[.ca] Azumanga Daioh - Volume One with Box

The cover describes it Perfectly.:
Azumanga Daioh is really funny from time to time. As the other reviewers have said, nothing much really happens; it's just everyday Japanese high school. Everything is either leading up to a big humorous event, or IS the event. There's pretty much no emotion between the characters beyond simple friendship or enthusiastic, passing rivalry. It Is fun at first, but it gets tedious. It uses a lot of empty space (ex: "Did it cure your hiccups??" *long pause..."Hic!"*), which builds things up for a good laugh, but doesn't leave much room for other events. If you think you're okay with an anime that looks pretty good, has all the old cliches (sweat drops, jests about (...) size, a cat that appears now and again, the "impossibly good student", the cute girl, the quiet one), and is really hilarious once or twice an episode, then go ahead and get this one. Me personally, I'd prefer it if some sort of plot would develop. It's been compared to Seinfeld...close, but not quite. Seinfeld has a lot of overlapping events and deals with an immense amount of situations, tying it all together at the end. Azumanga Daioh only covers that high school scene and goes in a straight line, with No Other Purpose but to make jokes. Sometimes, even humor gets old, when there's nothing else to back it up. Put simply: there are (basically) no males, there is no main character, there is no point. A few good laughs, is that worth $27.00? I guess that's for you to decide.

The Beast who cannot be named...is sooooo cute!:
No one, and I mean no entity in all the planes of existence, does cartoon insanity the way our friends in Nippon do cartoon insanity. I have friends who generaly prefer mixes of the bizare and childlike...and they ended up as puddles. Buy this demonically cute and singularly surreal work, buy it and be afraid to say 'what the HELL!' for fear that HELL may actually have something to do with it. And trust me you'll want to say: WHAT. THE. HELL?!

Raspberry Heaven:
In just about any type of writing class they'll tell you that it's character that should drive your story and not plot. It's an old bromide that usually doesn't quite make the jump to the silver screen or to television. Azumanga Daioh is proof positive that when handled properly character can indeed drive a compelling story without bombs, killings or giant robots. One might say that Azumanga Daioh is the Japanese High School equivalent of Senifeld. The stories really have no major significance except to the participants in said stories. An anime about a bunch of nothing but in a good way. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to explain how funny the show is because it is character driven. One of the early reviewers described the show's characters and I will not rehash that. But after watching both DVD episodes of Azumanga Daioh I am a big fan and I feel there is no better anime out there now with the heart and humor of this series. Notes: Azumanga Daioh refers to the Creator, Kiyohiko Azuma, Manga=comic book, and Daioh refers to Dengeki Daioh, the monthly magazine the source material was printed in. I guess it would be like me writing a comic for Readers Digest and calling it "LewisComic Digest." Sorta makes sense. Also the music is pretty good (pop and jazzy) in particular the surreal opening and closing theme songs. I really like the closing theme song a lot.

Hilarious:
I had been wanting to see Azumanga Daioh for a while when I managed to get my hands on the first episode. It is HILARIOUS. I know there were some jokes I must have missed due to cultural differences, but it was still funny, so that says something, I guess. Also, the first volume (included in this purchase), at least, has a booklet included that explains some of the cultural references and puns that might be over most non-Japanese people's heads. I also want to add to the reviewer who complained about the dubbing, I really don't know what that's all about. All the voices in English are comparable to the ones in Japanese--I was amazed at how well they matched. I would actually recommend watching it in English, because there are times when the dialogue moves fast, or the timing of something is more important than the words themselves. So unless you're a sub elitist, English is the way to go (not that the Japanese is bad; I don't speak Japanese and therefore have no real right to judge it, but the English is excellent on its own). All in all, very funny and entertaining. Perfect if you've got ten or twenty minutes to kill, but also if you want something fun to watch for a longer period of time.

Azumanga Da-:
When I first saw Azumanga, it came in the form of fansubs. Everyone kept going on about how amazingly amazing it was. And oh boy, is it ever. The original cast is excellent, the animation is flawless. It never ever gets old - Azumanga Daioh is like having your own group of good friends that you can be with whenever you want. So much of it is relateable to everyday life - from Osaka not being able to break disposable chopsticks, to Yomi's diet woes, to Tomo's lost vending machine battle. This particular DVD box set comes with two pins - Chiyo-chan and the biting cat. The pins are nice and big, and the box itself is very pretty. The Amazon price is right as well - you can snag the box set for the same price of the normal DVD at Suncoast. The dubbing... My friend agrees with me that they all sound the same. And there is no possible way you could dub Tomo or Osaka. An Osakan accent doesn't translate into English. The voices are grating and pretty bad, but then, I hate dubbing anyway. It kills so much of the original animation. The only voice I enjoyed was that of Kimura - making him sound more perverted is funny, if not true to the story. Osaka's English VA did not manage to capture her air-headedness at all. Sakaki's English VA doesn't manage to capture Sakaki's nature either. ADV needs to hire more people into their dubbing department cos they all sound the same no matter what show you're watching. By the way, a lot of the cultural or lingual jokes don't translate at all - so unless ADV includes a "translation notes" section for everything, you're going to be missing out on a lot. At the end of the day, however, you're still getting Azumanga Daioh. A show that will make you laugh and cry and long to have friends like these. Even Tomo.