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You Belong
A comedy series based on the manga of the same name,** Azumanga Daioh is the rather disjointed and occasionally surreal story of six high school girls and several of their teachers. Being episodic to the point of resembling sketch comedy, and largely lacking serious conflict or drama, the show has little in the way of conventional storylines, preferring to set up and deliver the animation equivalent of several daily comic strips per episode.
Azumanga Daioh has been described as " Peanuts on LSD". Its ensemble cast often defies stereotypes, e.g., with a homeroom teacher who behaves more childishly than her students. Heavily character-driven, its humor, especially in its manga incarnation, often relies on subtle changes in facial expression, running jokes, references to Japanese culture, and jarring shifts into absurdism.
**The title combines the author's name (Kiyohiko Azuma) with the word "manga" and the name of its original publisher ( Dengeki Daioh magazine) — it can be read as the Japanese equivalent of an acronym for "Azuma's Comic Strip For Daioh Magazine" ( Dengeki Daioh being a magazine aimed mainly at teenage boys, the general theme of the strip was to poke gentle fun at the audience's female classmates — "Man, teenage girls are weird...").
This show provides examples of:
- The Abridged Series
- Adult Child (Yukari-sensei)
- Animals Hate Her (Sakaki)
- Art Evolution (It takes a while for Azuma to perfect the designs of the main characters, and by the time he does, his entire style has shifted into a more consistent, rounded appearance. Osaka is perhaps the worst offender during this process, as she doesn't even look like herself until the second volume or so.)
- The recent re-release of the manga in Japan has seen the first volume substantially redrawn, so that the artwork is much more uniform—albeit reminiscent of something else...
- The new Extra Lessons chapters serialized for the 10th anniversary of the manga have backgrounds detailed enough to be worthy of ''Yotsuba&!''.
- Beach Episode (three of them)
- Berserk Button (Osaka's pretty laid-back and easy-going...but DO NOT split your chopsticks improperly, or you'll get the full brunt of her anger, as Tomo found out)
- Best Beer Ever (Yukari)
- Big Badass Wolf (Kagura calls Sakaki a "lone wolf" in one scene, although Sakaki would rather imagine herself as a cute lil' doggy.)
- Big Damn Heroes ( Mayaa)
- Big Fancy House (Chiyo-chan's)
- Big Friendly Dog (Mr. Tadakichi)
- Bird Run (Subverted: Osaka tries this during a relay race, but it only slows her down.)
- Bishoujo
- Blah Blah Blah (Yukari tries speaking to a foreigner in English, which the viewer isn't supposed to understand anyway)
- Blank White Eyes (frequently)
- Boisterous Bruiser (Kagura)
- Book Dumb (Tomo and Kagura)
- The Boo Radley (Sakaki, sort of — she just looks intimidating)
- Boke And Tsukkomi Routine — Tomo and Yomi.
- Yukari tries to preform this in class with Osaka. After asking Osaka who should play the Boke and who should play the Tsukkomi she hits Osaka over the head for saying she should be the Boke.
- In one of the early episodes, Tomo also asks Osaka to be the Tsukkomi to her Boke, despite her protests. She reacts to Osaka's completely unenergetic Tsukkomi with a What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome Blown Across The Room, clearly demonstrating her hyperactive nature.
- Bokukko (Kagura)
- Bottle Fairy (Yukari)
- Bunny Ears Lawyer (Kimura and Yukari are portrayed as competent teachers but do things in school that would make headline news)
- Calling Your Attacks ("Double Chop!")
- Catch Phrase ("A!"/"Ah!")
- Cats Are Mean (Kamineko)
- Chaste Teens (Five post-pubescent high school girls and no romance for any of them)
- Osaka lampshades this in the manga "No one's got a boyfriend to bring along?"
- And in the show, "But neither of you have boyfriends to show off your summer styles to."
- Cheerful Child (Chiyo-Chan!)
- Christmas Cake (Kurosawa-sensei)
- Cloudcuckoolander (Osaka)
- Also Sakaki somewhat. She can spout some weird stuff to the others after one of her Chiyo-Dad imaginings.
- Color Failure (Happens a number of times)
- Corner Of Woe (Kurosawa)
- Cross Popping Veins
- Cue The Sun (YOOHOO!)
- Cuteness Proximity (Sakaki.)
- Delinquents (Sakaki's unintentionally intimidating attitude cause the girls to mistake her for one of these)
- Dirty Old Man (Kimura-sensei)
- Dojikko (Kimura's wife)
- Dreadful Musician (Yomi, though she's more Hollywood Tone Deaf)
- Drives Like Crazy (Yukari is the Trope Codifier.)
- Early Bird Cameo (Kagura)
- Ear Worm (If you can listen to Soramimi Cake without it getting it stuck in your head, you are officially immune to any Ear Worm.)
- "Tsukurimashou~ Tsukurimashou~ Sate sate nani ga~ dekiru kana~"
- Engaging Conversation (Minamo-sensei, give Chiyo a chance to grow up first, okay?)
- Ensemble Darkhorse (Osaka)
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep (Her name is Ayumu Kasuga, but everyone starts calling her "Osaka" by the start of second year. In the anime, she's Osaka within moments of her first appearance once Tomo decides to nickname her.)
- The fans have to look up her name, if they remember at all.
- The school (or at least Yukari) can't remember her real name, either.
- Everythings Better With Penguins (Penguin. Chiyo.)
- Evil Laugh (Tomo, mostly, given her nature, but Yukari can pull off a mean one. See the beginning of the trip to Okinawa arc, she looks about ready to turn into a hag and eat half the class...)
- Ephebophile (Kimura notes he became a teacher because he likes high school girls. In fact, Osaka asks him in the manga whether Chiyo really counts for his liking of High School girls since she's so much more a Grade Schooler. He insists: "High School is High School".)
- Faceless Masses
- Face Of A Thug (Sakaki only looks Tall Dark And Bishoujo)
- Fanservice (Relatively minor but still quite present in the beach episodes; remember who the show's for)
- Some of the "bumper" pages between manga chapters border on pin-ups.
- Yukari even lampshades this in one episode.
- Let's not forget Yomi stripping to her underwear before the opening credits are even over.
- Festival Episode (many)
- Flanderization (Kaorin's crush, Osaka's eccentricity, Tomo's genkiness)
- Foil (Yomi to Tomo, Nyamo to Yukari)
- Four Temperament Ensemble (Chiyo-chan is sanguine, Tomo is also sanguine (showing how two people with the same temperament can be very different), Sakaki is either melancholic or supine, Yomi is choleric, and Osaka is phlegmatic.)
- Genki Girl (Tomo)
- Girlish Pigtails (Chiyo)
- Go Nagai Sideburns (Kagura, though not extremely Hot Blooded, is a Boisterous Bruiser certainly entitled to them)
- Gratuitous English
Yukari: (In the pool) "Oh my god! Unbelievable!"
- "Hallo every-nyan! How-ah you? Fain sank you."
- "Oh My Gah!"
- "Ah, I wish I were a BIRD!"
- "I'M SOWWYYY!!!"
- "Mai waifu!"
- Yukari has an entire monologue full of this in episode 22.
- "HELP ME!"
- Growing Up Sucks
- Hachimaki (Sakaki)
- Hatsuyume (One of the earlier episodes is devoted to the dreams of Osaka, Sakaki, Tomo and Kaorin)
- Henohenomoheji
- Hero Stole My Bike (Yukari in the first episode, while one of her students is trying to fix hers)
- Heterosexual Life Partners (Yukari and Kurosawa-sensei)
- Hey, It's That Voice! (Chiyo's "dad" is Cell, Vicious, and Emperor Charles zi Britannia)
- In Japanese, Osaka has the same seiyuu as Orihime.
- Hiccup Hijinks ("What causes hiccups anyway?")
- Hollywood Pudgy (Yomi)
- Horseback Heroism: Kaorin being saved by Sakaki in the dream episode.
- Huge Schoolgirl (Sakaki)
- I Know What We Can Do Cut (The Hiccup Hijinks plot in "Osaka's Day")
- The Idiot From Osaka (Well, uh... Osaka, though technically her personality is a subversion of the "loud, fast-talking, money-grubbing Osakan" stereotype. And she only went to junior high in Osaka proper.)
- Imagine Spot
- Improbable Age (Chiyo-Chan, the ten-year-old high school girl)
- Insane Troll Logic (Osaka produces enough of this for everyone to go around. Tomo has her moments as well.)
- Inside Shoes
- Jerkass (Tomo is a big fat jerk! As well as her adult counterpart, Yukari-sensei.)
- Jerk With A Heart Of Jerk (Kimura. One of his lines can be paraphrased as "Well, now that I donated $100 to the orphanage, let's go for some peeping!").
- Joshikousei ("Joshikousei toka suki da kara!")
- Kansai Regional Accent: Osaka, though in the English dub, Osaka has a Southern Belle accent.
- Keep It Foreign: In the English dub of the anime, Yukari becomes a Spanish instructor.
- It's the same for the first issue of the translated manga. The second issue got a new localization team and switched to her being an English teacher.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Sakaki loves all animals, but her affinity for cats easily surpasses the rest (even if the love is one-sided)
- Kuudere (Sakaki, natch!)
- Late For School (Yukari, in
the first pretty much every episode)
- Leave The Plot Threads Hanging
- Les Yay (The reason for Chaste Teens. Or perhaps its result.)
- The Linus (Chiyo, acing test after test while failing to understand sexual stuff any teenage girl would know by heart already)
- Chiyo is not a teenager.
- A better comparison would be "any high-school girl".
- Does she still count?
- High school is high school.
- Measuring Day
- Meganekko (Yomi, the Straight Man)
- Mega Neko (the large floating orange cat that may or may not be Chiyo-chan's father)
- Memetic Mutation ("Mai waifu", as first spoken by Kimura when introducing his hot "waifu" to the girls. Used by fans to describe anime or video game women that are, in their opinion, "desirable". Also, Osaka is evil.)
- Moe (The series itself is something you can curl up with, but Osaka and Kaorin are also incredibly cute.)
- Moe Couplet (Sakaki and Chiyo, sometimes Osaka and Chiyo)
- More Teeth Than The Osmond Family (Kamineko)
- My Name Is Not Durwood (Osaka, to the point that almost everyone forgot her actual name)
- Nightmare Fuel (Chiyo's Heroic BSOD after riding in Yukari's car.)
- Today is the first day of the new school term...Hahahaha
- And we almost forgot the time in the first "summer break" episode, where Osaka randomly imagined everyone getting killed off, like in a murder mystery. "And then it turns out... I'm the killer!"
- The message is delivered after that. When Osaka says she's the killer, no one takes her seriously, then she slowly turns her head towards the camera and gives a Psychotic Smirk. Brrr...
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant (Osaka again)
- No Accounting For Taste (The Kimuras)
- Noodle Incident (Love letter!)
- Norio Wakamoto (wishes he was a bird)
- Not A Morning Person (Osaka and Yukari)
- Odd Couple (Tomo and Yomi)
- Oh Crap (Chiyo's is pretty epic. Examples include that time Yukari said the class trip was cancelled and when Chiyo found out Iriomote cats can eat animals as large as her dog, Tadakichi.)
- The Ojou (Chiyo-chan)
- Ordinary High School Student (Yomi, and this time she is ordinary)
- At least when you try to compare her to her other classmates.
- Overly Long Gag (lots of them)
- Pet Baby Wild Animal (Maya)
- Pet The Dog (Parodied when the girls find out Kimura-sensei has a kind wife, a cute daughter, voluntarily cleans litter off the streets and regularly donates to charity... but it doesn't stop them from thinking he's creepy; also played straight with Sakaki's weakness for cute things... Well, almost straight, given her terrible luck with said cute things. Even without that angle, it's actually kind of heartbreaking.)
- Post Episode Trailer
- Pungeon Master (Osaka)
- Sarashi (in one of the sports festivals in the manga)
- Satellite Character (Chihiro)
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Yomi when stressed or irritated, Mr. Kimura perpetually.
- Schoolgirl Lesbians (One-sided: Kaorin really, really adores Sakaki
 , but Sakaki fails to notice.)
- Schoolgirl Rival (Kagura engages Sakaki when she first transfers into the class, and Tomo tries this with predictable results.)
- School Festival
- Seinfeldian Conversation
- Shonen (often mistaken for Shojo)
- Shoo The Dog (Sakaki must do this to Mayaa before leaving Okinawa. He comes back to drive off Kamineko from the streets.)
- Short Anime Movie (a "pilot" literally a few minutes long)
- Shout Out (Tomo idolizes Fujiko of Lupin III)
- Chiyo-chichi's infamous "I wish I were a bird!" comes from a commercial for the Nova chain of English-teaching schools.
- The penguin suit that Chiyo-chan wears in the anime intro is of just the right shade of blue that combined with the eyes looks just like a Prinny dood.
- In the costume couple race in the second year's sports festival, guess what Chihiro disguises as. (partnered with a No Face to boot)
- Shrinking Violet (Sakaki very definitely fills the role)
- Slasher Smile - Osaka
- Slice Of Life
- Standing In The Hall (Tomo, self-inflicted)
- Straight Man (Yomi)
- Strange Minds Think Alike (Osaka and Sakaki in regards to Chiyo-chichi)
- Suspiciously Specific Denial (When the second year starts, Yukari tells her class that she notices a lot of students who were in her homeroom last year, but denies that it's because she doesn't want the trouble of having to remember a bunch of new names.)
- The Talk (While on holiday a
slightly drunk completely demolished Nyamo ends up giving said talk to the girls; given their reactions the next day it would seem she went above and beyond the call of duty.)
- Tall Dark And Bishoujo (Sakaki)
- Tareme (Osaka)
- Tastes Like Diabetes (Chiyo-chan in a penguin suit. Or even just Chiyo as a whole.)
- Tear Jerker (Watch/read through the whole series, then watch/read the last episode/chapters. You will cry. Oh yes, you will cry. You won't believe it.)
- Ted Baxter (Tomo)
- Teen Genius (well, pre-teen — Chiyo-chan)
- The Cuckoolander Was Right (Osaka, here. It may look like a big case of Freud Was Right to some readers, but...)
- The One Guy - Kimura-sensei
- Thunder Shock (Sakaki, overwhelmed by the cuteness of a photo of kittens.)
- Title Drop
- In the first episode of the anime, the logo appears, but then is cut off as it is hit by a baseball and flung out of frame.
- There was another episode where Chiyo is tackled by Mr. Tadakichi (her dog) and then the logo and title are shown/heard.
- Token Loli (Chiyo, though lampshaded and played for laughs)
- Tsurime (Sakaki and Kagura)
- Two Teacher School (Three Teacher School, technically)
- No one wants to remember that one teacher who only appeared in one scene in week/episode 1 and made Chiyo freak out.
- Ugly Guy Hot Waifu (Kimura)
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: While we never get to see for ourselves, it's said that Tomo looks and acts exactly like her father. Yomi is not pleased.
- Also, Karoin and her mom look exactly alike.
- Vomit Discretion Shot (When Yukari throws up after getting really drunk in one episode, a shot of the show's logo hides the act, although we still hear her retching.)
- Wacky Homeroom
- What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome (Osaka, Kagura and Tomo combining their test scores for the sole purpose of beating Chiyo. You'd think they were trying to form Voltron or something.)
- Tomo, because she does not want to pay attention in class at the moment, proclaims herself to be some sort of action girl super spy. She then jumps like 10 feet into the air and flips into a ball. Her friends look up in amazement as she perfectly lands back in her seat exactly as she started.
- The act of breaking chopsticks is made to look awesome a number of times
- Yukari's sea-parting Engrish monologue, raised practically to A God Am I levels
- Yomi's reaction to the buffet in the okinawan hotel. Limiter released!!
- Why Did It Have To Be Cicadas: the new chapters show that Yomi ardently hates cicadas, and is totally paralyzed when Tomo puts one on her back.
- Widget Series (this series is random enough to fit nicely in this category)
- With Friends Like These
- The Woobie (Chiyo, Sakaki, Osaka)
- Woolseyism: Hey y'all, I'm Osaka...
- Yonkoma (the normal format of the manga)
- Tomo Fails Statistics Forever: She attempts to predict which questions will show up on a test by randomly selecting questions from a study guide. Her reasoning: either it will be on the test, or it won't, so there's a fifty percent chance either way. This works about as well as you'd expect it to.
- They didn't fail. Their scores added up to 103%.
- Zettai Ryouiki (Yomi)
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