Short review, today, on a short volume of short vignettes about a short period in one’s life.
Well, here we are at the final volume of Azumanga Daioh, and as with my first viewing, I’m kind of bummed. Only this time, I know why.
This entire series, which up to now has focused on goofball comedy, all of a sudden gets entirely too maudlin for me at the end.
Well, that, and there’s only three episodes on the DVD.
BUT, we do get those excellent liner notes, another pin (Of a cat! How unexpected!) This time the pin is Maya, the Iriomote cat which adopts Sakaki-san. – something that, while I won’t wear, at least *liked*. And we get the Azumanga Daioh mini-movie as an extra on the DVD, which was nice, but still not nearly as funny as the TV series was.
Lastly, in the final few moments of the story, we get one last shot of yuri obsession, as Kaorin spends a tense moment trying to explain, rather urgently, just how *important* it was that she get a copy of that picture Tomo took of her and Sakaki-san. ^_^
It’s nice to know that I can visit this crowd whenever I’m in need of a laugh, and overall, ADV did a reasonable job with it. Thumbs up for this last volume in this excellent series.
Final Ratings for Azumanga Daioh on DVD from ADV:
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Art – 7
Music – 8
Translation – 8
Extras – 9
Yuri – 8
Overall – 8.5
A very worthwile addition to any anime (and Yuri) fan’s collection.
A nice series, all in all. I enjoyed watching it a lot. I think it’s sad though that Kaorin doesn’t get more than a picture out of all these years of fawning over Sakaki. Of course it all might have gotten a bit too serious if there had been some sort of confession, but I still felt sorry for the girl. Perhaps it reminded me a bit too much of all my own hopeless crushes ;)