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 sagematt@#animeblogger 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.

When I regard my anime favourites, I see a big gap between the few I consider truly great, and the best of the rest. Azumanga Daioh, Manabi Straight, and Haibane Renmei tower over the crowd of lesser shows like three titans of anime series.

Actually, this picture is obsolete, because I’ve seen Gurren Lagann. I am not quite sure where it fits. Is it as great as Azumanga? Or greater? If so, how much greater?

UPDATE: Steven, here’s the list:

The list is made out of the list of completed series at my ANN list, with a couple dropping out by accident (e.g. To Heart should’ve been there). Vandread represents both itself and Stellvia.

UPDATE: Thanks to Matthew sagematt@#animeblogger for corrections (Ixthil -> Ixtli). And indeed, Meia’s insert was poorly done. OTZ.

MAYBE IMPORTANT: I went through my old notes found that the collage project was started after I’ve read a post by Evirus looking back to Azumanga. It reminded me just how tremendous Azumanga was. BTW, he had some choice words for the evil Ledford regime too.

Gia translates for us the post Kiyohiko Azuma made on the topic.

First of all, he denies a displeasure with Azumanga the animation. Not that I ever believed the rumors, since it was extremely faithful to the manga and translated the spirit well.

But as for Yotsuba, it seems that he is concerned that little details would not translate as well.

でも、「よつばと！」なら、よつばがよいしょよいしょっと階段をおりてきて、てけてけと廊下を歩き、
でんっと玄関に座ってヘタクソに靴を履き、よっこらしょっと重い玄関のドアを開けて、元気よく家を出て行く。
そういう、普通アニメでカットされそうな描写もやらないと、アニメにする意味が無いと思うんです。
で、こういう日常の演技描写はアニメの最も苦手とする分野です。

I’m not sure I agree, but he is the mangaka here, so I defer.

UPDATE: Gia scooped ANN. Way to go, girl! But next time, include the link to the original.

Gia’s article at AnimeVice reminds us about the 10th anniversary of the original manga run. It’s going to be three long years until the anniversary of anime.

Azuma’s manga upon which it’s based is a 4koma comic strip, and in my opinion helped pave the way for later such strips to be made into anime (Lucky Star and Sunshine Sketch, anyone?). Okay, admittedly, it’s not like it was the first– Sazae-san, whose anime adaptation started in ‘69, was a 4koma, as did Di Gi Charat, but still.

It’s a common knowledge that Hiroshi Nishikiori’s seminal work essentially created the genre, but as Gia’s hedges show, things are rarely that simple. Did he, or did he not? I think he did, if we just look at sheer numbers of Azumangesque series before and after, in just few short years. Fair or not, from 2002 on series like Aria and Sketchbook are judged against the Azumanga yardstick. Even Shinbo was unable to repeat the accomplishment, although certainly Hidamari has a lot going for it.

UPDATE: Oh god, Omo Omo Omo. Who does, indeed? The first hit on google is the infamous hater of good anime Charles Solomon:

Although Akari can be a bit of a klutz at times, her existence is so tame and wholesome, it makes “The Bobsey Twins” feel like life in the fast lane. Some critics complained that the popular Azumanga Daioh, like Seinfeld, wasn’t about anything. But the girls in that high school cast acted like real individuals; Akari and her friends behave so well they suggest throwbacks to a ’50s juvenile novel.

Before you tell me that Solomon has no clue, the question was not about the validity of comparisons, but about the certain frame of reference that Azumanga has introduced. Solomon does not build a feature table with checkboxes, he just refers to a part of common knowledge. His message is: you want to understand Aria, watch Azumanga. Which is bogus, since the latter is harder to understand properly than the former. Nonetheless it’s a common way to drive the critique.

In any case, let’s see what Scott VonShilling says about it when he lands Mr. Solomon’s former job.

UPDATE: Answering J.P.Meyer’s question, Charles Solomon is the MSM’s to-go guy for anime. Here’s a blurb of his interview on NPR “Why Is ‘Naruto’ So Popular?” of January 26, 2009:

Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is one of the most popular manga series in the U.S. Madeleine Brand talks with animation expert Charles Solomon about what led the Japanese series to top USA Today’s bestseller list.

Among bloggers, the foremost anime expert in America found his fame with the hate he piled on beloved classics like Shingu in reviews on Amazon. It goes a while back and I may not remember the precise details. It may be his review of Haibane Renmei I’m thinking about. I expected everyone to know who Solomon was, since he’s so odious.

Maybe it’s the way blogs displaced the traditional media, or maybe it’s just our isolated “submarine” living on the blogs, that resulted in VonSchilling being better known than Solomon.

A READER’S TIP: Don publishes Solomon’s Best (including the “languid gay instructor” who IIRC is the one who’s traumatised by the death of his wife). Don is on my blogroll, but I forgot about that post.

According to Tiamat (via), Yen Press is going to re-issue Azumanga Daioh. The interview was dated before April 1.

The ADV release is the only translated manga that I have, so I’m not likely to buy the reprint. But I’m wondering how successful it’s going to be, if the paper is going to be any better (the difference between the quality of the Japanese version and ADV’s print was quite pronounced) and most especially if it’s going to be re-translated.

Oh goodie. Zepy reports:

Azuma Kiyohiko will be doing three all new chapters for the new monthly magazine by Shogakukan called Gessan (short for Monthly Shounen Sunday). These new chapters will also be in the Shogakukan special re-release version of Azumanga which will be recompiled to 3 books instead of 4.

On Mr. Azuma’s own blog, I can only see the mention of republication, but nothing about any new chapters.

Dear Azuma-sensei: you know how much I hate milking and how much I love Azumanga. Quit these enabling violations already, for my sanity. Also, if you keep it up, an OVA cannot be far behind.

When young people fail to appreciate Azumanga Daioh, I usually tell them “wait until you’re 35″. Another truism I’m fond of repeating is how there are two kinds of Azumanga watchers: those who laugh when Osaka loses her soap and those who cry (sadly, I never saw Attack No.1, so I cannot appreciate Kagami’s riddle directly, but it may be something similar). And almost a decade since the show premiered, there are now people who watched from both sides:

I really do need a better way to take this pictures. Anyway to the point, Azumanga Daioh was a series I watched with my sister in 8th grade, and have fond memories of us rolling on the floor laughing our heads off as well as me singing the “Cooking is so fun” song with my friends at recess. I tried to rewatch this series as a junior in high school, just to find that while I was still mildly amused at the jokes in Azumanga Daioh, they were no longer laugh out loud funny for me. However, I had over time developed a deeper understanding of some of the deeper themes in the show – yes, I believe they exist – as well as a deeper understanding of Japanese culture.

What really stuck with me however was the ending of Azumanga Daioh when the first time around I had previously found it lame. What had changed was now 95% or so of my friends were graduating and going on to college, and I actually find some comfort in the ending of Azumanga Daioh as we go our seperate ways. As Chiyo-chan said, it’s not really the end. Not really.

I am not quite certain how much culture Azumanga brings to us, aside from practical things like teaching how to hold chopsticks, but in general I think it’s an indicative testimonial.