Azumanga Daioh holds kind of a special place for me, as one of the first manga series I discovered at my local public library, and thus, one of the first anime I ever saw that wasn't airing on American TV. This, along with Excel Saga, was one of the titles that made me start seeking out more anime from ADV Films, may they rest in peace. In any case, since Azumanga Daioh was a huge part of my origins, I thought I'd post a short, unofficial review of their origins.

Before the TV anime ever came out, two short films were released online by JC Staff to see if the series would be worth a full investment. It was due to their overwhelmingly positive reception that the show was greenlit, and the first one was Web Daioh. This first film features a plot that’s entirely unique to the series and manga, as well as a much more high-budget animation style compared to what was officially released.

After a catchy opening that features the cast on their way to school, this short features Chiyo-chan, the child prodigy, bringing a video camera into class to film her friends and leave the tape... A VHS tape, ask your parents what that is if you’re too young to know... and Tomo, the class clown, is immediately taken with the opportunity to goof around with it. She steals it from Chiyo, pans around the classroom(getting a hilarious shot of class space cadet Osaka in the meantime) and plays with the zoom settings, leading to some shockingly good visual effects for it’s time. She puts the athlete Kagura on the spot, and gets roundhouse-kicked for her efforts. She then runs away and films the two teachers of the series(thankfully leaving Kimura out of it), including her own teacher Miss Yukari, who’s asleep on her desk. Her response to being woken up is the third big laugh of the episode.

Finally, the episode leaves off on a fourth big laugh that I’m not going to spoil here, and that’s Web Daioh, the pilot episode of the series. I fucking love it. The animation is creative and way ahead of it’s time, the shaky cam has an actual purpose(and it disappears in the final moments, which was a nice touch) and despite it’s short length, it’s really funny. It manages to feature the entire main cast in some way or another, and while two or three of them might not have featured heavily, they still feel like they were acting naturally and playing their roles.

There’s no music, as the scenario calls for realism more than for a BGM, but you do hear the camera’s noises throughout, and the voice acting is on point. With a pilot like this, showing off the full potential of the material, it’s no wonder the show got picked up.

Short review, I know, but it's a short episode.