Azumanga Daioh

Azumanga Daioh (Japanese: あずまんが大王, Hepburn: Azumanga Daiō) is a Japanese yonkoma comedy manga series written and illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma. It was serialized from February 1999 to May 2002 in the monthly magazine Dengeki Daioh by MediaWorks; three additional chapters were published in Shogakukan's Monthly Shōnen Sunday in May 2009 to celebrate the manga's tenth anniversary. The manga was first released in English by ADV Manga, and later re-issued by Yen Press.

An anime television adaptation titled Azumanga Daioh: The Animation was produced by J.C.Staff and aired in Japan between April and September 2002, consisting of 130 four-minute segments compiled into 26 episodes. The compiled episodes were released on DVD and Universal Media Discs (UMDs) by Starchild Records, and an English-language version was produced by ADV Films. Before the series, a theatrical short and an original net animation were also produced. Several soundtrack albums were released, as well as three video games.

Both the manga and anime series adaptation have been praised for their humor driven by eccentric characters, with Azuma acclaimed as a "master of the four-panel form" for both his art style and comic timing.

Azumanga Daioh chronicles the everyday life in an unnamed Japanese high school of six girls: child prodigy Chiyo Mihama and her struggle to fit in with girls five years older; reserved Sakaki and her obsession with cute animals while certain ones seem to hate her; spacey Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga with a skewed perspective on the world; Koyomi "Yomi" Mizuhara's aggravation at an annoying best friend; Tomo Takino, whose energy is rivaled only by her lack of sense; sporty Kagura and her one-sided athletics rivalry with Sakaki.

Secondary characters include homeroom teacher Yukari Tanizaki, her friend, physical education teacher Minamo "Nyamo" Kurosawa, and the creepy classical literature teacher Kimura. The story covers three years of tests, talking between classes, culture festivals, and athletic events at school, as well as time spent traveling to and from school, studying at Chiyo's house, and vacations at Chiyo's summer beach home and the fictional theme park Magical Land, concluding with the graduation of the main cast. It is generally realistic in tone, marked by occasional bursts of surrealism and absurdity, such as Osaka imagining Chiyo's ponytails being "unscrewed" from her head and an episode featuring the characters' New Year's dreams.

The series title has no particular significance to the story. "Azumanga" is a portmanteau of the author's name "Azuma" and "manga", while "Daioh" comes from the magazine in which it was originally published, Dengeki Daioh. In the anime, "daioh" is mentioned during the next episode previews, used in context with the meaning "great king".

"Azumanga" is also used as a general term for Kiyohiko Azuma's other comics and illustrations. Two previous collections of Azuma's works, including official tie-in comics of Pioneer animations, were published as Azumanga and Azumanga 2 in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Azumanga Daioh was later republished in a reduced-size edition called Azumanga Recycle.

Azumanga Daioh was written and illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma, largely in yonkoma (four-panel) format. The unnumbered chapters were serialized by MediaWorks in the monthly magazine Dengeki Daioh from February 1999 to May 2002. The series was collected in four tankōbon volumes. Each of the four volumes covers about a year in the characters' lives. A new edition in three volumes was released in Japan by Shogakukan to commemorate the manga's 10th anniversary, with volume one, covering the first year of high school, being published June 11, 2009. The reprint edition contains three additional 16-page chapters serialized in Monthly Shōnen Sunday starting in May 2009 under the title Azumanga Daioh: Supplementary Lessons (あずまんが大王·補習編, Azumanga Daiō Hoshūhen).