Azumanga Daioh/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Crazy Awesome: Osaka
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Whenever Sakaki puts on a serious face, she's preparing to unleash one.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Many. But you're sure to get one every time Chiyo and Sakaki end up spending some time away from their over crazed friends, especially the time when Sakaki slept at Chiyo's house to stay with Mayaa.
    • For Sakaki fans, anything dealing with Mayaa.
    • Graduation ceremony at the final episode, full stop. You might as well feel like crying along with Chiyo.
    • Chiyo and Kagura in episode 19.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The opening and closing themes, as well as many of the image songs. In particular, Kagura's "Ashita wa Makenai! GO! FRIEND!" and Sakaki's "Shin wa Shoujo Parashuuto".
  • Ear Worm: If you can listen to Soramimi Cake (aka "Mondegreen Cake") without it getting it stuck in your head, you are officially immune to any Ear Worm.
    • Hey, no mention of E'ye or E'ye 2; the songs used for the eye catchers during the commercial breaks? If that tune doesn't turn into a ringtone for your cell phone than you officially are deaf to any and all Ear Worm.
  • Epileptic Trees: See the WMG link above.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Osaka, Chiyo-chichi, Kimura-sensei.
  • Fridge Horror: in Episode 5, we are introduced to Yukari's (ahem) driving behavior in a move called Take Our Word for It. Around the end of the episode, summer vacation has ended and the girls are looking through the photo's from their summer vacation at Chiyo's summer home. As Tomo hands the photographs to Sakaki, the girls mention that they notice something behind her on the photograph what resembles a person's head. A few sound effects of a speeding car and ambulances during reaction shots should clue you in. Apparently, Osaka even knew the guy!
    • If Osaka had gone through with what she was going to do with the knife, she would have stabbed her own hand or wrist.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: There's a joke in the supplementary lessons about Osaka thinking it will be a good day because she woke up early, only for an earthquake to rock the school a moment later. By the way, the school is in Tokyo.
  • Iron Woobie: No matter how hard the world tramples on her, Sakaki never gives up trying to be a good person.
  • Leave the Plot Threads Hanging
  • Les Yay: Lots of it, but especially between Yukari and Nyamo.
    • and Tomo and Yomi.
    • Kagura's friendly rival deal with Sakaki definitely comes off this way.
  • Mary Sue: Could be a deliberate Subversion with Sakaki: she's tall, beautiful and athletic, intelligent and educated, is kind and polite and has a wonderful singing voice and may or may not be rich. Except she doesn't want any of this, she just wants to be small and cute and tend to cats, but all cats everywhere well, mostly anyway seem to instinctively attack her viciously. And the wounds she gets from those attacks, combined with her calm demeanor and her physical size make her seem to other students more like a scary delinquent than anything.
  • Memetic Molester: Osaka and Kimura.
  • Memetic Mutation: "Mai waifu", as first spoken by Kimura when introducing his hot "waifu" to the girls. Used by fans to describe anime or video game women that are, in their opinion, "desirable". Also, Osaka is evil.
  • Memetic Sex Goddess: Sakaki.
  • Moe: The series itself is something you can curl up with, but Chiyo-chan is Moe to the nth degree (especially when she's in the penguin suit), and Osaka and Kaorin are also incredibly cute.
    • This series is sort of proto-moe itself, once you think about it. It codified a lot of tropes related to the "genre".
  • Most Annoying Sound: In Tomo's dream. "Nandeyanen?"/"What in the heck?"
  • Never Live It Down: Osaka almost stabbing Yukari; Yukari almost didn't "live it down" either.
  • Nightmare Fuel: A surprising amount, actually.
  • Superlative Dubbing: While fans give the English dub mixed to positive reviews, most official reviews don't hesitate to compliment the dub cast, and they do deserve props for getting just about every cultural reference across to Western viewers quite well.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: "Aaa shit, you're so cute!" Yomi says, with an exasperated expression.
  • Tear Jerker: The end of the series. Sakaki gets plenty of scenes by herself that qualify.
  • Uncanny Valley: Sakaki doesn't care for the place.
  • Values Dissonance: Sakaki's lack of self-esteem, especially when comparing herself to Chiyo, seems downright ludicrous to western viewers who don't understand the difference between Japanese standards of beauty and their own.
    • The values dissonance in this case really isn't between Japan and the west, but Sakaki and everyone else. Plenty of other people in the show comment on how attractive she is... it's just that Sakaki's personal ideals are very different.
  • What an Idiot!: What was Yomi thinking when she bought bear stew for Sakaki? To be fair, it doesn't seem as though she knows too much about what Sakaki is like deep down at that point.
  • The Woobie: You may feel sorry for Chiyo after all the abuse she cops from the two resident jerkasses.
    • Animals seem to have it in for Sakaki despite the fact that she adores them; her woobieness is rarely so highlighted as the time she lets Kamineko sink its fangs into her hand...and Sakaki doesn't pull her hand away so that she can finally pet him with the other one.
      • Also noteworthy is the attempts Sakaki's friends make to please her. They try to be friendly and warm to her, but end up hurting her feelings. Kagura is particularly guilty of this when the two first meet.
    • It's hard not to feel for Osaka's inability to stay focused, let alone succeed sometimes.
    • Kimura's after Kaorin, much to her despair. You can't NOT feel bad for her, even though it's funny.
    • If her dreams are any indication, Tomo has massive insecurities, which leads to her being such a Jerkass.
  • Woolseyism: Hey y'all, I'm Osaka...
  • What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Chiyo-Dad is played in Japan by Norio Wakamoto, in one of his rare comedic roles.