Yukari Tanizaki

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Name translations
Chinese	Gǔqí Yāojīalǐ （谷崎由佳里）
Korean	Jo Ji-na （조지나/趙智羅）
Korean-to-English translation	Work-Textiles of Zhao

Yukari Tanizaki (谷崎 ゆかり, Tanizaki Yukari^?) a.k.a. "Miss Yukari" (ゆかり先生 Yukari-sensei) is a fictional character from the anime and manga series Azumanga Daioh.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Difference in character between manga and anime 3 Voice actors 4 Character songs

[edit] Biography

She is the girls' English and homeroom teacher (class 3), but a teacher with very unconventional methods and a rather close relationship with the class. Her students are casual enough to call her by her first name (Yukari-sensei in lieu of Tanizaki-sensei). Depending on the day, time, and her mood, she can be either a horrible tyrant or one of the sweetest, most touching teachers ever. Her behavior ranges from mercilessly teasing Chiyo and hitting students with blunt objects to kind and gentle words and simple, encouraging notes on tests telling students she believes in them. She is often selfish, irresponsible, miserly, and generally dysfunctional, and shamelessly expects her friend and fellow teacher, Minamo Kurosawa ("Nyamo"), to not only tolerate all of this, but to enable it. She becomes jealous when Nyamo receives nicer birthday presents from her students, and will even give her students study hall so that she can ditch them and go swimming at the school pool.

Off the job she frequently drags Nyamo out on extensive drinking parties, which Nyamo usually has to pay for. She is very fond of Korean barbecue, which becomes the object of many of her extravagant wagers involving the class. She even becomes incredibly jealous whenever anyone has eaten expensive food such as snow crab or Matsusaka beef. She is also a huge fan of video games, and becomes angry when the store runs out of the newest game. In some parts of the series, a PlayStation can be seen in her room (Yukari still lives with her parents).

Yukari's driving skills are infamous, with no concern for the rules of the road, people, other cars, signs, or the speed limit, and the many dents on her parents' car (called the Yukarimobile) is evidence to that. Her insane driving has impacted Chiyo and Kaorin's psyches rather profoundly, and has even caused Sakaki to briefly lose her composure. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Yukari loves to drive. The only one who can tolerate Yukari's driving is Tomo, who shares Yukari's love of destruction and mayhem.

Yukari and Nyamo are alumnae of the school the girls attend, and has even appeared at a Sports Festival in her old uniform (which led to a prostitution joke from Tomo in the manga).

Both Yukari and Tomo have similar obnoxious personalities: they are both boastful, jealous, delusional, lazy, and selfish. Rather than being hateful, though, they are amusing and likeable - one can see why their friends like them, even as they are annoyed by them. The balance between the dual natures of Yukari and Tomo's characters is a unique achievement of the author, and one of the peculiar charms of Azumanga Daioh.

[edit] Difference in character between manga and anime

In the anime, Yukari is confident with speaking English and can converse fluently with English-speaking foreigners. She uses this ability in an attempt to claim intellectual superiority over Nyamo. In the manga, however, she states to a student in her class that the only true purpose for studying English is to pass tests. When confronted with an English-speaking foreigner during a cultural festival at the school (who looks exactly like the foreigner she conversed with in the "Pera Pera" scene in Episode 3 of the anime), she shouted "GAIJIN!" (Japanese term for "foreigner") and ran away. There is a "Pera Pera" scene in the manga, but the foreigner is a young American woman, the fluent English speaker is Chiyo instead of Yukari , and the astounded companion is Tomo instead of Nyamo.

In the anime, Yukari does run away from the foreigner before the "Pera Pera" scene, but this was as a practical joke such that the foreigner would encounter Nyamo first and frustrate her by speaking English to her. She also ran away from a foreigner in Episode 11 when he turned out to be a German who did not speak English.

[edit] Voice actors

Japanese

Akiko Hiramatsu

English

Luci Christian

[edit] Character songs

• "I Shall Take A Break From Being An Adult, And Go Out" Words by Aki Hata, music by Kosuke Kanai
• "Law of "True Vocation is Equal to a Pleasant Feeling"" Words by Aki Hata, music by Kosuke Kanai