I am pleased to announce that my collection now includes the entirety of Azumanga Daioh as currently available to the English-reading public. It’s one of the best situation comedies I’ve seen in a great long while, Japanese or otherwise. Bit fat thanks go out to the good people at Newlife Anime, A-F, and Ishin who brought this series to us rabid fanboy types free of charge.

With any luck the faceless corporate giants, US anime standbys, or up & coming freak-companies will start bringing entertainment of this caliber to the American public.

A lot of the puns require the Japanese language, but other than a handful of scenes I think that Azumanga Daioh is the kind of work that could turn things like Toonami around. Not that I have anything against DBZ, Transformers, and He-man, but… There’s not much to those shows that you can’t get from a whitebread American-cartoon cross-section.

Or maybe I’m just a freak. For your viewing pleasure, yet another sample strip.