アニ・ノート

DbD:

So what if a series has a shallow premise? Azumanga demolished deeper series on the strength of Chiyo-chan’s and Osaka’s memorableness.

Jason may not see it, but Azumanga is a powerful tale of innocence. In addition, while in most series innocence is framed by contrast, usually over time, heroines of Azumanga do not have leave it behind and there’s no story of loss of innocence, which lesser anime have to deploy whenever they engage the theme.

I want to remind everyone that this is not English literature class. You get no points on Derailed for analyzing anime like To Kill A Mockingbird.

Ah, but doing it sometimes helps against errors of judgement (of course everything can be taken to an absurd degree, but at least I do not call Azumanga shallow).

Excerpting the piece would not give it justice. What I really should be do is to save it, in case he has to hop domains again.

My own analysis was rather pedestrian; I observed that pieces Scott liked are almost exact inversion of pieces I liked, and since my pieces are in the majority, I liked the whole thing more. Nobody is at fault, and we move on. Owen goes much further and digs much deeper.

Aside from Lucky Star, I have to say that the color bar was rather simplistic, if not outright deceiptive. Azumanga Daioh is known for its non-comedic value, as well as comedic; this is why it’s a beloved classic. Owen never acknowledges it, because it would distract from his main argument.

Once set on this path, he proceeds to spin things his way, which ultimately detracts. For example, Azumanga’s cast is not “large”: Sakaki and Chiyo, Tomo and Yomi, Osaka and Kagura, Chihiro and Kaorin, Nyamo and Yukari, Mr. and Mrs. Kimura: 10 people all told. Lucky Star opens with a smaller cast, but then snowballs into what we see in the OP, plus adults. He didn’t need to open these small gaps in the story about “Diehard Haruhi Fan Fails To Get The Same From Lucky Star, Writes Scornful Post About His Experience.”

There’s going to be a continuation. Quick, what blogger liked Hidamari but not Lucky Star? Same question about Sketchbook

Calaggie was rushing into Scott’s camp of Lucky Star appreciation and added the following tidbit, no doubt useful to establish credibility:

I simply have no intention of watching Azumanga ever again because I’ll see the jokes and their setups coming from a mile away and thus would be wasting my time.

I’ve seen Azumanga more than 25 times, but I suppose the above was a timely reminder to do it again.

Oh goodie.

You dumb shits do not deserve making cameos like that (no disrespect to Kusano, obviously — she’s only a victim of her scriptwriter).

UPDATE: Matthew says that it’s not a penguin, but a wagtail (aka 鶺鴒【せきれい】 or трясогузка). Get it? A clever pun on the Sekirei, if so. But I’m not sure I agree, the tail wasn’t wagging all that much, and the color scheme seems a bit off.

MORE: Aroduc produced a picture of the Japanese version:

But this is what I had in mind:

Who knew that Japanese sekireis were so… uniformly painted.