Azumanga daiô 

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

Stars:

Tomoko Kaneda, Yuki Matsuoka, Chieko Higuchi

Cast

Series cast summary:
Tomoko Kaneda	...	Chiyo Mihama 26 episodes, 2002
Yuki Matsuoka	...	Ayumu 'Osaka' Kasuga / ... 26 episodes, 2002
Chieko Higuchi	...	Tomo Takino 26 episodes, 2002
Rie Tanaka	...	Koyomi 'Yomi' Mizuhara / ... 26 episodes, 2002
Yu Asakawa	...	Sakaki 26 episodes, 2002
Akiko Hiramatsu	...	Yukari Tanizaki 23 episodes, 2002
Sakura Nogawa	...	Kaorin 22 episodes, 2002
Houko Kuwashima	...	Kagura 20 episodes, 2002
Aya Hisakawa	...	Minamo 'Nyamo' Kurosawa 20 episodes, 2002
Akane Omae	...	Chihiro / ... 18 episodes, 2002
Naoki Yanagi	...	Male Student A / ... 16 episodes, 2002
Kôji Ishii	...	Kimura-sensei / ... 15 episodes, 2002
Ryôko Nagata	...	Female Student A / ... 12 episodes, 2002
Hiroyuki Yoshino	...	Male Student B / ... 11 episodes, 2002

Storyline

An animated series based off of the four panel managa of the same name, Azumanga Daioh is a whimsical, hilarious and very cute look at the lives of an ecclectic group of high school girls and their teachers at a Tokyo high school. As the series progresses, small bits of their lives are shown, slowly painting a bigger picture as the cast shares the ups and downs of high school life, revolving around a close-knit friendship and a lot of silliness.

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Plot Keywords:

older actors younger roles | girl | school | teacher | high school | 

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Taglines:

School goes crazy

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Genres:

Animation | Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

8 April 2002 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Azumanga Daioh

Company Credits

Production Co:

Genco,J.C. Staff

Technical Specs

Runtime:

24 min (26 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo (Japanese version) Dolby Digital (English version) (Dolby Digital 5.1)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

4:3

Did You Know?

Trivia

Episode #21, there was a name Tomoko Kaneda (the voice of Chiyo-chan), amongst staff list of key animators. What drawing she did was never revealed, though it is suspected that it is the depressed Chiyo-chan scribble at the start of the episode

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Quotes

Male Student 1: Hey, who do you think is the cooler teacher? Miss Kurosawa or Miss Yukari?
Male Student 2: Come on, that's a no brainer!
[Yukari walks up behind Student #1, out of his sight but in #2's]
Male Student 2: Nnh... Miss Yukari, of course.
Male Student 1: [laughs] What are you, a comedian or something?
[Yukari laughs along with the two of them and knocks them senseless with a binder]

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Connections

Featured in AMV Hell 3: The Motion Picture (2005)

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Soundtracks

Ending Theme
"Raspberry Heaven"
Lyrics by Aki Hata
Music and Arrangements by Yoko Ueno
Vocals by Oranges and Lemons

User Reviews

Cutest show, *ever*!

I could not possibly have the power of words to describe the levels of cute this precious series soars to. I've watched the entire series in fansubs, and when I see it, I smile, and smile, and smile.

Azumanga Daioh covers the lives of six (or seven, if you count Kaorin) girls and three of their teachers as they make their way through high school in modern Japan. Originally adapted from a four-panel comic strip, the series runs for 26 episodes and spans the entire three years for the students.

Possibly made from the sweetest mix of Pixie Stix sugar, the series was made to be kawaii-cute, and it knows it, but it never quite divulges in it (well, the Chiyo-chan penguin skit maybe), rather taking it as just another fact of the series and building deep characters around its premise. There's Chiyo, a privileged girl who entered high school at ten years old and is therefore insanely small comparitively, but is the cutest character from the series. There's Osaka, who is not really named Osaka but came *from* Osaka, and so was named that way; she's a little slow, but charming nonetheless. There's Sakaki, the tall, reticent girl who is fantastic at sports but wants nothing else than to be surrounded by fuzzy kittens all day (but has horrible luck with a homicidal cat), Kaorin, the girl who has an enormous crush on Sakaki but is instead stalked by the creepy Kimura-sensei, the classics teacher with roaming eyes and a continuously slacked jaw, and Kagura, the insanely competitive rival-but-friend of Sakaki and perhaps the most outspokenly athletic one of the group. There's Yomi, sensible and calm but self-conscious about her weight, and Tomo, the overambitious girl who has gone to school with Yomi all her life. And then there are Yukari-sensei and Minami-sensei, the two old schoolmates-turned teachers who lead (or sometimes just provoke) the group.

The episodes mainly just delight in exploring the characters' personalities and seeing what happens. It's very Seinfeld-esque in the way that the show never quite focuses on one theme or storyline as its central plot device; rather, we just catch snippets of the years and watch the girls grow up. I was very sad that there were only 26 episodes... I even found myself getting a little teary-eyed near the end of the last episode. I wish there were more shows like this.