Ayumu Kasuga

**Ayumu Kasuga**, also known as **Osaka**, is one of the main characters from the *Azumanga Daioh* anime and manga.

By far, the most unusual of Yukari's students and easily one of if not THE, most popular member of the cast. As her nickname suggests, she's a transfer student from Osaka, though she only lived there for a year. She's known for her non-sequiturs when speaking, and her habit of daydreaming. Osaka isn't the brightest crayon in the box and is so hapless, that even Chiyo can beat her at sports; but she has a knack for puns and riddles and can occasionally pick up on things the others miss.

In the XP4 fics, Osaka debuted in XP4 Heroes Coalition: Neo-City Diaries.

In the AWA fics, Osaka is a student at the AWA Academy.

## **Appearance**

Ayumu is a teenage girl with a slim frame and a pale complexion, she had had a shoulder-length brown hair and she had a large brown-colored eyes. She wears a pink long-sleeve school uniform with a white collar and red ribbon lace, dark-brown miniskirt, white socks and brown shoes.

## **Personality**

Ayumu reminisces how people in Osaka consider her "slow" and "spacey", at least compared to the average Osakan, but she lacks the energy or motivation to change.

Osaka often acts stuck in her own world. Although she seems slow and easily distracted, she merely has a mind that works *quite* differently from that of most people. Though she is often prone to daydreaming, absentmindedness and non-sequiturs, it also makes her unusually good at answering certain types of riddles. While some people assume that she lacks focus, the truth is that in quite a few cases, Osaka is really a little *too*focused.

In contrast to most of her peers, Osaka always keeps a quiet, accessible mood. It's extremely rare to catch her in a fit of anger or losing control (as seen in Episode 25 of the anime, when she sports a maniac grin after finally learning how to break a pair of chopsticks evenly, and gets mad at Tomo for not doing it properly).

At the same time, Osaka has a habit of being able to point out obvious things nobody else seems to notice (such as the fact that none of her core group of friends has boyfriends or the fact that Kaorin had a crush on Sakaki) and has surprising levels of knowledge on unexpected topics such as marine biology and obscure kanji.

## **XP4 Fanfics**

Ayumu is part of the Heroes Coalitions as a trainee. She also attends the Vanguard Academy as a student.

### **XP4 Heroes Coalition: Neo-City Diaries**

In Chapter 64, Ayumu is introduced as a member of the Party Games Club.

In Chapter 81, Ayumu is amongst the many newest trainess for the Heroes Coalitions.

In Chapter 120, Ayumu is present inside the training area somewhere in the Training Camp where Johnny Bravo introduced Kanami Etou and Mira Fermin to them, and is present when Penelope von Steiner arrives and announced that Robert Strong's wife is giving birth, much to everyone's surprise and delight.

### **XP4 Heroes Coalition - AKB0048**

In Chapter 29, Ayumu is amongst the thousands of AKB-fans gathered around the concert hall in a city somewhere Kasumigastar and later witnessed the return of Atsuko Katagiri and the rest of the missing idols, and had a great time watching the performances afterwards.

In Chapter 32, Ayumu took part of paying respects for Mace Wyndu's death by attending his funeral via burial at sea in Atamistar before witnessing the arrival of a fleet of Dimensional Defense Union ships whom paid their respects for Mace by gifting him with a Heroes' Tribute.

## **Trivia**

* Ayumu was awarded the 7th place in Newtype Magazine's top 100 heroines of 2002, the highest of all of *Azumanga Daioh'*s cast.
* Despite the fact that she is the third tallest out of her friends, together with Kagura (since the two of them are the same height) in the canon version, she is shorter than both Kagura and Tomo in the anime, making her less than 154 cm of height and the second shortest after Chiyo. The reason the character designers made this change is unknown.
* Osaka likes fun facts, word play and fruit juice.
* She is allergic to pollen, like Yomi, and is known for sneezing in an unusually subtle way.
* Osaka is shown to be bad at almost everything, ranging from schoolwork to P.E. But she is good at riddle-solving, and (at least in the anime) is a quite decent singer.
* Osaka hates spicy food and carbonated drinks. According to Tomo, she has a short tongue, and can't hold her breath for more than a few seconds.
* Different from other characters, Osaka's highlight is located on her lower left of each of her eyes instead of upper left.
* She is obsessed with splitting chopsticks cleanly and made up a "magic charm" where you got good luck if you managed to do it. Chiyo ended up using the same method when praying for her friends to have good results on their college entrance exams.
* Osaka was supposedly born in 1984.
* Osaka is arguably the most popular *Azumanga Daioh* character due to her naivete and the antics they cause.
* Many (especially TV Tropes) believe that Osaka is the very definition of a "cloudcuckoolander", using her as the trope image for the manga and anime section.
* In the anime, "Get it together" (*Shikkari*) is treated as something of a catchphrase for Osaka, but in the manga she actually only says it once and without repeating it.