History YMMV / AzumangaDaioh

** Yukari and Nyamo are often the BetaCouple to most other couples, due to their VitriolicBestBuds dynamic and implied history making them great foils to the others.

** Inversely, people who ship Sakaki/Kagura will usually ship Kaorin with Chihiro, usually playing on Chihiro pining for Kaorin but silently supporting with her crush on Sakaki anyway.

** Due to the series' most popular couple being split between Sakaki/Kaorin and Sakaki/Kagura, people who ship Sakaki/Kaorin occasionally pair Kagura with Tomo or Osaka instead, due to their connection as the Knuckleheads (with Tomo and Kagura both being fixated on Kagura in different ways). If they also ship the second most popular couple Tomo/Yomi, then Kagura/Osaka basically invokes PairTheSpares.

** Due to the split between Sakaki/Kaorin and Sakaki/Kagura, people who ship Sakaki/Kaorin occasionally pair Kagura with Tomo or Osaka instead, due to their connection as the Knuckleheads (with Tomo and Kagura both being fixated on Kagura in different ways). If they also ship the second most popular couple Tomo/Yomi, then Kagura/Osaka basically invokes PairTheSpares.

* FanPreferredCouple:
** Sakaki was the fandom's "go-to" girl for shipping fics, where she was usually paired off with Kagura, playing off from the latter being an UnknownRival to the former. After the anime's heyday, Kaorin became the go-to character to ship Sakaki with, thanks to the former canonically having a crush on the latter.
** Yomi seemed to be their second favorite and was almost exclusively paired with Tomo. They are canonically best friends, after all.
** Yukari and Nyamo are often ShipMates with most other couples.

* PopularityPolynomial: While not quite at the same heights as it was in the early-to-mid-2000s, the series picked up a greater following on social media at the start of the 2020s after undergoing a slump in the 2010s due to SeinfeldIsUnfunny. In particular, a [=TikTok=] account dedicated to the series, azumemes, quickly became popular and gained over ten thousand followers. This can partially be attributed to nostalgia, but many of the series' new fans are people too young to have experienced its heyday, who instead appreciate how relaxed and refreshingly low-key the series is compared to its modern day counterparts.

** Mr. Kimura had been a BaseBreakingCharacter outside of Japan from the get-go as a result of his characterization as an over-the-top {{ephebophile}} who openly creeps on the female student body (both figuratively and literally). However, during the anime's heyday in the west, his reception skewed mostly in the direction of "he's a creep, but an entertaining creep," being played up as a MemeticMolester and being the source of the term "waifu," one of the most enduring pieces of fandom jargon to this day. However, once the series' popularity dwindled into cult status, his reputation became much more divisive as a result of changing times that brought greater awareness to real-world sexual misconduct in school settings, making characters like him seem overly-flippant and insensitive. Nowadays, while some still hold onto his MemeticMolester image, a significant chunk of readers/viewers see Mr. Kimura as an off-putting relic of the early 2000s' emphasis on bawdy comedy at best.

* HilariousInHindsight: In one of Osaka's dreams, [[Creator/NorioWakamoto Chiyo's dad]] spouts out the iconic line "I wish I were a bird". [[VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend Several years later,]] said wish would come true in the form of Oko San.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The series' sizable PeripheryDemographic leads some people to believe it's a Seinen series — being aimed at teenage boys, it, along with Dengeki Daioh (where the manga appeared), are actually Shonen.
* WidgetSeries: A SliceOfLife SchoolgirlSeries-- debuting at a time when that wasn't particularly common-- with copious amounts of SurrealHumor and Japanese cultural references that wouldn't make much sense to a western audience.

** It's a common headcanon among the fanbase that Tomo has hyperactive-impulsive type ADHD, based on how manic her behavior is even by typical GenkiGirl standards. She's hyperactive, impatient, and impulsive; she often does things solely because she feels like it, or to gain attention, without regard for consequences. She also struggles to pick up on nonverbal social cues and tends to speak her mind regardless of whether it's appropriate or not.

* AdaptationDisplacement: Initially in the series' heyday among Western audiences, the anime was more well known than the manga it was based on. This is likely due to Creator/ADVFilms, the original English licensor, promoting the anime much more than the manga. Nowadays, the manga is at least on equal popularity with the anime; when ADV folded, the manga was reprinted by Yen Press in 2009, while the anime was out of print until Sentai Filmworks picked up the license in 2016.

** Caipirinha[[labelnote:Explanation]]A video of Tomo taunting Chiyo from episode 20, set to the song "Caipirinha" (about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caipirinha the national cocktail of Brazil]]). Since its release, the video has been a popular subject for remixes and edits, incorporating other songs and transplanting Tomo's dance into other situations.[[/labelnote]]

** as shrimple as that [[labelnote:Explanation]]A piece of fan art with Osaka watching a tank of shrimp, captioned "as shrimple as that" after an existing meme, went viral after being used in a 4chan greentext about [[MondegreenGag "stakened eggs".]][[/labelnote]]

** Caipirinha[[labelnote:Explanation]]A video of Tomo taunting Chiyo from episode 20, set to the song "Capirinha" (about the national drink of Brazil). Since its release, the video has been a popular subject for remixes and edits, incorporating other songs and transplanting Tomo's dance into other situations.[[/labelnote]]

** osaker [[labelnote:Explanation]]Recent fan art of the characters, particularly Osaka, will have comical manglings of their names as titles.[[/labelnote]]

** It may be PlayedForLaughs in this series, but imagine riding with [[DrivesLikeCrazy Yukari]] or someone with a similar level of craziness behind the wheel. Someone with a .2 BAC would make a far safer driver[[note]]okay, don't ''actually'' drive while intoxicated, but you get the point[[/note]].

* ValuesResonance: Responsible for the series' LGBTFanbase; as previously stated, this is a series with a majority-female cast that is not objectified or mistreated by the narrative and there is a positively-portrayed sapphic character.

* VanillaProtagonist: Out of the cast, Sakaki and Nyamo are probably the least funny and entertaining, given one is a HugeSchoolgirl ShrinkingViolet whose insecurities are there to make you feel sympathetic as opposed to PlayedForLaughs, while Nyamo is basically the StraightMan to Yukari with few quirks of her own, barring her [[ChristmasCake insecurities about being single]] and implications that her personal life is surprisingly wild (which is only ever alluded to after she gets smashed specifically to keep Yukari from getting drunk).

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: In one manga strip set during the first sports festival, Yukari slides up to Kagura (who, at this point, is still in Nyamo's class) and offers her a loaf of bread. Nyamo stops Yukari before she can reveal what her intention is. Fans are split on whether the joke is supposed to be that Yukari's [[FoodAsBribe bribing Kagura with food]], or if she's [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink laced it with something]] to take Kagura out.

** Sakaki was the fandom's "go-to" girl for shipping fics, where she was usually paired off with Kagura, playing off from the latter being an UnknownRival to the former.

** One aspect that's meant to indicate Yukari's [[{{Manchild}} lack of maturity]] is the fact that she still lives with her mother. In 1999, this would be an obvious flaw from a Japanese perspective, as well as several western countries. After global recession and changing societal standards, it's become increasingly common and acceptable for younger generations to keep living with their parents well into adulthood, thus making Yukari's situation more understandable.

** Sakaki's lack of self-esteem, especially when comparing herself to Chiyo, may seem downright ludicrous to Western viewers -- Japanese beauty standards for women place emphasis on being small, cute, and subservient, aspects which Chiyo embodies but Sakaki does not.

* LGBTFanbase: While not primarily known for it in its heyday, the series has always had a small but notable LGBT fanbase, which became more prominent as the original series fell into cult status. This is owed to its relatively progressive values for the time; with its majority-female cast, it doesn't objectify or demean the girls, and even features a positively-portrayed LGBT character in Kaorin (who openly has a crush on Sakaki, to the point of a TransparentCloset in the Supplementary Lessons, and isn't treated any lesser or differently for it). This is in addition to the ever-present shipping between the cast, with plenty of [[HoYay lesbian undertones]] to go around.

** Everything about [[DirtyOldMan Kimura]]. His [[{{Ephebophile}} self-proclaimed love for high school girls]] is rightfully considered creepy and weird by the other characters and the narrative, but he's still largely portrayed as harmless since he never actually does anything beyond staring and making off-putting comments. While he's supposed to be a comedically unrealistic teacher in the same way Yukari is, it's very unlikely his behavior would be treated so harmlessly and PlayedForLaughs in manga and anime from later decades. It seems that Azuma himself was aware of this, since Kimura was outright [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome omitted]] from the "Supplementary Lesson" chapters written for the 10th anniversary.