Tomo Takino



Tomo Takino (滝野 智 Takino Tomo) is a character in Azumanga Daioh.

Biography
Tomo is a very hyper energetic and competitive girl, despite being nonathletic and a slacker. She never considers — nor cares about — the consequences of anything she says or does. This usually irritates those around her, especially Yomi, her classmate since elementary school. Because of this, and her usually awful test scores (in which she has a perverse pride), she is the unofficial "leader" of the "Knuckleheads" ("Bonklers" in Japanese) as they are called in the anime or "Numbnuts" as they are called in the original manga translation, along with Osaka and Kagura — even though Kagura's scores are even worse than hers. Tomo is, however, capable of doing well if she tries — though the only notable instance of this is getting admitted to their prestigious high school, and she only did this to annoy Yomi (as well as actually scoring better than Chiyo at a P.E. test once, for similar reasons). She also likes to irritate Yomi by teasing her about her weight insecurity. Tomo's favourite foods are fried chicken, egg roll, meat-balls and bananas. During the second trip to Chiyo's summer home, Tomo grabbed Chiyo's house keys and flung them into the overgrown yard to see what would happen if they lost them, then afterwards, while looking for it says "If I, like, found the key and threw it again, it would be totally hilarious." She later attempted to throw the key again after the keys were found but was pinned down by Sakaki. She also got a stool and put it in from of Chiyo when she was sleeping to torment her for sleeping so early.

Despite this, Tomo cares for her friends in her own way, as shown near the series conclusion when she attempted to cheer Kagura up after unintentionally making her feel guilty when they were preparing for the third year Sports Festival (after "bumping" into her to have some "fun"). . Tomo also constantly imagines that she is competing with others. She is a fan of the graphic novel and animation series Lupin III and sometimes compares herself to the character Fujiko Mine, despite being completely different in appearance and personality. Tomo frequently refers to manzai comedians, and Osaka too joins in (manzai being a form of stand-up comedy particularly associated with the Osaka region).

Tomo is more interested in dirty stories and sexuality in general than the rest of the cast, and asks the adults for "info" during the second summer retreat (once from a drunken Minamo). Dirty jokes are Tomo's "forte", including a particularly nasty one in the manga only; when Yukari and Minamo appeared in their old school uniforms during the third year Sports Festival and Tomo was dressed up as a policewoman (she threatened to arrest them on prostitution charges).

By the end of the series, Tomo announces plans to become a policewoman, even one day entering Interpol (like Lupin's nemesis, Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III) despite having no idea how to get started as an International police agent. She does, however, successfully pass a university entrance exam — before Yomi did, much to Yomi's dismay.

In one of the new chapters of the manga from Azumanga Daioh: Supplementary Lessons, it is revealed that Tomo's father tends to be like her and even has the same hair style as her. Yomi is not fond of him due to him acting just like Tomo herself, and Tomo also appears to be a bit embarrassed by him.

Similarities between Tomo and Yukari
Tomo's personality is similar to that of her teacher, Yukari, in parallel to Yomi's similarity to Minamo. Tomo and Yomi's antagonistic friendship resembles the teachers' and possibly the girls will grow up to be similar to their teachers. Tomo is the only student who actually enjoys riding with Yukari when she drives. Tomo and Yukari also share a love of video-games, and Tomo speculates Yukari is late to class because she's out buying a game (which turns out to be correct). One of Tomo's stated dreams is to "mess with the teacher"  by "fulfilling her dreams of making weird noises in class" without anyone minding it.

Trivia

 * Tomo's cellphone's ringtone is one of her character songs, "Poi Poi Peace".
 * She's 154 cm tall.
 * She is a self-proclaimed Lupin III fanatic (for example, in episode 20 Tomo admits to having grown her hair out in order to be more "attractive" like Fujiko Mine from the series). However, "after careful consideration" she realized that it was impossible for her to be like Fujiko and cut her hair short so she could be like Ryoko Hirosue (changed to Ayumi Hamasaki in the anime). Her first hairstyle (episodes 1-11) remains the most well-known.
 * As an aside, the differences in Tomo's hairstyles make it easy to identify which year of high school it is.
 * It is also worth noting that Tomo had the most hairstyles in the series, cycling through three of them.
 * Tomo is the only character who everyone refers to as "-chan", including herself. Chiyo calls everyone of her friends "-san" except for her, implying that Chiyo respects her less than the others, because Tomo often teases and is more or less mean to her. (Even Chiyo was called "Chiyo Mihama-san" once by the principal of their school.)
 * Tomo has a dog named "Black" and previously had a hamster named Ham-chan.
 * Tomo was supposedly born in early 1984.
 * Tomo is a good singer. When the girls went to sing karaoke, her score was 72 points.

Credit

 * Azumanga Daioh Wiki