Home :: DVD :: Animation  

Anime & Manga
Comedy
Computer Animation
General
International
Kids & Family
Science Fiction
Stop-Motion & Clay Animation
Azumanga Daioh:Entrance

Azumanga Daioh:Entrance

List Price: $29.98
Your Price: $26.98
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Warning: only for a light-hearted time filler.
Review: Azumanga Daioh is basically trying to be a funny portrayal of everyday experiances, but it definatly not as good as I expected.

Each episode is divided into segmants- each about a seperate funny experiance. The laughs are funny but few really make you laugh out loud, and sometimes there is such a long gap between gags that you lose interest. One segmant revolves around Osaka having hiccups and all the girls suggesting differant ways to cure them and it becomes very repeditive: hiccup, try cure, hiccup, try cure, hiccup, try cure... you get my point.

My 12 year-old sister enjoyed it but even she got bored after awhile.

The dvd comes with some nice extras though. A reversable cover and a very good 12 page booklet (explaing some Japanese culture relevent to the episodes)

In conclusion I would only recommend 'Azumanga Daioh' to people seeking a VERY light-hearted laugh and nothing serious at all.

(...)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A show about nothing how good can it be
Review: A show about nothing how good can it be. I mean really this show is about nothing except the lives of these girls in highschool. yes you can get some laughs out of it but you cannot watch it over and over it gets really boring. If you like shows like excel saga that have no story then you'll love this, but if you like story and plot do not buy this it will be a waste of your money. Overall the animation and dubbing is good. The show though has some funny things in it but its not worth buying maybe you should borrow it from a friend or rent it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The cover describes it Perfectly.
Review: Azumanga Daioh is really funny from time to time. As the other reviewers have said, nothing much really happens; it's just everyday Japanese high school. Everything is either leading up to a big humorous event, or IS the event. There's pretty much no emotion between the characters beyond simple friendship or enthusiastic, passing rivalry. It Is fun at first, but it gets tedious. It uses a lot of empty space (ex: "Did it cure your hiccups??" *long pause..."Hic!"*), which builds things up for a good laugh, but doesn't leave much room for other events. If you think you're okay with an anime that looks pretty good, has all the old cliches (sweat drops, jests about (...) size, a cat that appears now and again, the "impossibly good student", the cute girl, the quiet one), and is really hilarious once or twice an episode, then go ahead and get this one. Me personally, I'd prefer it if some sort of plot would develop.
It's been compared to Seinfeld...close, but not quite. Seinfeld has a lot of overlapping events and deals with an immense amount of situations, tying it all together at the end. Azumanga Daioh only covers that high school scene and goes in a straight line, with No Other Purpose but to make jokes. Sometimes, even humor gets old, when there's nothing else to back it up.
Put simply: there are (basically) no males, there is no main character, there is no point. A few good laughs, is that worth $27.00? I guess that's for you to decide.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A slice of pie?
Review: Azumanga Daioh, more than any recent anime, has created a rift in the fan community. Of course, in one corner we have the absolutely rabid fans of the series, and in the other, those who think Azumanga Daioh to be nothing but mindless romp and filler.

That being said, Azumanga Daioh is very much an acquired taste. Alot of it's appeal is held within its genre itself. Rarely done in anime, and even more rarely done right, is the Slice of Life genre. In Slice of Life there are no action scenes, no magical transformations and no huge particle-beam blasting mecha. Instead, Azumanga simply tells the tale of these (primarily) six high school girls.

Of course, it's not any old boring life. The day in and day out of the girls is anything but dull, and is instead a joyous and humourous experience.

Right off the bat, we are introduced to airheaded teacher Yukari Tanizaki, biking to school, late as usual. When her bike breaks down, she simply steals that of a male student passing by. We are then introduced to the main characters: Tomo, the overly-energetic one; Yomi, a bespectacled, mellow young woman rather obsessed with her weight; and Sakaki, a mysterious yet kitty-obsessed girl. Of course, there's always a new student, so we are then introduced to Chiyo Mihama. Chiyo is only ten years old and happens to have the cutest pigtails ever! Before the first episode is over, we meet Ayumu Kasuga, a transfer student from Osaka. She seems to be airheaded, but is just easily distracted -- often by her own mind.

Azumanga Daioh was adapted from a four-panel style comic run in the Japanese serial Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh a couple of years ago, written by Kiyohiko Azuma. The comic was a sensation, and so when the call to produce an anime adaptation was made, JC Staff stayed true to the form of the original Azumanga manga.

Each 25 minute long episode of Azumanga Daioh is composed of five few minutes long vignettes, very loosely tied to one another, though more overarching stories are attempted throughout Volume 2. As such, an episode of Azumanga Daioh will rarely get boring, though some gags do get old after a while.

The character designs by Yasuhisa Kato also ring true to the original designs from the manga, and are wonderfully done, right down to the uniforms. The music (which uses the recorded quite a bit) also fits the series perfectly.

As far as voice acting goes, the English track is okay, but some of the voices don't seem to fit the characters, and Osaka's drawl just gets on my nerves. Though if you have no preference for dub or sub, it wouldn't hurt to give both a try.

Overall, Azumanga Daioh is a welcome and original treat. It's bursting with comedic flavour, but is also a sweet and heartwarming affair, earning the highest rating Amazon allows.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I luv Azumanga Daioh !^^
Review: Eventhough im in the kind of serious and mysterious anime, there's also the lighter side of me!^^ Azumanga Daioh has become one of my favorite action/comedy animes ever! I saw the first episode in the coolest magazine ever called Newtype!I laughed out loud! This anime is about these high school girls(and one 10 year old girl)and their days in high school (yup we know how it is!)anyway its about these girls at school and well, its soo funny and sure it may sound like a dumb plot but seriously it isnt! I would also like to recomend . Hack//Sign if you want a little more mystery and action! but those of us who wanna lol, go ahead, you know u wanna read or Watch AZUMANGA DAIOH!^^ (but if you're not sure go grab a copy of the April release of Newtype with the the Azumanga Daioh girls on the front cover!) hurry!^^ remember, this is Animefreak!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A pioneering anime
Review: Gigantic robots... strange-colored hair... magical girls... none of the above are to be found in Azuma Kiyohiko's /Azumanga Daioh/. Unlike any other anime before it, it has no fantastic story to tell-- no shape-changing, nor bounty hunting, nor hidden metaphorical meaning. It is, quite simply, genius in that it lasts 26 enjoyable and wonderful episodes based only on its characters and how they encounter everyday situations at a Japanese high school. A full ten minutes on this DVD are devoted to nothing more ordinary than a case of the hiccups, and yet, you will most likely keep watching. This anime pioneers a whole new genre, which anime has never seen the likes of before but is well known in the world of fiction; a novel (as opposed to sci-fi). When you remember that fantasy stories preceded the novel in Western literature, this appears to be quite a turning point for anime.

The characters stand out instantly for their quirks. There is Chiyo, the child genius who is hard not to adore; Osaka, the Southern girl whose mind wanders, and yet you will never want to call her stupid; Tomo, who really *is* stupid; and Sakaki, who's great at doing adult things but wishes for something less mature. Interestingly, Yomi, who many would leap on in a more typical anime (i.e., Akametsu) as the "cute" character with glasses, emerges as the most bland, and you only feel sympathy for her because Tomo is quick to tease her. It seems to me as if Kiyohiko is trying to prove some sort of point here.

The animation style divulges from the norm as much as the story. Rather than following the "shoujo" or "shounen" schools of art popular in the 1990s, Kiyohiko draws on iconified, comic strip-like manga art. He is careful to keep his characters' faces and hands less detailed than their outfits, which produces a very cute style remniscent of /Love Hina/ on a good day.

At the end of four episodes, no epic story will have been told, and no adventure will have been started by the characters, but you will feel as if you have gone to school with them for a few months. Hang on tight-- as the series progresses, the feeling will strengthen.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The "Seinfeld" of anime... sort of
Review: Having only seen as far as the 1st DVD in the series, I can confidently say that this stays VERY true to the manga. Anyone who's not familiar with either the manga or the anime doesn't need to know much about this series. It's about 6 high school girls who... y'know... hang out. Of course it's more than that (but not much more). I asked a friend of mine if the series had a plot at all. His only response was. "...well... they graduate...." That puts it best. This is a good series for boys or girls. It's very funny, and I highly reccomend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cooking Is So Fun!
Review: High school is a difficult time for all teenagers - Japanese as well as American. Azumanga Daioh is the story of once such group as they make their way through. This isn't about their serious moments, though, but the laughter and comic situations that make the going less tough. It is a running narrative focused not on magic or monsters, but the daily lives of some odd, but basically normal teenagers.

The series is illustrated by the studios of J.C. Staff, the story is a remake of what the Japanese refer to as a four panel manga. No real mystery about this - in the U.S. we call this a 'comic strip.' Short little scenes with a comic punch at the end. This is a genre which usually makes a very poor transition to anime, which keeps trying to make whole episodes out of the short pieces and stringing the gags together until the humor is painful - and boring.

Not the case here. J.C.Staff director Hiroshi Nishikiori follows a strategy of letting the unique and endearing characters of the story take over and work the story in such a way as to capture both the gags of the manga and the infectious good humor of the story. By deliberately making stylistic decisions that abstract the atmosphere of the action, the artistic effect of the manga is magically preserved.

While Azumanga Daioh is neither deep or sweeping in its scope, one can't help be drawn into the circumstances of the unbearably cute and intelligent Chiyo (who really loves to cook), the overcompensating Tomo, and the other quirky characters that race across the screen. Sakaki is my favorite, quiet, and an excellent sportswoman, everyone around her assumes she is a dominant, strong young lady - when in truth what she wants is to run a flower shop and pet a cat.

Azumanga Daioh is to be admired both for what it is - a fun, feel good series, and for the accomplishment of translating a difficult genre into something immediately accessible as anime. Definitely tops in its age group, and fun for us adults as well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ^_^!!!Alright Azu!!!^_^
Review: i was looking 4 an anime dvd and this is the one!
its funny n very well put together yup its worth the money
My favorite character is chiyo but the hottest is sakaki-san^_^

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better than I xpected.
Review: I've seen a LOT of funny animes, but this one is very original. All the characters are rich in personality but not overly detailed, the music is catchy, the humor is constant yet unexpected. Frankly, I thought this would be just one of many hundred anime I'd go through, but every episode made me like it more & more. After seeing about 5 episodes on Anime Network On Demand, this series was one of the only 2 out of 50+ I really found worth buying.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates