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Yotsuba&! Creator Kiyohiko Azuma Addresses Anime Rumors (Updated)

Manga creator Kiyohiko Azuma (Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba&!) has posted a blog entry on Friday about the recent surge of rumors about a hypothetical Yotsuba&! anime adaptation. As early as 2005, Azuma has had to discount rumors of any anime plans. However, Azuma says the recent rumors are not about false anime plans, but about false reasons for why there are no anime plans.

People have been asking Azuma about rumors that friction between him and the Azumanga Daioh anime staff is the reason why a Yotsuba&! anime has never been green-lit. Azuma emphatically states that the new rumors are false, and laughs at the notion that there is friction between him and director Hiroshi Nishikiori or voice actress Tomoko "Kane-Tomo" Kaneda (Chiyo). Still, he acknowledges it is not good to have two people competing for control of an anime production.

Azuma explains that the reason that a Yotsuba&! anime has not been attempted so far is the difficulty of adapting its idiosyncratic storytelling. For example, he notes there is one scene in which the title character Yotsuba is visiting the Ayase family to play. Yotsuba walks in the door and says, "Konnichiwa—" ("Hello!"). Azuma uses several panels of nothing happening to represent time passing, and then the scene just ends.

North America's A.D. Vision released the first five volumes of the Yotsuba&! manga, as well as the Azumanga Daioh manga and television anime series.

Thank you to dormcat for the news tip.

Update The example that Azuma gives is the way other anime would have adapted a scene, not the way he would have, and removed sentence accidentally inserted from another article. Thanks, enjin2000 and zetubouzinsei.