| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and
longer works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime
magazines for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| details |
| The Genre: Comedy |
| The Format: 4 volumes of manga from ADV |
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| The plot: Miss Yukari is not your typical
teacher; in fact she acts more like an air-headed
student! But this works well in keeping up with
the odd group of girls that attend her class such
as Chiyo - the precocious 10-year-old high-school
girl, Sakaki the tall and admirable (who also
has an unusual problem with animals), Tomo the
ultimate spaz, Osaka the girl from outer-space
(actually from Osaka), and Yomi the sensible bookworm.
Add in a teacher with an honest and upfront addiction
to high-school girls and a rival P.E. teacher
and you have yourself some Azumanga! |
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| opinion |
| A while back, manga used to really easy to
categorise, because that’s the way it was
written – in categories. There was boys’
(shonen) manga and girls’ (shoujo) manga,
there was boy love (shonen ai) manga for bored
housewives, there was even pervey (ecchi) manga
for the teenage fappinator – in fact there
was a manga for everybody and everything.
But then the bubble burst.
The Japanese economic bubble that is –
you may have heard about it.
And things became a bit muddier.
See, whilst it was possible for all these little
sub-genres to survive quite well in a booming
economic climate, in a depression it was much
more difficult. People didn’t have quite
so much spare cash, so things had to change. Mangas
were needed that could appeal to and be read by
both boys and girls in equal numbers. |
Azumanga Diaoh is one of these ‘new
breeds’ of mangas. Whilst its cast
is almost exclusively female, this serves
both the male and female audience - the
girls are attractive to boys, but they’re
not all big-boobed and bimbo-ish, or endlessly
doting on the men in their lives, so girls
can identify with them quite easily too.
So, for example, there are some vaguely
ecchi bits in Azumanga, but ecchi-ness is
also lampooned in almost equal measure.
The concerns of the girls can be identified
with very easily by both boys and girls
and the comedy, which is the heart of Azumanga,
is of a universal nature.
If you’re familiar with the “daily
cartoons” as I like to call them,
you’ll be interested to hear that
Azumanga Diaoh is of this variety too. By
this, I mean Azumanga has much more in common
with Garfield or Farside than it does with
Spiderman or Batman. |
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That’s not to say that these types of
comics are unheard of in Japan - indeed, the opposite
is actually true, as the 4-panel gag strip is
an extremely common occurrence - but it is unusual
for it to become popular enough to be made into
a massively successful anime, say.
Unlike most of these types of maga, the strip
is not completely random, though. The comic follows
a group of girls as they make their way through
high-school. This is done by having a set number
of strips for each month. As such, year passes
by, and hence the enitre school calendar elapses,
as you read each strip. The strips were also synchronised
to the year, as it ellapses. I’m not sure
if that makes sense, but it’s clear when
you read it.
However, whilst there are some continuing themes
and storylines, there’s no real overarching
plot as such, beyond the whole school-life thing.
The format then, is essentially a gag strip, and
fans of both Garfield and Farside will feel a
haunting sense of familiarity in this sense. |
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As the above probably attests too, it’s
actually quite difficult to describe Azumanga,
but once you’ve read a bit, it’s actually
a pretty simple idea.
The driving thing behind Azumanga is comedy,
so is it funny? Why yes. Yes it is. It’s
very funny. In fact, it made me laugh out loud
on more than one occasion, and that’s no
mean feet.
Saying that, those unfamiliar with the full intricacies
of Japanese life won’t get many of the more
subtle gags. A lot of mileage is made out of Japanese
culture and things therefore don’t always
make sense to us gaijins. Clearly this was of
some concern to the ADV staff translating the
manga and you’ll find quite a few notes
in the back that relate to the translations and
substitutions made. |
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Yes, that’s right, substitutions.
On some occasions the ADV translators have
chosen to replace the original phrases,
dialogue or even whole jokes with what they
considered to be American equivalents. The
debate as to whether this is a good thing
or not is clearly one that the anally retentive
will love, but for me it’s a mixed
bag.
In some cases it works well. Those familiar
with the love the Japanese have for the
humble pun will realise that sometimes,
some things just don’t work when translated
directly. Japanese puns are not like English
puns, as a result of the nature of the differences
in our languages. So for me, the substitutions
made here are a good thing – We get
a similar style of joke, but it’s
one we can understand immediately, and the
real joke is explained in-depth in the back
of the book. |
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However, in other cases it works not so much.
There are a few invented words in Azumanga, and
these have generally been replaced in the manga
by what the translators thought to be equivalents.
And sometimes there elections are not that good.
I also found hey tended to fall into a bit of
a trap of replacing them with real words. The
idea of the original, made-up words is just that
- they were made up, so to replace them with proper
words seems slightly to be missing the point.
As a side note, a comparison of the translations
made for those scenes that appear in both the
manga and its anime adaptation yields some interesting
differences in the attitudes taken.
I think you can see though, that considering
my only complaint is an anal one about a minor
translation issue, I love this manga.
On the more visceral front, it’s a nicely
put together package. It’s only 4 volumes,
matching up with the years covered, each one is
nice and thick and it’s physical taller
and wider than most manga volumes. It generally
gives off an air of being done with thought, care
and attention, and I really have no complaints. |
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| summary |
| The Summary: Hilarious and heart-warming all
at the same time – I couldn’t put
it down. |
| The Score: 5/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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