 It's the return of one of the most random anime series I've ever come
across. While a few more recent shows have tried to capture Azumanga Daioh's appeal, nothing has quite managed it. This volume starts off normally enough - every high-school show simply has
to have sports fest & culture fest episodes (there seems to be a
law about that somewhere...) - but from there, it gets very strange...
6 - Sports Fest
Let the competition begin, between Yukari & Nyamo, for whose class
can win the first-year sports festival. Yukari has Sakaki on her team,
but Nyamo's class has its own sports-mad student - Kagura. Which team
will win?
7 - Culture Fest
School culture festival time, and the class are putting on a 'stuffed toy animal' exhibition. Just for once, Chiyo-chan's not the cutest thing on display!
 
8 - New Year's Dream Special
Osaka finds out the truth about Chiyo-chan's pigtails, Tomo become a
genius superhero, Sakaki meets a very strange 'cat', and Kaorin gets
some 'quality time' with her idol. Of course, it's all just a dream...
 
9 - Miss Sakaki
Sakaki and cats have a love-hate relationship - Sakaki loves cats, but
cats hate Sakaki. Or at least find her tasty. When Kaorin brings in
photos of her new kittens, it's almost too much for Sakaki to bear...
 
Not much to say about the festival episodes, as they've been done so
many times in so many different shows that it's almost impossible for
them to give the viewer anything new. The highlights of both episodes
are Kimura-sensei's brief appearances ("I want pool water! That the
girls have been swimming in!"), but apart from that they're pretty
missable, especially by AzuDai's usual standards. At least they
didn't put on a cafe for the culture fest - that would have been
playing by the rulebook a little too much.
The New Year Special is something entirely different, however, and
manages to be the weirdest thing I've seen in a while (death by pigtail
& a cat for a father? Poor Chiyo-chan...), and easily the highlight
of the disc. The final episode is a 'Sakaki special' and brings a
healthy dose of 'slice of life' to proceedings.
Two out of four isn't bad, I suppose, but this volume, while having
its highlights, wasn't as good as the first one. 'Average' by AzuDai standards is still 'good' by the standards of a lot of other shows, though, so it's still worth picking up. |
