Half-Masked

I have been dreading this one. Every other character supplied with me a steady flow of things to say about them. Psychological analyses. Funny anecdotes. It comes naturally for me for just about every character in Azumanga Daioh… except these two. I had to hammer this one out of my system. I don’t know why this is. These are two of my favourite characters, and yet I find myself either:

• Incapable of finding the words I need to describe them,
• Dead-stuck at finding a way to describe them in ways that aren’t blatantly obvious and redundant(”Yukari is childish, Nyamo is the clean one…“), OR
• Describing them in ways that doesn’t give away or spoil some of the best gags in the show.

Those of us who’ve seen these two in action wouldn’t be hearing anything they don’t know, and those who haven’t would be robbed of some hilarious moments they could have discovered themselves. I didn’t want this to just be a wikipedia article.

I even hated getting screengrabs of them, because there’s at least five(and as many as twenty) screenshot opportunities in each episode. Not even Tomo & Yomi have got that good an average. How do you cut out the widows and orphans there? It feels like I’d have to just make this article one never-ending series of .gif animations to get the point across. Gif animations with sound, because these two really have got some voices… Or just link to the episodes I guess, but then what would be the point of writing anything then?

In the end, just about all of the screenshots in this article are from Episode 3. And I even left some of those out of the final draft. If you haven’t seen this series, I hope by the time you reach the bottom of this page, you’ll have an idea for just how much hilarity these two bring to Azumanga Daioh.

“Nyamo” is one of those gals who’s cute when she’s angry. Not that she’s a bitter person, but she is more than occasionally frustrated by her friend/rival “Yukari”. The visuals help, but I attribute this mostly to her voice actress. There’s something about her growl at Yukari when she is blackmailed by her frienemy about a “love letter”(which is also animated/performed in hilarious fashion. These two breach my ability to convey their awesomeness through text alone. The hardest part of writing this is that, like most of the cast, it feels like nothing short of seeing this program will really give you a fair understanding of them.) Even when she’s (justifiably) upset at Yukari, Nyamo’s likable. It’s no wonder she’s popular with the students.

She’s that “popular teacher”. She doesn’t dress like a “teacher”(until the last episode, where Yukari, who looks a bit older and more like an adult, is the more casually-dressed). And while she is responsible for herself and her class, there is something casual and inviting about her which says she’s less about strictness and more about sensibility. She’s young, fresh, experienced, talented, intelligent and compassionate. She’s the type of teacher who buys her gym class juice even when they don’t come in first place. I think this is why the students connect with her and seek her council so often. Sometimes we just feel closer to those in our age bracket. The girls probably think of her as being on “their” side, instead of being just a teacher.

This doesn’t mean she’s without a wild side(getting drunk in front of the girls to, ironically, keep Yukari from getting drunk in front of the girls). She’s as competitive as Yukari during the sports festivals, but she doesn’t go so far as making fun of the losing class or betting money on the kids in hers. And then there’s the never-quite explained embarrassing moments of her past that Yukari is barely able to keep from blabbing about(mostly involving Nyamo’s romantic life[or lack thereof]).

Then there’s Yukari…

Hoo boy. Where do I even begin?

She’s like a Mike Judge character taken to the extreme. Somewhere between Peggy Hill, Homer Simpson and a hot sweater, there’s Yukari. But because this is anime, she can change size and shape depending on her mood, and is capable of superhuman violence at a moment’s whim. That is a frightening concept, but it inspires a humorous reaction instead of dread(unlike a certain other teacher character in this show).

And while there’s a possibility of Tomo being jealous of Yomi, it is not so subtle that Yukari is envious of her own chum.

When two schoolgirls have a question for Nyamo(most likely about some feminine area), Yukari scares them off trying to convince them to talk to her about it instead. When she overhears two boys comparing the teachers on a scale of Hotness, she repeatedly attacks the boy who openly favours Nyamo. And time and again, Nyamo consistently one-ups her in just about any sport imaginable.

Out of all of the characters, she’s by and far the most childish, and that’s including the 11-year old girl. There isn’t a school in the world where she’s qualified to teach. She even gloats to Nyamo whenever her students accomplish anything(like she’s the one who deserves recognition). Reprehensible. Self-centred. Whiny. Lazy. Perfect. There is little if anything likable about this person, and yet she’s the most immediately entertaining cast member.

She’s annoying too. But, not in a bad way… okay, bad for these characters, but she’s annoying on purpose, and within the borders of human endurance. There’s a nasally tone to her voice, but she’s got such an unpredictable mood that sometimes she’ll even seem almost, sort of, kinda… nice. Her voice becomes almost convincingly kind to suit it, and can also be representative of a furious, howling woodland creature when in the throes of anger.

When she does appear to be in a good mood, it usually turns out the situation primarily suits her own needs, and only coincidentally helps someone else. She assures a depressed Osaka that she and her friends will all be in the same class in the next year, but we find out it’s only because she’s too lazy to learn a lot of new names or seating arrangements. The only time I think she’s ever really doing it for someone else is when she supports the girl Kaorin’s SUPER-CRUSH on Sakaki. One scene focuses on her picking the petals off of flowers. “I WILL be in Sakaki-san’s class, I WON’T be in Sakaki-san’s class…“. When it looks like she’s down to an unfavourable last petal, Yukari offers her another flower and joins in with Kaorin’s chanting at each petal drop. Then she looks electrified, and her hair becomes an afro….

See? Out of context, none of this shit matters. It’s all just a dorky animu mess when I try to explain it. But when you’re there with the show, with the acting, the animation, the music, the sound effects, when all of that comes together, these characters make some of the best television there is.

These two are a bit like Yomi and Tomo. They’re friends, yet more often than not tend to be each other’s cause for any and all immediate grief. Sometimes they’re rivals. Nyamo being the more mature and responsible one tries to reign in the calamity that follows Yukari. Yukari tries to coax Nyamo into loosening up, in an attempt to get Nyamo to admit she’s just as childish.

She’s not entirely wrong either. I think this is what really gets on Nyamo’s nerves(although the blackmail and teasing of Nyamo’s less-than-stellar academic intelligence probably isn’t helping). She knows her loudmouth friend is at least a little bit right. She’s mature, but she’s not a stuffed shirt.

Reading over this, I don’t think I’ve succeeded in writing about these two as much as I have the main cast. I knew this would happen. Damnit. I’ll have to explore these two more in a later post. For now I leave you with Yukari, molesting Nyamo’s specially-ordered pillow.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.