is a Japanese four-panel

Yonkoma

thumb|right|150px|Traditional Yonkoma layout, a comic-strip format, generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 by Negi Banno about the lives of female teachers within a school at which they teach. The "Astro" in the title is actually an acronym abbreviating "Asahio Sogo Teacher's ROom", alluding to the school's name Asahio Sogo. The original title, Kyōkan Astro, plays on the fact that is 'instructor' in Japanese, but the title uses the kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

  meaning 'warship' in place of meaning 'government service'. The manga started serialization in Houbunsha

Houbunsha

is a Japanese publishing company founded on July 10, 1950.-Manga Time magazines:*Manga Time*Manga Time Jumbo*Manga Time Lovely*Manga Time Family*Manga Time Special*Manga Time Original*Manga Home-Manga Time Kirara magazines:...

's seinen manga magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat

Manga Time Kirara Carat

is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Houbunsha mainly consisting of four-panel comic strips. The first issue was released on January 18, 2003.-List of serialized titles:*A Channel*Chibi Debii!*Dōjin Work*H・R*Harumaki!...

on February 24, 2005, and the first bound volume

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

 was released on February 27, 2007. However, the manga has not appeared in the magazine since November 28, 2007. Yen Press

Yen Press

Yen Press is the manga and graphic novel imprint of Hachette Book Group. In addition to their regular book releases, Yen Press produces a monthly anthology called Yen Plus. The company's varied list demonstrates an interest in publishing a wide variety of Japanese manga, Korean manhwa, and other...

 licensed the series for release in English, and released the first volume on August 12, 2008.

Plot

Set in the present, the story focuses on the exploits of first time teachers Izumi Maki and Yuko Nagumo as they begin their teaching jobs at the school they used to attend (Asahio Shogo). Other faculty members include Setsuna Arai, the school's nurse, and Kaname Karasuma, a veteran teacher.

Characters

Maki is a physical education

Physical education

Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....

 teacher who is very relaxed and does not take her job very seriously, much to the irritation of some of the faculty. She is prone to taking naps even during school hours and enjoys playing video games and drinking to excess.

Nagumo is the Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 teacher at her school, and dresses in a kimono for the class. She takes her duties far more seriously than Maki, and takes pride in tripping up and fooling her students (as she explains, if they fall for trick questions, they are not reading well enough). However, she is possibly more well-known for being a glutton, bringing several bento

Bento

is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware...

 to school, which she eats between every period, and is something of a fujoshi

Fujoshi

Yaoi fandom refers to readers of yaoi , a genre of male-male romance narratives aimed at a female audience, and more specifically those who participate in communal activities organized around yaoi, such as attending conventions, maintaining or posting to fansites, creating fanfiction or fanart,...

though she tries to hide it.

Arai is the nurse of the school. She is very no-nonsense when it comes to her work, violently ejecting any students (or teachers) who are not actually ill. She frequently plays hand held video games in her office when patients are far and few between. She is somewhat infamous for being something of a sadist

Sadism and masochism

Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...

, grinning happily at the sight of blood, and speaks almost gleefully at the prospect of injuries at a sports event. Arai has a love-hate relationship

Love-hate relationship

A love–hate relationship is an interpersonal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and hate. This relationship does not have to be of a romantic nature, and may be instead of a sibling one...

 with Maki's brother, Itsuki, giving her characteristics of a tsundere

Tsundere

is a Japanese character development process that describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing their warm side over time. The word is derived from the terms , meaning to turn away in disgust, and meaning to become 'lovey dovey'...

.

Karasuma teaches English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and is the back-up homeroom teacher to Maki, whom she is in love with. She demonstrates many yuri (lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

) tendencies, especially towards Maki. She carries a camera

Camera

A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...

specifically for taking photos of her whenever the chance arises, and frequently attempts to get closer to her, but is almost inevitably shot down. Maki appears oblivious to Karasuma's advances.