Kiyohiko Azuma created the Japanese comedic manga Azumanga Daioh. From 1999 to 2002, it was serialized by MediaWorks in the shnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh and compiled in four bound volumes. Azumanga Daioh: Supplementary Lessons began serialization in Shogakukan's Monthly Shnen Sunday in May2009, to commemorate the manga's tenth anniversary. The manga chronicles the life of a group of girls during their three years as high school classmates and is drawn in a series of vertical four-panel comic strips called yonkoma. Kiyohiko Azuma was commended as a "master of the four-panel form" for both his art style and comic timing, and the series was praised for its humor driven by oddball characters. It was converted into an anime television series by J.C.Staff called Azumanga Daioh: the Animation, which ran from April 8, 2002, to September 30, 2002. It was broadcast in five-minute chunks on the TV Tokyo network and AT-X every weekday, then repeated the following weekend as a 25-minute compilation, for a total of 130 five-minute segments compiled in 26 episodes. Starchild Records released the compilation episodes on DVD and Universal Media Discs, with separate titles distinguishing the five-minute portions. Three Azumanga Daioh video games and several soundtrack albums have been released.