Azumanga Daioh:Rivals Vol 3

Rating:
Summary: THE GIRLS ARE ALLRIGHT
Review: After a sub-par volume 2, Azumanga Daioh returns to its masterpiece of comedy form in the 5 episodes of Volume 3:Rivals.

The first two episodes are really about the arrival of a new student in the girls homeroom. Her name is Kagura (she was introduced in an earlier episode competing against Miss Yukari's homeroom). Supposedly, she is the best all around athlete at the school and Miss Yukari has transferred her into class just to beat her friend Miss Kurosawa in the coming athletic contest. Unfortunately, the tall, beautiful, and shy Sakaki also has a reputation for being above average in sports. Kagura instantly sees any interaction with Sakaki as a contest that she must try to win. For example, when Kagura and her sit down to eat lunch, Kagura bets she eat faster than Sakaki, then she vows to beat her in softball, etc. She also gets some insight into Sakaki's victimization by cats and tries to help out. When Sakaki learns about a street on TV which happens to be the home of hundreds of cats, she can't hold back and has to travel there on her bike. She might not make it out alive.

Episode 12 is called "Chiyo-Chan's Day" and it is exactly that. The entire episode is seen from her viewpoint, which is a somewhat strange position. Most of the school besides her friends see her as a cute curiosity and don't realize that she is one of the smartest students at the high school. When she runs into some of her former elementary school friends, we realize that maybe she misses being a kid and playing games or simple things like jumping rope. The episode ends with her in a very nice moment nostalgically jumping a rope with Sakaki and her beloved dog. Well, that is, until Tomo shows up!

Episode 13 is about the desperate situation that Kagura, Tomo, and the ever lost Osaka find themselves in. As final exams are coming up, they ask Yomi to help them out. When she refuses, they band together, calling themselves the 3 knuckleheads, and vow to pass the tests without her help. The problem is they are all dumb! Well, I don't know about dumb. Kagura is. Tomo is just to hyper to pay attention, and Osaka's brain is out in space somewhere, telling her to get it together or sleeping.

The last episode deals with the girl's summer vacation. Once again Chiyo-Chan has invited the girls to spend it with her at her beach house. Once again, Miss Yukari and Kurosawa invite themselves along too, even though Yukari left Chiyo-Chan psychologically scarred with her life-threatening driving abilities. This time Chiyo rents a van and doesn't let her drive. In preperation for the trip, Osaka and Chiyo go shopping and there is a funny skit where Osaka gets confused by the difference between escalators and elevators.

Azumanga Daioh is probably one of my favorite animes. It just makes you feel good watching it. The characters are so vibrant and funny, they seem like people you wish you had known. Friendship is the most important thing to these girls. It's not just a girl anime. To me, it speaks to universal jokes and truths that go beyond gender. It also has little absurd surreal twists which never become predictable. I guess the closest American equivalent to me would be if Charles Schulz had set the Peanuts characters in high school. I highly recommend this awesome series that will make a dark day bright for anyone.

The dvd includes a reversible cover and a 12-page booklet with translator notes, Japanese staff comments, and artwork of Sakaki in different clothes. It also comes with a cloisonne pin of Neco Coneco, Sakaki's favorite cat and kitten doll. The dvd itself has production sketches, clean open/close.

This anime was based on a manga by Kiyohiko Azuma which is just as funny as the anime. There are 4 volumes currently available in English.

Rating:
Summary: Vol. 3 released early by Best Buy
Review: My wife and I love this series and were planning to pick up Vol. 3 on July 20th. But we were in Best Buy yesterday (July 15th) (...). This series is so funny and sweet and the theme songs are very catchy. Poor Sakaki is so pitiful though!

Rating:
Summary: Vol. 3 released early by Best Buy
Review: My wife and I love this series and were planning to pick up Vol. 3 on July 20th. But we were in Best Buy yesterday (July 15th) (...). This series is so funny and sweet and the theme songs are very catchy. Poor Sakaki is so pitiful though!

Rating:
Summary: About rivals, yes, but more about friends
Review: This collection of 5 episodes makes Azumanga Daioh Collection 3 my favourite. It gives Chiyo-chan her own special episode, introduces Kagura, continues to show Sakaki as a closet romantic, and has some exasperating but funny moments with Tomo-chan.

The trail of dust billowing from wildcat Tomo rushing towards school, eagerly awaiting the beginning of a new school year and a class shuffle opens this collection. The whole gang is reunited, though there is a scare when it looks like Osaka is not in Ms. Yukari's class. However, Kagura, the athletic girl who rivaled the tall Sakaki in the previous sports festival, is now in their class. She's very competitive, but doesn't reckon on Sakaki's quiet demeanor. But she butts head with Tomo, whom she dubs "our school's well-known wildcat idiot," which leads to a string of insults and scuffling between the two-"you know that behinds are more useful than idiots!" Kaorin, Sakaki's admirer, realizes Yukari is planning in advance to win the next sports festival. With Sakaki and Kagura, how can she lose?

The episode on Kagura and Sakaki shows the differences between them, Kagura being more extraverted, competitive, tough-minded, while Sakaki is more demure, polite, and gentle. It's Kagura who discovers Sakaki's problem with cats and decides to scare off any cats that approach them. The sight of Kagura going "Garrrh! Garrh!" is sort of cute, as is a sequence when Sakaki, trying to get the biting cat off her hand, accidentally slaps the cat right on Kagura's face. Sakaki on the other hand, is torn between showing her true colours of being a girl who loves cute things and trying to retain her cool front, for which Kagura admires her. But Kagura and Sakaki share a concern for Chiyo-chan, especially when the latter is hit by a fly ball pitched by Kagura and hit by Sakaki. Sakaki forgets running bases and rushes over to Chiyo to see if she's okay.

The Chiyo-chan's Day episode, which was a special in the second manga collection, details a day in the life of Chiyo-chan from her POV. From the time she gets up early to make her own school lunch to classes, to helping clean up the classroom, doing her homework, and taking her dog for a walk, Chiyo-chan, despite her 11 years of age and a junior at high school, proves to be a responsible, lovable, enjoying time spent with her friends, and wants to work hard on her swimming without using a kickboard.

More than ever, she and Sakaki have gotten closer due to the latter's fondness for Mr. Tadakichi. Sakaki's like an older sister, tall, quiet, and kind, but there's a magical moment at the park, when recalling an earlier mention of Chiyo missing doing jump rope, Sakaki holds one end of a jump rope, Mr. Tadakichi the other end, to the delight of Chiyo-chan.

The episode on finals is among my favourite. Yomi, fed up with Tomo not making an effort to study, refuses to help her. After calling Tomo, Osaka, and Kagura numbskulls, the three pool their efforts to study, to no avail. Osaka has two great moments, one involving Bruce Lee, pronounced Blue Three. She wonders what happened to Blue One and Two and wonders if Jackie Chan is Blue Five. A bird flutters down on her head before flying off again. Birdbrain, I wonder? Later, she aggravates her teacher by asking her that since American families don't take their shoes off, what happens when they step in dog poo and walk around the house. The three end up getting really bad grades, but their combined total scores are 103, to which they respond to Chiyo-chan's 100%: "42, 30, 31. All total, 103. The knuckleheads win! We ain't knuckleheads no more!" They then do a loopy dance and hooting that left me wondering which one was Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Tomo's carefree character is best seen in the finals episode. When both Yomi and Chiyo tell her she should try harder before exams, Tomo laughs it off, saying "I haven't been doing anything after all this time, so there's no point to start this late in. What will be will be." She then laughs heartily. Later, she says that despite being saddled with academic disadvantages, that things will work out in terms of passing some entrance exams.

As for Yomi, she is the most mature and responsible of the group, but it takes Tomo-chan's antics or even calling her "baka" (Japanese for stupid) to get her goat, which involves a verbal or physical altercation. In fact she beans Tomo on the head with an eraser when the latter's sweeping sprays dirt on her. Her telling her friend to get on the ball is all in vain.

Finally, it's another summer vacation at Chiyo-chan's summer house, where there's a nearby festival, giving us a chance to see the girls and their teachers in colourful yukata, or summer kimonos. And in this episode, we learn it's just as bad to get Ms. Kurosawa drunk on sake, as she proceeds to tell them about male-female relationships.

Art studies include that quiet romantic Sakaki, and her admirer Kaorin. The magic continues!

Rating:
Summary: Still got it
Review: This volume focuses on the first part of the girls' second year of high school--and on their developing relationships with one another. 'Rivals' is certainly an apt title.

After the class shuffle at the start of the second year, the girls of the first two volumes are still together in Miss Yukari's homeroom class, but with a new addition: the all-star sports girl with the flashy tan lines, Kagura. She sees athletic, smart, uber-cool Sakaki as her rival, but finds more of one in the school's famous Wildcat Idiot Tomo--while Sakaki's main rival is her own desire for all things cute, especially cats (and the sharp-toothed Kamineko). Long-suffering Yomi now has to put up with THREE knuckleheads (that's plural, with an S), Tomo, Kagura, and hopelessly spaced-out Osaka (who finds more of a rival in a mall escalator than anything). Kaorin remains with the class and her beloved Miss Sakaki, but is still unable to shake off her perverted rival, Mr Kimura. Of course, the old rivalry between Miss Yukari and PE teacher 'Nyamo' Kurosawa is still ripe. And Chiyo's rival--the Yukarimobile--while lacking in a physical appearance on this volume (Chiyo took steps to insure this) still makes its impact felt even nyaow.

With its trademark brand of random, offbeat, often laugh-out-loud comedy, this volume will certainly not disappoint fans of the first two. The English dubbing remains excellent all around, especially Christine M Auten, who, despite few lines as Sakaki, delivers each with perfect timing and inflection, and the always outstanding Luci Christian as the always insane Miss Yukari.

Also included in this volume are, of course, the nifty reversable cover (featuring Sakaki this time), the booklet with translator's notes (which I'd recommend reading beforehand and keeping close at hand for quick reference), and a Neco Coneco pin that would make Sakaki giddy with glee.