this screencap is justice, like Light

So after watching the entire season, let’s talk about what I think of Azumanga Daioh. It didn’t improve after the first episode, but considering the pathetic waste of time that was most of the series, I guess that was to be expected.

Azumanga Daioh is, at best, an average show. At worst, it’s like Charlie Chaplin trying to cheer up a little girl post-rape with his legendary slapstick humour, which is technically funny, but really sad when you look at the bigger picture.

The characters tried to be interesting. They’re not like anyone I’ve ever known, and if I knew people who had over-the-top, made-for-anime personalities like them I’d kick them in the nuts. Or uterus. Watching the series’ attempts to be funny was like seeing a clown who, having failed his Degree in Laughology, is trying to make a kid with terminal cancer smile, only he fails big time since not only has the kid got cancer, yesterday his parents died in a car accident and his sister’s in the ICU ward down the hall. With the exception of Chiyo, the entire cast was clich�d shit, and since shit is as shit does I don’t think I need to go into detail (also, because making jokes about shit is, well, shit).

The jokes came non-stop, and since they weren’t exactly funny, I found the series to be grating on my nerves. One reason I didn’t find them funny was because they were forced, and the jokes weren’t an extension of the characters, rather, the jokes were the characters themselves, and when you’ve got a series centred around the jokes instead of the characters the whole thing becomes forgettable. At times I thought they could’ve done with less attempts at stupid surrealism (Chiyo-chichi stuck out like a sore thumb and never was explained, for example) and even more random attempts at moe humour, aka Kaorin and her stupid yuri antics, or Sakaki and her damn cat complex.

The other reason why the jokes just didn’t cut it for me was how everything was too contrived. Everything was setup to have humour in it even if there wasn’t, even Kimura’s antics which would be illegal and considered sexual harassment in real life. The reason why Lucky Star is so funny is because it has humour I could relate to for once, not something so removed from reality like Azumanga that all I could do was laugh at the characters for being a pale imitation of reality, not with the characters for being actually funny. All the Azumanga cast did was make fun of Osaka, physical humour, slapstick humour, make fun of Chiyo’s age difference, more slapstick humour; all with the assistance of two-dimensional characters. Imagine at this point that I’m going to strengthen my argument by comparing an anime series made in Japan for a Japanese audience to a sitcom made in American for American audience, but since straw man arguments are retarded I’ll just digress instead.

this is representative of the awesomeness of DARK KONATA.

Another area in which Lucky Star succeeds but Azumanga Daioh fails is sound. Lucky Star’s focus isn’t on the music, and neither does the music make you feel like you’re watching a bloody musical about high school kids (High School Musical? haven’t seen that though). The same stupid tunes are repeated as a theme everywhere in Azumanga as if to remind you that you’re not watching a high school comedy, you’re watching something that tries to be high school comedy but fails and instead has randomly surreal scenes with sound effects thrown in to underscore its unimpressive mediocrity. One could say that the music, like Azumanga’s characters, are cheesy and lame.

I suggest that if you like Azumanga, own the DVDs, and/or have watched it numerous times and still find it funny, you’re a fanboy that should end your life whenever you get the chance to, if you choose to compare it to a series of an evidently different make whose definition you’re trying to squeeze to suit your argument.

I also suggest that you read Yotsuba&! and laugh at the shit that was Azumanga Daioh, because not only is it still slice of life and comedy, it lacks the high school part and retains only a Chiyo-sque character, which was the only thing that Kiyohiko Azuma retained from his Azumanga cast, which could also imply how Chiyo was the only character worth anything in the series.

What I want to say and have been saying since the beginning of this post is, that comparing Azumanga Daioh to Lucky Star is an obtuse exercise. Obtuse because it’s trying to compare oranges to lemons (ooh, look, I’m working an allusion about the singers of the OP and ED of Azumanga into my analogy, that makes me smart, witty, and funny when I point it out in brackets) — all because they’re citruses and fruit doesn’t make them any similar. And I can’t take back my eight-odd hours of life that I spent watching Azumanga, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Yotsuba&! is still awesome, but I’m by no means a fanboy of either.

P.S. Anyone else didn’t find Azumanga as funny as the fanboys make it out to be? I was definitely one of them; I remember laughing ten times more at Ouran High School Host Club than I did at Azumanga. Am I the only one, please tell me I am so I can feel special with my elitist anime tastes, don’t wreck my day, will you…

P.P.S. My opinion of Azumanga Daioh will never change, so don’t expect me to post anymore about this unless I’m blasting it to pieces as a result of another straw man post somewhere out there in the blogosphere.

P.P.P.S. This was a parody of this post in case you didn’t realise. Few points to keep in mind though: I really hate Azumanga for not being as funny as everyone said it was. My thoughts about Azumanga are representative about what I think of the series, not written for the sake of it. I didn’t watch three episodes of Azumanga either, I watched the whole season before rubbishing it. Beat that.

P.P.P.P.S. Tsubaki, I wouldn’t call it ignorance, more of his inability to come up with a coherent and logical argument for comparing Azumanga Daioh to Lucky Star, which was what his post was centred on. Wait, that’s ignorance too, isn’t it? Well, maybe he’s illogical and ignorant, then.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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