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You Belong
A comedy series based on the manga of the same (meaningless) name**, Azumanga Daioh is the rather disjointed and occasionally surreal story of several Japanese high school girls and two of their teachers. Episodic to the point of being sketch comedy, the show has little in the way of a coherent storyline, preferring to set up and deliver what amounts to the animation equivalent of several daily comic strips per episode. Its ensemble cast includes a half-dozen or so schoolgirl characters that (mostly) tend to defy the usual stereotypes, and the two female teachers with whom they interact most often are little more than grown-up children themselves.
Azumanga Daioh has been described as " Peanuts on LSD", which seems more or less accurate. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but if you're in the right mood, it can be hilarious.
AzuDai also has a character sheet, Just Bugs Me, Crowning Moment of Awesome, Fanfiction recommendation and Wild Mass Guess pages. In other words, the complete set.
**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:
- 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)
- Bird Run (Subverted: Osaka tries this during a relay race, but it only slows her down.)
- Bishoujo
- Big Damn Heroes ( Mayaa)
- Big Fancy House (Chiyo-chan's)
- Big Friendly Dog (Mr. Tadakichi)
- Blah Blah Blah (Yukari tries speaking to a foreigner in English, which the viewer isn't supposed to understand anyway)
- 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
- Cuteness Proximity (Sakaki. 'nuff said)
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- Festival Episode (many)
- Flanderization (Kaorin's crush, Osaka's eccentricity, Tomo's genkiness)
- 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!"
- "I, ah, wish I were a BIRD!"
- 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)
- Hiccup Hijinks ("What causes hiccups anyway?")
- 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.
- 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)
- Lolicon (Partial — though Kimura prefers the more developed girls, his exclamation of "I like High School Girls!" and open-mouthed stare are still quite disturbing. 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".)
- 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.)
- 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 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)
- The Ojou (Chiyo-chan)
- Ordinary High School Student (and this time she is ordinary)
- 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)
- Romantic Two Girl Friendship (Kaorin and Chihiro)
- Sarashi (in one of the sports festivals in the manga)
- Satellite Character (Chihiro)
- 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 confused to be 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.
- Shrinking Violet (Sakaki very definitely fills the role)
- Standing In The Hall (Tomo, self-inflicted)
- Straight Man (Yomi)
- Strange Minds Think Alike (Osaka and Sakaki in regards to Chiyo-chichi)
- Tall Dark And Bishoujo (Sakaki)
- 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)
- 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)
- The Talk While on holiday a slightly drunk 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.
- Thunder Shock (Sakaki, overwhelmed by the cuteness of a photo of kittens.)
- Token Loli (Chiyo-chan)
- Tsurime (Sakaki and Kagura)
- Two Teacher School (Three Teacher School, technically)
- Ugly Guy Hot Waifu (Kimura)
- 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
- 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)
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