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 |
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 |
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.
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