Azuma Kiyohiko - Azumanga Daioh, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.)
This is a complete collection of a lot of four-panel comic strips (yonkoma or 4-koma) on the lives of six girls through all three years of high school. I was a little skeptical at first as to how much character development could happen in four-panel strips, but then, I remembered just how much I loved Calvin and Hobbes and decided to give this a try.
It's slow going at first: lots of gags, lots of breast jokes (very disturbing coming from Yukari, one of the teachers), lots of repetition. But then, gradually, the characters grew more and more familiar. There's ten-year-old genius Chiyo-chan, adorable and rich and happy; solemn Sakaki, who adores cats but always get her hand chomped on by them; sporty Kagura, who is the one I am least clear about; bespectacled Yomi, perpetually annoyed by some of the gang; spacey Osaka, who totally reminds me of Orihime in Bleach; and bouncy Tomo, who makes up in energy and volume what she lacks in common sense and brains. And there are the teachers, Yukari and Nyamo, who seem a little like a grown-up version of the Tomo-Yomi friendship.
Sometimes the humor goes right over my head, or it's too zany, or I roll my eyes at the breast jokes (which thankfully become less common as the series goes on), but I was surprised to find how engrossed I became. Absolutely nothing big goes on, except possibly college entrance exams; even finals and midterms don't take up that much page-time. But the everyday is part of the charm, particularly when the girls start talking about completely stupid or trivial things. It really does remind me of hanging out in the breaks between classes. And while there's the ever-present sports day and the school festival, here it's less a cause for shoujo hijinks and more a part of the school year.
I particularly love that it ends with graduation, unlike Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin is perpetually in first grade. It makes the repetition of summer vacation, winter vacation, new semester, school festival, sports day, and etc. more meaningful, and it made me fondly reminisce about my own class trying to win our school's field day or coming up with increasingly inane ideas for the school festival. There's just a rhythm to the school year that Azuma captures.
It's interesting; this didn't impress me that much when I was reading, but it grows in my memory. I think this will end up being a particularly comforting reread.
It's slow going at first: lots of gags, lots of breast jokes (very disturbing coming from Yukari, one of the teachers), lots of repetition. But then, gradually, the characters grew more and more familiar. There's ten-year-old genius Chiyo-chan, adorable and rich and happy; solemn Sakaki, who adores cats but always get her hand chomped on by them; sporty Kagura, who is the one I am least clear about; bespectacled Yomi, perpetually annoyed by some of the gang; spacey Osaka, who totally reminds me of Orihime in Bleach; and bouncy Tomo, who makes up in energy and volume what she lacks in common sense and brains. And there are the teachers, Yukari and Nyamo, who seem a little like a grown-up version of the Tomo-Yomi friendship.
Sometimes the humor goes right over my head, or it's too zany, or I roll my eyes at the breast jokes (which thankfully become less common as the series goes on), but I was surprised to find how engrossed I became. Absolutely nothing big goes on, except possibly college entrance exams; even finals and midterms don't take up that much page-time. But the everyday is part of the charm, particularly when the girls start talking about completely stupid or trivial things. It really does remind me of hanging out in the breaks between classes. And while there's the ever-present sports day and the school festival, here it's less a cause for shoujo hijinks and more a part of the school year.
I particularly love that it ends with graduation, unlike Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin is perpetually in first grade. It makes the repetition of summer vacation, winter vacation, new semester, school festival, sports day, and etc. more meaningful, and it made me fondly reminisce about my own class trying to win our school's field day or coming up with increasingly inane ideas for the school festival. There's just a rhythm to the school year that Azuma captures.
It's interesting; this didn't impress me that much when I was reading, but it grows in my memory. I think this will end up being a particularly comforting reread.