Key takeaways from Manga Recommendation of the Week – Azumanga Daioh
- Azumanga Daioh is a short and sweet comedy SOL manga that follows the daily lives of a group of eccentric high school students and their child-prodigy friend Chiyo.
- The manga is full of hilarious situations and interactions between the characters, which are the heart and soul of the series.
- Although the art may feel dated to some readers, Azumanga Daioh’s good plot, great characters, and entertaining story make it worth reading.
I found out about this manga fairly recently. And it is a short and sweet comedy SOL. One of the OG high school comedies ever. Azumanga Daioh delivered exactly what I expected out of it and I had a lot of fun reading it. Wholesome high school comedy; really reminded me of Non-Non Biyori in a lot of aspects.
So welcome back to another edition of our manga recommendation series! This week we are talking about Azumanga Daioh! A series I found out about recently and really enjoyed reading. I love comedy mangas and this was funny as hell. So let’s talk about it today!
Introduction
Azumanga Daioh is written and illustrated by Azuma Kiyohiko. The name of the manga is a fun play on words as it was published in the Dengeki Daioh magazine. The manga was serialized from January 1999 to March 2002. It has 69 chapters (nice) compiled into 4 volumes. So it’s a pretty short manga.
Plot
Azumanga Daioh follows Chiyo Mihama, a child prodigy who got promoted several grades. She soon makes friends with a group of eccentric individuals and the series is an episodic comedy based on the daily lives of Chiyo and her friends.
Simple enough plot right? That literally all you need to know about this series, with that much background info you can basically go and pick up whatever chapter you need to read. This series is absolutely hilarious though. The way it puts the characters in different situations to elicit certain responses from them is really fun to read.
Characters
As I mentioned earlier, Azumanga Daioh is full of eccentric characters. We have our child prodigy MC, then we have Sakaki who’s intimidating but sweet, Tomo who’s kinda annoying, Osaka who’s a bit weird and great at solving riddles somehow, the tomboy Kagura and the bad singer Yomi. This combination of characters makes for some really fun interactions and they are the heart and soul of this series. These characters are what make the plot work, they are the reason why this series is so good.
Art
The art unfortunately feels quite a bit dated at this point. Now I am not saying bad, it’s just dated. I’m not someone from that time, so it took me a moment to get used to the art. Art is down to personal preference though, so you may like it more than I did. Again, I don’t hate the art style, it’s just an art style I’m not too used to seeing.
Why should you read Azumanga Daioh?
Quick pointers on why you should read this manga:
- Good plot
- Great characters
- Really entertaining
- Short and sweet
Conclusion
That is all for now. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. I really enjoyed my time with Azumanga Daioh and I’ll probably read it again in a while hehe. With that said, I’ll take my leave here. See ya!!
