spacey student from Osaka (hence the nickname), who spends more time paying attention her own private thoughts than what's going on around her. A lot of the more WTF moments from the series come from her imagination or her interaction with people. It's...umm...difficult to explain Osaka. Spacey pretty much covers it.
Kagura-san (Kagura): A swimmer who joins the class in their second year. She's the one-side rival to Sakaki-san, although it's a very respectful relationship. She's got Tomo's talents for stirring up the pot, especially with Sakaki, but unlike Tomo, it seems unintentional or tied to her wrong impression of someone. There's also hints that she's the worst student in the class and the leader of the 'Knuckleheads'.
Kaorin (Kaorin): She's not part of the group, persay. She has a huge crush on Sakaki, but otherwise doesn't have much connection with the rest of the group. Besides that, her only other real distinguishing trait is that the male teacher, Kimura, likes her a lot, which disturbs her. Unfortunately for her, she spends senior year in his homeroom class.
Teachers
Tanizaki Yukari (Yukari-sensei): The girls' English and homeroom teacher, who is essentially a grown-up version of Tomo. She's silly and extremely selfish, and seems to take joy in putting others (especially Nyamo) into uncomfortable positions. Somehow, she manages to be somewhat likable. I'm still not sure how. Also, she's the homeroom teacher for all three years because she doesn't want to go through the hassle of learning everyone's names.
Kurosawa Minamo (Nyamo): The physical-education teacher and Yukari's former high-school classmate. She's much more sensible and mature than Yukari, although she does do things to provoke Yukari, like drinking all the sake Yukari brings on their summer trip, so Yukari can't drink it, and then the whole issue with betting at the athletic festival. She also seems to have a lot of past romantic encounters that Yukari continuously uses as blackmail material.
Kimura (Kimura-sensei): The only regular male character, who teaches high-school because he likes looking at high-school girls. He mostly goes around open mouth, talking about girls wearing short pants with their gym uniforms, or trying to watch as they swim. For all of this, he's actually happily married to a wife who adores him, and he's actually a pretty nice guy. He just has that creepy obession with high-school girls.
This is just basic, and doesn't cover half of their development/insanity.
Laws of Azumanga:
Any episode, taken out of context, seems random and insane, but added together they make bizarre sense. The Azumanga Universe follows it's own set of physics.
1. Antagonistic best friends never go out of style. Yukari and Nyamo's relationship echoes Tomo and Yomi's, and two of Chiyo's classmates from elementary school, Yuka-chan and Miruchi, echo that relationship as well (Their names are similar to Yukari and Nyamo's and like Tomo and Yomi, they'll have been in school together since elementary school). As a corollary, just because you love someone does not mean you can't go out of your way to annoy them. In fact, it's encouraged.
2. Images and situations repeat across episodes. One of the most genius things about the series is that since all 26 episodes take place over three years of high-school, there are plently of opportunities to reference old situations and develop imagery that seems random at first.
For example: A random orange plush cat shows up in the first episode, randomly of course. Then Sakaki has a dream where she meets Chiyo's father, who happens to look like that orange plush cat. Then, Osaka buys Chiyo that exact plush cat for her birthday, and Sakaki mentions that it's the dad of the plush animal that she gave Chiyo. Then, for one of the culture-festivals, the class makes a 'stuffed-animal cafe, where a hat shaped like that plush cat is part of the uniform (and called daddy-hats by Sakaki), and eventually other people begin imagining Chiyo's father as the stuffed cat. And all of this develops over the course of the series.
3. The oddness stems from the characters' themselves, not the world around them. The weirdest things: The aforementioned plush cat, Osaka's belief that Chiyo's pigtails allow her to fly, etc. stem from a character's inner thought process. Even events that aren't tied to a character's perception seem to happen due to an immutable law revolving around a certain character. Sakaki loves cats, but cats don't like her. So it's a law that any cat she tries to pet will try to bite her, or at least run away from her. Tomo feels compelled to antagonize everyone.
I don't know if that makes sense...but I did my best.
I liked this series, and it was probably one of the few crack-humor series that had me laughing out loud for most of it. Excel Saga is more insane, but overall, Azumanga is funnier. I also enjoyed the fact that it was pretty innocent. I can see, however, how it can be off-putting to others.
First, it has no extended plot, and no real goal. In a lot of other anime, there's at least a pretense of questing towards something. Everything has a goal. In Azumanga, the girls go through high-school, and very few of the episodes are based on accomplishing anything. Yukari drives her class to win the athletic festival every year, in order to win 10,000 yen from the other teacher, Nyamo. To motivate her class, she promises to buy juice if they win. However, even when they win, Nyamo ends up taking the 10,000 yen right back because Yukari owes her money, and Yukari, without the money, runs away before her class can demand juice. So the goal becomes unimportant. The journey becomes more important than the destination, to put it in a cliche'd term.
Second, there is only one male character who regularly appears. This is Kimura-sensei, slack-jawed, with a fondness for high-school girls particularly poor Kaorin. He's creepy, to be sure, although essentially a good man, who recycles, donates to charity, etc. This also means there's a complete lack of romance in the canon. Only Kaorin's crush on Sakaki, one that I don't think Sakaki even notices much less reciprocates, is canon. Anything else is the product of a hyperactive shoujo-ai imagination. Also, note that of the student characters, Kaorin is the one who ends up becoming a peripheral character compared to the main six.
Third, it's impossible to start with an episode other than the first. With most series, there's usually enough flashbacks or explanation of previous knowledge to get the viewer caught up, and if not, the episodes are completely independent of each other. This does not apply with Azumanga Daioh. Some of the best jokes build up over several episodes, or require knowledge gained in previous episodes, and pretty much all of the jokes depend on knowing the characters. So, part of the problem I had with watching Azumanga that one time at JAC freshman year, was that we were watching the third episode, and the characters looked completely insane. Oh, okay, they are insane, but their insanity is internally consistent.
Fourth, many jokes require a knowledge of Japanese culture. The fansub version did a good job of priming for the most culture-specific jokes, but someone who has no clue about Japanese culture and stereotypes will find a lot of the situations more bizarre than normal.
Fifth, despite the nearly-all female cast, there is almost no fanservice.
Characters
Students:
Takino Tomo (Tomo): Overeager-hyperactive-pain-in-the-ass provocateur. She's too lazy to put forth effort in most things, unless it's a competition or she's trying to annoy someone else. Pretty much, she only studied to get into their exclusive high-school, because her best friend Yomi told her she couldn't do it. Also, she has a habit of making things harder for others because it's more fun/rewarding when they get it.
Mizuhara Koyomi (Yomi): She and Tomo make up a sort of comedy-duo in the series, with Yomi giving the proverbial straight-man reactions to Tomo's antics. Most of her personality/humor develops within her relation to Tomo, just as a lot of Tomo's develops in relation to Yomi, but there's also a hint that Yomi has a problem with controlling her weight and laying off of sweet foods. Of all the Azumanga students, she's the one I would least like to meet in a dark alley.
Mihama Chiyo (Chiyo-chan): She's a 10-year-old genius who skipped straight from 5th grade to 10th grade (first year of high-school). On one hand, Chiyo is incredibly intelligent and very responsible and mature for her age. On the other, she's still a child, who scares and gets panicked or traumatized easily. Oh yes, and she is absolutely adorable, although she resents being treated as a child.
Sakaki-san (Sakaki-san): She's presented as an opposite to Chiyo, if that makes sense. Sakaki is the tallest and most 'well-developed' of the girls, and the best athlete of them all. Yet, she is also the shyest although this gets interpreted as a mysterious air or a cool aloofness. In reality, she has a love for all things cute (especially cats, even if most of them seem to hate her), and wishes she could be cute. No one knows this until later on in the series though.
Kasuga Ayumu (Osaka): A completely spacey student from Osaka (hence the nickname), who spends more time paying attention her own private thoughts than what's going on around her. A lot of the more WTF moments from the series come from her imagination or her interaction with people. It's...umm...difficult to explain Osaka. Spacey pretty much covers it.
Kagura-san (Kagura): A swimmer who joins the class in their second year. She's the one-side rival to Sakaki-san, although it's a very respectful relationship. She's got Tomo's talents for stirring up the pot, especially with Sakaki, but unlike Tomo, it seems unintentional or tied to her wrong impression of someone. There's also hints that she's the worst student in the class and the leader of the 'Knuckleheads'.
Kaorin (Kaorin): She's not part of the group, persay. She has a huge crush on Sakaki, but otherwise doesn't have much connection with the rest of the group. Besides that, her only other real distinguishing trait is that the male teacher, Kimura, likes her a lot, which disturbs her. Unfortunately for her, she spends senior year in his homeroom class.
Teachers
Tanizaki Yukari (Yukari-sensei): The girls' English and homeroom teacher, who is essentially a grown-up version of Tomo. She's silly and extremely selfish, and seems to take joy in putting others (especially Nyamo) into uncomfortable positions. Somehow, she manages to be somewhat likable. I'm still not sure how. Also, she's the homeroom teacher for all three years because she doesn't want to go through the hassle of learning everyone's names.
Kurosawa Minamo (Nyamo): The physical-education teacher and Yukari's former high-school classmate. She's much more sensible and mature than Yukari, although she does do things to provoke Yukari, like drinking all the sake Yukari brings on their summer trip, so Yukari can't drink it, and then the whole issue with betting at the athletic festival. She also seems to have a lot of past romantic encounters that Yukari continuously uses as blackmail material.
Kimura (Kimura-sensei): The only regular male character, who teaches high-school because he likes looking at high-school girls. He mostly goes around open mouth, talking about girls wearing short pants with their gym uniforms, or trying to watch as they swim. For all of this, he's actually happily married to a wife who adores him, and he's actually a pretty nice guy. He just has that creepy obession with high-school girls.
This is just basic, and doesn't cover half of their development/insanity.
Laws of Azumanga:
Any episode, taken out of context, seems random and insane, but added together they make bizarre sense. The Azumanga Universe follows it's own set of physics.
1. Antagonistic best friends never go out of style. Yukari and Nyamo's relationship echoes Tomo and Yomi's, and two of Chiyo's classmates from elementary school, Yuka-chan and Miruchi, echo that relationship as well (Their names are similar to Yukari and Nyamo's and like Tomo and Yomi, they'll have been in school together since elementary school). As a corollary, just because you love someone does not mean you can't go out of your way to annoy them. In fact, it's encouraged.
2. Images and situations repeat across episodes. One of the most genius things about the series is that since all 26 episodes take place over three years of high-school, there are plently of opportunities to reference old situations and develop imagery that seems random at first.
For example: A random orange plush cat shows up in the first episode, randomly of course. Then Sakaki has a dream where she meets Chiyo's father, who happens to look like that orange plush cat. Then, Osaka buys Chiyo that exact plush cat for her birthday, and Sakaki mentions that it's the dad of the plush animal that she gave Chiyo. Then, for one of the culture-festivals, the class makes a 'stuffed-animal cafe, where a hat shaped like that plush cat is part of the uniform (and called daddy-hats by Sakaki), and eventually other people begin imagining Chiyo's father as the stuffed cat. And all of this develops over the course of the series.
3. The oddness stems from the characters' themselves, not the world around them. The weirdest things: The aforementioned plush cat, Osaka's belief that Chiyo's pigtails allow her to fly, etc. stem from a character's inner thought process. Even events that aren't tied to a character's perception seem to happen due to an immutable law revolving around a certain character. Sakaki loves cats, but cats don't like her. So it's a law that any cat she tries to pet will try to bite her, or at least run away from her. Tomo feels compelled to antagonize everyone.
I don't know if that makes sense...but I did my best.
