S.S. Astro, a.k.a. Asashio Sogo Teachers’ ROom, is a 4-koma (4 panels per strip) manga by writer/artist Negi Banno that details the day to day lives of four teachers at Japanese high school. The art style is cute and attractive, but the storylines are occasionally disjointed and confusing with the artist simply abandoning one segment in order to rush on to the next.

When I first heard about S.S. Astro, I was immediately interested. As big fan of the 4-koma style, I was hoping for something along the lines of the awesomely hilarious Azumanga Daioh series that ADV released a few years back. In many ways, that’s exactly what I got; an Azumange Daioh style story that has all the right ingredients, but none of the pizzazz.

The story revolves primarily around Izumi Maki, a former student turned P.E. teacher at Asashio High, and her interactions with several of her childhood friends who have returned to teach at the school as well. Despite being an adult, Maki is still has a rather juvenile attitude towards school, often spending more time goofing off then teaching. That’s not to say her friends are much better. Her best friend, Yuko Nagumo, the Japanese language teacher usually spends the majority of her time eating, that is of course when they’re not all playing video games with the school nurse, Setsuna Aria. Rounding out this group of misfits is Kaname Karasume, the foreign language teacher, who despite her prim and proper nature is actually a closet lesbian who instantly develops a crush on Maki.

Although the day-to-day adventures of the various teachers can be incredibly funny at times, those moments just don’t come as frequently as they should. More often than not, each segment tends to either drag on interminably or end too abruptly. As someone who has tried my hand art writing 4-koma style comics in the past, I understand the challenges involved in trying to squeeze each section of a story arc into only four panels at a time. It takes a lot of skill to both make a good joke in such a small space as well as to tell a continuous story that spans several strips without creating confusing gaps as the reader moves from strip to strip. Unfortunately, the author seems to have trouble pacing her stories in this format. New characters are introduced and abandoned almost immediately; only to reappear later as if they’ve always been a constant part of the cast. Character activities often play out more like a film highlight reel rather than maintaining a consistent flow. This approach would work well if this was a gag comic, but appears that Ms. Banno to be trying to create a humorous slice of life story filled with complex character relationships and long-term character growth. None of which plays out very well.

Aside from the less than stellar storytelling, another issue I had with this manga was the overall quality of the book verses the price. The MSRP for this book is eleven bucks, but you only get about a hundred and twenty pages of story content for your money. Sure, there are a few color pages at the beginning and it comes in slightly larger size format; the occasionally dubious print quality and the smaller then average page count leaves a little to be desired considering the price tag.

Bottom line:
S.S. Astro has potential with some great jokes hidden within its pages, but due to poor plotting, it fails to be anything more than average. Hopefully if a second volume is ever released, some of these problems will be addressed as the author becomes more comfortable the setting and the characters.

Final Score: 3 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by: LC1
Review Format: Manga