Totally fun. Utterly Bizarre. The picture above suggests nothing to you if you have never seen Azumanga Daioh. But once you have seen it, the expression on Osaka's face speaks of uncharted depths of incomprehension and distractibility!
Azumanga Daioh follows a small group of high school girls in their day-to-day adventures. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be so confused, as Chiyo, Osaka, Sakaki, and the rest of the crew journey through three years at an elite Japanese high school. There are no adjectives capable of expressing the charm of the characters, all of whom are unique and surprisingly engaging. Anyone with a general interest in Japanese culture will find this show captivating.
Azumanga Daioh is just now being released in the United States, with the first DVD available in April 2004. It is also available in Hong Kong bootleg version. The Hong Kong boot has rather nice packaging, passable video quality, and very good sound. The English subtitles are almost useless... in one case, a teacher says "adios", and the subtitles translate it to "goodbye". "Kimono" gets translated repeatedly into "bathrobe". There is also a very good fansub version which is no longer available. Some might want to view Tenchi Muyo, or some other similarly "very Japanese" show in advance to get the cultural background necessary to make it past the mangled subtitling!!
The characters Chiyo, Osaka and Sasaki are brilliantly done. The supporting characters and situations are well above average.
The two soundtrack (OST) albums consist of the opening and closing TV themes, and the roughly 60 musical cues used througout the program. As far as I know, the songs and musical cues are all the work of Oranges and Lemons. There are no songs by the characters on either of the OST albums.
The Album known as "Vocal Collection" consists of LP versions of all the themes, the super-colossal versions of Sarabai Happi Hen and Tsukurimasho, sung by Chiyo-chan, and songs by other characters, including two very nice tracks by Osaka. There is a raging controversy over which song, Tsukurimasho or Sarabai is the cutest song recorded since the beginning of time.
The "Tribute Album" is a real surprise. Excellent acoustic tracks with eccentric instrumentation, including covers of the opening and closing themes.
In order of general appeal, from highest to lowest, I would rate the albums as follows:
Those with a special interest in music and musical cues for Anime may place the OST Volume 1 at the top of the list.
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