Chiyo Mihama

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Name translations
Chinese comic	Měibāng Zhīshì （美濱知世）
Chinese animation	Měibāng Qīandài （美濱千代）
Korean	Yun Na-ra （윤나라）

Chiyo Mihama (美浜 ちよ, Mihama Chiyo^?) (born some time in March of 1989^[1] - ), also known as "Chiyo-chan", is a fictional character in the anime and manga series Azumanga Daioh.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Voice actors 3 Character songs 4 References

[edit] Biography

A child prodigy, Chiyo has skipped five grades to 10th grade (the first grade in Japanese high school) at the start of the series and is still at the top of the class. Although extremely smart and responsible for her age (she is the Class Representative, and she packs her own bento box every morning), she still has the naïvete, desires, and fears of a child. Despite the age difference, she gets along well with her much older classmates. Aside from being impossibly cute, Chiyo-chan, as she is called throughout the series, is an extremely nice girl who is the first to try to stop any bickering among her friends, and is very generous by nature. Her only weakness is that she is terrible at sports - not only is she five years younger than her peers, she is even small for her age - and her many trials on the sports field are both tragic and amusing. Additionally, in the first episode of the anime and the first chapter of the manga, she claims she is bad at tongue twisters.

Her parents are fabulously wealthy, but are never seen in the story (although the strange yellow cat-like creature seen throughout the series claims to be her father). Despite this, she has a lack of ego that is extraordinary for someone in her position, seeming to actually be surprised that her large house and the fact that her family has a summer home impresses her friends. The fact that she takes so casually many experiences that even moderately well-off Japanese would envy is one of the many qualities that brings the wrath of Yukari-sensei on her head. For example, she takes no interest in food which many poor Japanese people envy, such as Matsuzaka beef.

Chiyo-chan also has some interesting hobbies. Although her athletic ineptitude is legendary, she is a baseball fan and follows the Yomiuri Giants. She is also famously interested in cooking and fascinates her classmates by the fact that she gets up early enough in the morning to make her own lunches. Admittedly, part of Chiyo longs for the carefree fun of being a child in grade school, something of which her high school life doesn't allow her very much. However, despite this, she is still exceedingly proud of the fact that she is a high school student and tirelessly works to live up to that status. In the manga, she proudly asked for the high school student admission rate during a movie trip with her friends. She also periodically took a part-time job at a fast food restaurant with Osaka in order to earn her own money, since she felt that's what a high school student would do (although some of the patrons weren't sure what to make of being served by a 10-year-old girl who could barely see over the counter). Ironically, the restaurant manager gave her the job because he thought that such a young girl must have a very poor family if she's looking for work, an assumption that is far from reality.

When she first enters high school, Chiyo is 10 years old. She is one of two characters whose ages are directly clarified (the other is Tomo, 17 years old at 11th grade), and her birthday parties are an annual event celebrated by the girls. The girls in her class she is closest to are Osaka and Sakaki, with whom she shares an interesting relationship- while Sakaki covets Chiyo's small stature and cuteness, in contrast, Chiyo longs for Sakaki's height and imposing air. Her pigtails are often the subject of Osaka's daydreams, in which they detach, speak, move on their own, are used to fly, control Chiyo's mind, or can cause her death if removed incorrectly.

Early in her senior year, Chiyo announces that she plans to study in the United States, at an unspecified university where students who had skipped grades as she did had done well in the past. This enables her to opt out of the college entrance exams with which the rest of the cast must deal. It also leads to some especially bizarre fantasies on Osaka's part, who imagines Chiyo as a kidnap victim, President of the United States, and the original of a series of tiny Chiyo-clones working in every airport. Whether Chiyo ever plans to return to Japan is never brought up, and the series ends before her departure.

Yotsuba Koiwai from Yotsuba&!, (another of Kiyohiko Azuma's creations) physically resembles Chiyo, but also shows specific traits from other Azumanga characters as well. Some Azumanga Daioh characters may have had brief cameos in Yotsuba&!.

[edit] Voice actors

Japanese (television series and movie)

Tomoko Kaneda

Japanese ("Azumanga Web Daioh" short)

Ayaka Saito

English

Jessica Boone

[edit] Character songs

• "The World is NEOHAPPY" Words by Aki Hata, music by Masumi Itō
• "Sarabai" Words by Masaaki Taniguchi, music by Hikaru Nanase (identical with Masumi Itō)
• "Cooking Is So Fun" Words by Hiroshi Nishikiori and Masumi Itō, music by Masumi Itō
• "Tou Confetti" Words by Aki Hata, music by Masumi Itō

[edit] References

1. ^ She celebrated her eleventh birthday in the March 2000 issue of Dengeki Daioh; the manga, serialized in this magazine, was published in realtime.