Azumanga Daioh
Azumanga Daioh is a Japanese comedic manga by Kiyohiko Azuma. From 1999 to 2002, MediaWorks serialized it in the shnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh and collected it into four bound volumes. In May 2009, in celebration with the manga's 10th anniversary, three additional chapters titled Azumanga Daioh: Supplemental Lessons began serialization in Shogakukan's Monthly Shnen Sunday. The manga is produced as a series of vertical four-panel comic strips known as yonkoma and portrays the lives of a group of high school students over the course of three years. The series has been lauded for its unique character-driven humor, and Kiyohiko Azuma has been hailed as the "master of the four-panel genre" for both his graphic style and comic timing. It was adapted by J.C.Staff into the anime television series Azumanga Daioh: the Animation, which ran from the week of April 8, 2002 through the week of September 30, 2002. It was broadcast on the TV Tokyo network and AT-X in five-minute chunks each weekday, then rerun the following weekend as a 25-minute compilation, for a total of 130 five-minute bits over 26 episodes. Starchild Records released the compilation episodes on DVD and Universal Media Discs; the five-minute portions are identified by their own names. Several soundtrack albums and three Azumanga Daioh video games were released.
Released: 2002-04-08