Why Be Ordinary When You Can Be Wacky? - Nichijou Review

It truly has been a long long time since I did that thing that I started this blog for. It's been a collection of video games, comics, other TV shows, soccer occasionally...but the anime side of things has really been left unchecked. If I can leave a small announcement to maybe the 4 people who actually read my stuff, I'm going to start doing more anime reviews and articles when I can since writing brings me a lot of joy. There is definitely going to be some stuff coming down the pipeline in the anime department. I've got a solid queue to take down in the next couple of months as 2018 was a huge year for anime and I'm still playing catch up. I want to hit some stuff on the To Aru universe since I've been really in to that lately and because I really haven't had enough salt in my life...I may even touch on Darling in the Franxx. However, recently I decided that it was time to finally get around to checking out an older favorite, Nichijou.

For background information, Nichijou is not a new show. In fact, it's actually close to eight years old at this point seeing that it's initial anime run came back in 2011. Overall though, Nichijou has caught my eye largely because it follows a legacy in one of animations most preeminent studios in this day and age, Kyoto Animation. It's difficult to talk about modern anime without at least mentioning KyoAni given that their shows have been so popular. The same studio which gave us The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimya, K-On!!, and Lucky Star is unsurprisingly the brains behind this operation. Kyoto Animation has been leading the charge in the "moe" genre (if it can even be called a genre) or more a revolution when it comes to the way that the slice of life genre has really pushed forward, most predominantly "cute girls doing cute things". Slice of life and the high school settings were always backed more by drama then anything whereas since the revolution we've seen much more of shows where characters go to school and just...live their lives. This isn't exactly a novel of new concept really, more just a glut of shows trying to compete for the same niche. Kyoto Animation has always been out on the front with this but I struggle exactly to figure out what exactly compares to Nichijou.

It's almost impossible to not love Yuuko, Mio, and Mai

When asked what exactly Nichijou is about, the answer isn't entirely clear. With other KyoAni works like Haruhi or K-On!! its a little bit easier since those shows have easy to explain premises. Nichijou is kind of about...nothing. More specifically, it's just about these three girls attending high school and hanging out together. However, stating that Nichijou is about nothing implies that it lacks focus whereas the opposite is actually true; Episodes are broken up into little skits or comedy shorts. Each short has a particular focus but mostly being about the "ordinary lives" of the three high school girls, Yuuko, Mio, and Mai. Yuuko is probably the closest the show could come to be "the" main character but in a show like this, it really doesn't matter. The universe they live in scales from the ordinary to the absolutely bizarre. One short could just be the dramatic retelling of Yuuko forgetting her homework one day to something as ridiculous as the school principal suplexing a deer in the school courtyard. Taking a test has the gravitas and  to an entire training arc for a shounen anime, raw steaks occasionally rain from the heavens. Nichijou will claim upfront to be ordinary but in reality is anything but, it's actually one of the best comedy shows I've watched in a long time.

The way I like to think about it is that it's like when you and your friends from high school all meet up after not seeing each other for several years. You start recollecting times from school and often these stories stretch the truth a bit, there is plenty of embellishment to be had. All your stories share a common theme in that while they're ordinary in nature, we as the storyteller ascribe meaning to them and highlight the aspects that . Things like going out to lunch with your friends, forgetting your homework are all very ordinary. However, it's all about how we remember them in our mind. Nichijou captures this feeling perfectly as accidentally stabbing herself with a pen may cause Yuuko to explode. Losing her notebook full of lewd hand drawn art turns Mio into a cold blooded killer in the style of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to get it back. It's as if Nichijou has a playbook of all our old memories and is playing them back with ten times the drama. It's not the first show to play ordinary situations for laughs but it manages to land  It's fun and nonsensical but it just works and that's all you can ask for.

This show is a gif machine

Of course, humor being subjective, I didn't find everything Nichijou had to offer to be gold. Yuuko and her friends are the shows stars but because of the skit nature of the show, they are not always the main focus. In fact, there is actually a whole other cast of side characters. Each of them has their own little gimmick, for example one of them has a tendency to carry an entire arsenal of firearms on her at all times which another can't grow hair on his head outside of his mohawk. The most entertaining of these I thought was the teacher who was too afraid to ask his coworker out on a date. Not all of these characters or their respective plot lines were enjoyable to me but I never really found this to be an issue because if you aren't gelling with a certain scene, the show wastes little time moving you to the next one. Even outside of the main characters, there are these little recurring shorts like "Helvetica Standard", "Love Like", and "Things That are Cool" that while not always burst the sides with laughter funny, are always charming and a fun way for the show to change up the pace. Because of this, it feels bursting to the seems with content. Luckily, Nichijou's pacing doesn't allow any scene to take up any more time than it needs to and it never dwells on a punchline or joke longer than it needs to. Without fail, no matter what scene you are watching, Nichijou is simple entertainment. Regardless of whether you vibe with the comedy style of one skit, you will find another one that suits you.

However, just because this is a comedy show doesn't meant there is not substance to be had here. Yuuko and friends actually only make up around half of each episode. The other main focus is on a small girl named Hakase who we're told is a genius inventor. She's invented a robot named Nano and they live together, eventually joined by a talking cat named Sakamoto. It's really here where the show finds some of its heart. I didn't really vibe with the comedic aspects of these characters as much as I did Yuuko and her friends but I didn't find that to be as important. The relationship between Nano and Hakase is one of the shows best emotional notes. Nano's want to be more human and her role as a caretaker for Hakase is the closest the show has to an overarching narrative. Hakase however is probably the only negative thing I can really pick out as she makes up most of the "moe" quotient. Most of her scenes include her acting as a brat and it makes many of her scenes rather...annoying especially since Nano is the much more enjoyable part of the relationship. Surprisingly, despite my initial annoyance with them, Nichijou actually hits it's best stride in the second half when Nano starts attending school. This brings her into contact with Yuuko and her friends and the show is much better for it. I was pretty floored by some of a later episodes which actually brought closure to the few overarching plot lines of the show. Nichijou does not hesitate to pull out the rug from you, sometimes where you expect comedy, you actually find a lot of really solid depth. Themes of self-acceptance, discovering what kind of person one wants to be, the meaning of friendship and even just having the courage to ask someone you like out and the difficulty of being turned down. However, it doesn't dress itself as anything greater than what it is. Nichijou remains simple to it's core with a number of heartwarming scenes. If you want a show that will just make you happy and fuzzy, this one is for you. This struck me as being very much like KyoAni, considering that I never expected to grow as attached to the K-On girls as I ended up becoming, I really came to love these absurd girls from Nichijou and was left feeling sad that my time with them was at an end.

Being a KyoAni production, Nichijou features some stunning animation. The first thing that you notice is the unique art style, it looks much more like a comic strip, not aiming so much for the photo realism. Where something like K-On!!! went much more for photo realism, Nichijou feels so much more like a retro cartoon. It also features some of the most tasteful uses of CG I've seen in any show where despite being very noticeable in some scenes it only adds to the already present comedy. So much of the comedic impact comes from fantastic animation as scenes and punchlines are delivered with true gravitas. The score is nothing to be ignored either ranging from some pensive pieces that must have been featured on a Joe Hishashi B-side. Like the visuals, the OST is great about framing the proper mood and serves the comedy side of things really well. I also never skipped either of the two openings because they were masterful examples of just how good this show looks. I encourage anyone interested in watching Nichijou to try and get a copy of the blu-ray because the show is so crisp looking.

At it's core, Nichijou is simple entertainment that has little objective outside of having fun and I struggle to really come up with many negatives besides how some of the humour didn't really gel with me and that's to be expected. It's actually frustrating that because I've been pretty well behaved in this review but I can't say I did anything but enjoy this show. What Nichijou has is a great universe that by the time it reached the end, I only wanted more adventures in the universe. No other show of this genre has really. It is not without it's faults though, not every gag lands, the humour isn't always consistent in the early episodes, and Hakase really is pretty annoying to deal with. However, if you come to stick with Nichijou there is pretty much no way that you won't be entertained. Like Haruhi before it, there is something here for everyone. It's just some ordinary girls living out an anything but ordinary experience and a good time will always be had be all. Nichijou is really a treat and I encourage anyone looking for something fun or an "in between" show to check this out.

My Score: 4/5