Azumanga Daioh 2002

First and firemost, I must say that the series changed drastically my perceptions of humour in fiction. Before watching it, I always thought that the comedic effect of one joke was sort of independent from the context, so a line could be funny without the need of setting it in some place or some character, and that only served to add some more quality to what in itself was hilarious. I couldn't do that with "Azumanga" for two reasons. The first one is that most of the series lacks enough sharpness, as it tries a more innocent style of comedy, devoid of satire. The second one is the lack of originality of many jokes, which basically feel like remakes of already beaten interactions in many other works; however, they stood out as improved versions in most of the cases.

So with this series I started to notice some other details. Who said the phrase, which tone they used, the fastness of their talk, in which exact moment it was pronounced, the silences between phrases and interventions of characters, the spatial position of them, etc. I had never seen anything that was so aware of and promoted so much these context characteristics that in other shows only served to increase the enjoyment of an already effective joke. However in "Azumanga Daioh" these kinds of details were simply vital, as they also describe the characters perfectly. To put an example, Tomo always reacts fastly to the other interlocutor, her discourse is fast and rushed, very loud (yelling) and the pacing of the conversation gets also incredibly quick and hysterical; on the other hand, everytime that Osaka takes part in the conversation, the pacing slows down and the atmosphere gets more relaxing, there are lots of silences between phrases or even words, and she talks in a much smoother way... We could say that the comedy in this show is purely character-based. The same lines pronounced by other characters wouldn't have even a little percent of their effectiveness.

And this drives me to the second point of my comment. Like most of you may have guessed, I am going to talk about the characters. Because just saying that they are a cast of likeable personalities is not enough. This is one of the very few shows in which every single character is almost equally likeable to me. Actually, they are not so original and respond to already beaten stereotypes; there is the shy girl (Sakaki), the loud and hyper one (Tomo), the rude but well-intentioned (Kagura), the more mature and irascible (Yomi), the weird and calmed one (Osaka) and the cute innocent little girl (Chiyo)... but these are just the premises. The characters end up getting a development and acquiring new traits during the series, sometimes in a very subtle way, through the jokes or a reaction at a given moment. The series doesn't just stay in the level of "this girl is shy", but shows you how does she see the world, in which way she reacts before specific situations and why. Following with the example of Sakaki, we can see that her, apart from being just "shy", usually has slow reactions, always immersed in her thoughts; for that reason we notice that a lot of people consider her a rather inaccessible person and tend to ignore her, which in the end could explain her insecurity at socializing with the rest. Another characteristic of the series, in fact, is that it holds an amazingly powerful ability to suggest; that is, we can deduce things about the past of a character in connection with the current moment. We can imagine that Sakaki has always had that problem to socialize, and for that reason the reinforcement of her newly acquired friends is so important in her life. And finally, we see that the character evolves, but not in a very obvious way, just standing up and making a decision for the whole group, in a scene that doesn't prepare specially for that. This whole comment is just given by one single character, and I haven't even taken in account what in the end is her most noticeable characteristic in the show: the love for cute things and her conflict with cats.

In regards to this, I think saying that the series is just a chain of hilarious character situations is, again, an error because its qualities are sold too short. That is, leaving aside its humorous qualities, "Azumanga" is, above all, a tale about friendship filled with nostalgia. We could describe it as an idealization, the filter that the passing of time offers and ends up choosing those memories that tend to be more positive of every stage of our lives, forgetting the bad moments and reinforcing the little instants of happiness. The show has been criticized sometimes for not having conflicts -which is not true, although they are mostly easily solved- and, for that reason, being excessively positive; however I think that it transmits very well the feelings that are with anybody who tries to remember other stages of their life with their current perspective.

And why do these girls transmit their friendship so well? I think it's because of their marginal character. During the whole series we see them as individuals isolated from the rest, in fact, for the other students they are weird, unapproachable, absurd, stupid, to sum it up, their friendship works like an alternative world, they tolerate and support each other. None of the girls splits from the group when she is in love with a boy or something like that, they remain always together and in some way they manage to survive through an experience that otherwise would probably have ruined their life for years.

But, apart from this, say, positive simplification of friendship, the series talks about other things, that are many times not given enough attention, maybe because they are commented half in serious, half kidding. In that sense, we have references to their sexual arouse (ridiculed by Kaorin's sudden lesbian rants and Tomo's obsession with the weight of her boobs), the school competitiveness, the exams, the doubts about the future, etc. Whoever thinks that this series can't take anything seriously enough should watch episode 19 (which is the only original one, not appearing in the manga), and tell me how many light comedies speak so clearly about things like labour stagnation or the influence of family and cultural values (the slight sexism of Japanese society, Nyamo trying to find a man before she has past her prime, because otherwise she will never feel fulfilled in life) in the objectives and decisions that one sets in their life. I don't say it is specially critical of the situation, but this, say, awareness, is at the very least surprising, and very uncommon in similarly-themed shows.

I could keep talking about everything contained in this series, which is, in my opinion, a lot more than what the first sight might make it look, but I think I have to stop at some point. For me, "Azumanga Daioh" has trascended, not only as my favourite anime series, but as a work with which I feel a strange and unshakeable complicity. Not just because I understand every character, and I laugh with them, get moved by them, but because, in some way, I feel here reflected many of the feelings and emotions that I, myself, passed through in its day.