Nichijou

Nichijou
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keiichi Arawi. The manga began serialization in the December 2006 issue of Kadokawa Shoten's manga magazine Shōnen Ace, and was also serialized in Comptiq between the March 2007 and July 2008 issues. Kadokawa Shoten later published all chapters of the series' initial run in ten tankōbon volumes from July 2007 to December 2015. After a six-year hiatus, the manga began serialization again in 2021.
Set in a typical suburban Japanese town, Nichijou is populated by an ensemble set of characters, featuring moments from their everyday lives which alternate between the mundane and the strange, without strong focus on a narrative. A 26-episode anime television series directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and produced by Kyoto Animation was broadcast on independent television stations from April 3 to September 21, 2011, after an earlier original video animation (OVA) was released in March. A PlayStation Portable game by Vridge and Kadokawa Shoten was released on July 28, 2011, entitled Nichijou: Uchuujin.
The manga and anime series were initially licensed in North America by Bandai Entertainment in July 2011, but both releases were cancelled due to the company's downsizing. The manga series was later licensed for publication in English by Vertical, with the first volume released in March 2016. Funimation released the anime in North America with subtitles on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 7, 2017. An English dub was later created for the Blu-ray re-release on July 23, 2019. Madman Entertainment licensed the anime series in 2011 for Australian and New Zealand distribution, releasing the DVDs in April and May 2013.
The anime adaptation initially received reserved praise from Western critics, who commended the animation quality but found it lacking in consistent humor and substance. Retrospective reviews, however, have since given the series high critical praise for its heart and surreal comedy, with critic Nick Creamer deeming it among the "finest anime comedies of all time".
Plot
Nichijou follows the everyday lives of various people in the town of Tokisadame, Gunma, centering on the energetic Yūko Aioi, the bright and cheerful Mio Naganohara, the quiet and deadpan Mai Minakami, the anxious android Nano Shinonome, her young creator the Professor, and a talking black cat named Sakamoto, along with an ensemble cast of characters. Random, outlandish events regularly occur throughout the series, mainly through the mundane situations each character goes through.
In the anime series, Nano receives the most prominent story arc out of all the characters; the first half of Nichijou involves her desire to become a student in high school, while the second half deals with her fear of being exposed as a robot while at school. Vignettes which are mostly unrelated to the main focus of the series are placed throughout each episode, some of them adapted from Helvetica Standard, another manga by Arawi.
Characters
Main characters
Yūko is an energetic sixteen-year-old high school girl with short brown hair. Yūko's main desire in life is to make every day more fun and interesting than normal, often at other's or her own expense. Because she is often too lazy to do her own homework, she always copies from either Mio or Mai instead. Although she is a generally easygoing person, her mood changes instantly when she is insulted. She often greets people with her catchphrase "selamat pagi" (Malay and Indonesian for "good morning") in a bid to make simple greetings more interesting.
Mio is a bright and cheerful girl with pastel-blue hair pulled into pigtails and held by two small wooden cubes, which are her most identifiable feature. She has a crush on Kōjirō. Though ordinary-looking in comparison to her friends Yūko and Mai, Mio harbors a very short temper, prone to tantrums and acts of violence in order to avoid humiliation, even assaulting a police officer to keep her yaoi manuscript from being discovered. She often has to humor Yūko to make her happy. Being a talented artist, she occasionally draws homoerotic pictures of Kōjirō in her notebooks and, under a male pseudonym, has entered several erotic manga into contests that promise serialization to the winner. Near the end of the manga, Mio finally wins one of the contests she entered, though it is unknown whether or not she actually accepted the publisher's offer due to her paranoia about her art. She is sixteen years old. Accordingly to a daydream of Yūko's, the cubes in her hair are supposedly magical artifacts from a Fey Kingdom zeppelin that fell on her head.
Mai is a quiet and intelligent girl who wears glasses. Before the events of the manga series, Mai had lived in Alaska and moved to Japan due to her father's job. Likely as a result of this, Mai is fascinated by Shinto shrines and will always visit whenever she sees one. She excels at a wide range of activities, including fishing, wood carving, and arm wrestling. Despite her serene and rather unemotional demeanor, she has an eccentric sense of humor and will often provoke Yūko with a variety of gags in order to gauge a reaction out of her, much to Yūko's chagrin. She has two pet dogs named Oguri Cap and Pyon.
Nano is an android schoolgirl, built by the Professor. Despite being a year old, she has the height and appearance of an average teenager. She worries about keeping her identity as a robot from other people, even though the large wind-up key on her back makes it quite obvious. Her limbs will sometimes fall apart, revealing items that the Professor installed into her system without her noticing, ranging from beam-firing weapons to Swiss rolls. She acts like the Professor's caretaker, and spends her days helping her and doing all the household chores. Nano's main goal in life is to go to school, which the Professor eventually grants, resulting in her befriending Yūko's group of friends. Although she was technically never born, her "birthday" is March 7.
The Professor is an intelligent eight-year-old scientist. She built Nano herself, and often makes various adjustments to her, but adamantly refuses to remove the wind-up key on her back because she thinks it is cute. Her favorite animal is the shark. She does not go to school, since she already graduated, and instead spends her days playing around in the house. Despite her intelligence, she acts like a spoiled child most of the time, as she throws tantrums to get what she wants. She likes snacking, playing around, and sharks. She also enjoys spending time with Nano's friends, particularly Yūko due to her approval of "cool things" and Mai because she gives her shark-themed chocolates and drawings. She didn't like Mai at first because she let her dogs corner her and Sakamoto on the street, but warms up to her when Mai draws a shark for her.
Sakamoto is a black cat. He wears a red scarf made by the Professor, which allows him to speak. He was originally named Taisho and was Kana's pet until he fell out of the window of her house. He was then found by the Professor before mysteriously turning up at the Shinonome Lab. He decided to stay with Nano and the Professor because of his relative luxury at the home in contrast to Kana's constant unintentional neglect. In cat years, he is 20 years old, older than both Nano and the Professor, and tries to act like the adult of the house, but he occasionally succumbs to his shameful catlike habits. A running gag is his tendency to endure the Professor's comically horrific physical abuse, usually in the form of a childish booby trap or the rope noose that she uses to walk him.
Teachers
Izumi is a young, constantly flustered, and easily frightened teacher. She is an English teacher, a career adviser, and a school counselor. She tries to enforce the school rules, but is typically unable to accomplish much due to her passivity. Even though she is often nervous and a pushover at school, she is marginally more brave when it comes to her younger brother Makoto, once confronting him about an erotic magazine found in his room.
Manabu is a male teacher who has romantic feelings for Izumi, but is unable to tell her as he thinks too much and is too shy to admit it. These feelings lead him to become the club adviser for the go-soccer club after Makoto bribes him with pictures of his sister.
The Principal is the middle-aged bald principal of Tokisadame High, where part of the story is set. While known for his old jokes and puns, unknown to most, he is a talented wrestler. He is referred to as "Principal Shinonome" implying that he may be the Professor's father or relative, but this was never revealed in the series.
The Vice Principal is known for wearing glasses and a yellow tie. He hates the Principal and doesn't hide the mean things he does to him. He was the previous principal of the school and is incredibly bitter about his demotion, so much so that he began to drink heavily and send daily death curses to the Principal. His constant drinking and stress have utterly destroyed his body, and he describes himself as being one drink away from liver failure at all times.
Kana is a science teacher who is fixated on Nano's robotic nature. She constantly schemes to capture Nano for study, but her machinations invariably backfire, like drinking coffee from the same tranquilizer-spiked jug that the coffee for Nano was from. As such, it is a running joke that she is not there to take classes very often, having fainted from one of her escapades, resulting in many students asking, "Has Ms. Nakamura collapsed again?"
Students
Kōjirō is a flamboyant high school boy who acts like an aristocratic lawyer when in reality his family are just farmers. He likes to ride his goat Kojirō (named after himself) to school and is often seen with his butler. He is very suave and, despite not having many friends, is the object of affection from most girls in the school, yet acts like any other teenage boy, which most girls willfully ignore to preserve their "Prince Charming" mental image of him. Kōjirō used to take kendo lessons with Yoshino, Mio, and Misato, which resulted in the latter two developing feelings for him.
Misato is a peach-haired high school girl who generally acts as a tsukkomi towards Kōjirō whenever he does anything to annoy her. However, Misato does this by shooting him with various guns and heavy weaponry that come out of nowhere, which he survives due to the weapons' ammunition usually being either rubber bullets or blanks filled with flour. In reality, Misato has feelings for Kōjirō, but due to her tsundere attitude, she constantly denies her feelings or shoots Kōjirō if he annoys her.
Tsuyoshi is a fifteen-year-old student with simplistic eyes and a natural blonde mohawk which he detests. He wants to be a scientist in the future and thus doesn't believe in the supernatural, but his attempts to disprove supernatural phenomena usually end up with the proof of them being "confirmed", or with embarrassing situations for him.
Haruna is a girl with a large ribbon on her head. She sometimes runs into crazy individuals much to her confusion. She likes to read manga.
Kenzaburō is a brown-haired boy who is the president of the go-soccer club, which he founded without any knowledge of it being an actual sport. The club eventually became a legitimate team due to a sudden influx of skilled players and has since won the prefectural tournament and was heading to the national championships, but Kenzaburo now wonders why he even stays on the team, as the club has become so far removed from the original intent of it being a place to relax. His rich father is the president of Daiku Industries, which owns many of the businesses visited by the main characters.
Yuria is a quiet girl who is a member of the go-soccer club. She has a crush on Kenzaburō and stays in the club so that he will not be lonely. Like Tsuyoshi, she also has simplistic eyes.
Makoto is Izumi's younger brother, who joins the go-soccer club. He is very skilled at the sport and helps the club grow by bribing Manabu into becoming their advisor with pictures of his sister in her high school years.
Tanaka is a boy who wears a large black afro wig. He is friends with Tsuyoshi.
Weboshī is Misato's green-haired classmate, who has a ponytail. Her real name is unknown.
Fe is Misato's orange-haired classmate. She ends her sentences with "fe". Her real name is unknown.
Mihoshi is Misato's younger sister and a kendo student. She envies her senior Yoshino for being extremely talented despite rarely practicing.
Yoshino is Mio's easygoing older sister who goes to college. She likes to wear costumes and often plays pranks on others. She is also Misato and Mihoshi's senior in kendo, a sport she is naturally talented at, but does not practice at the dojo very often.
Media
Manga
Nichijou began as a manga series written and illustrated by Keiichi Arawi. It uses a combination of normal comic format and four-panel comic strips. Originally, the manga was meant to be a short, stand-alone series which was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace magazine between the May and October 2006 issues. Starting with the December 2006 issue, the manga began regular serialization in Shōnen Ace, and was also serialized in Kadokawa's Comptiq magazine between the March 2007 and July 2008 issues. The first tankōbon volume was released in Japan on July 26, 2007. The manga series ended with its tenth volume, which was released on December 10, 2015, along with a limited edition commemorating the tenth anniversary of the series, which included a 120-page companion book. On October 20, 2021, Arawi announced Nichijou would be serializing again in Monthly Shōnen Ace from October 26, 2021, and an eleventh volume of the manga was released on December 26, 2022.
Bandai Entertainment initially licensed the manga in July 2011, but later cancelled its release by October due to downsizing of the company. JManga, an American digital manga platform, was able to release the first four volumes of the manga through its website before shutting down in May 2013. The manga series was later licensed for publication in English by Vertical, which released all ten volumes in 2016 and 2017. Kodansha USA will release subsequent volumes, starting with volume eleven in late 2023. Beginning in January 2012, the manga has been released in Finland by Punainen jättiläinen under the name Arki, which is Finnish for "weekday". It was translated into Finnish by Antti Kokkonen. It will also be published in Germany by Egmont Manga and France by Noeve Grafx, both in 2023.
Anime
Kyoto Animation adapted the Nichijou manga into a 26-episode anime television series and an original video animation (OVA) episode. The anime adaptation was first announced on May 22, 2010 through the July issue of Shōnen Ace magazine. The OVA, titled Nichijou Episode 0, was directed by Kazuya Sakamoto and bundled as a DVD extra with volume six of the manga series on March 12, 2011. Series composer Yūji Nomi orchestrated the score in Hungary. The anime series aired in Japan on TV Aichi from April 3 to September 25, 2011, with the final episode written by Arawi, the creator of the original manga. It was also simulcast by Crunchyroll under the name My Ordinary Life. The series was re-edited into twelve episodes for broadcast on NHK Educational TV in January 2012. The series also incorporates skits from Arawi's other manga which is published in Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine. Bandai Entertainment had originally licensed the anime, but its release was later cancelled. However, Madman Entertainment managed to release the series in Australia and New Zealand with subtitles only. It was released as a two-part collection containing 13 episodes each. The first part was released on April 11, 2013, while the second part was released on May 9, 2013. Funimation later licensed the series in North America and released it on February 7, 2017 with subtitles. Funimation re-released the series with a dub on July 23, 2019. On December 13, 2021, Funimation released two Blu-ray editions of the Nichijou anime for the United Kingdom and Ireland; a standard edition, and a limited edition which includes a rigid box, a 40-page art book, and six art cards. The Funimation-produced English dub of the series became available on the Crunchyroll service from March 2022.
Production credits
Series director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Series writer: Jukki Hanada
Producer: Atsushi Itō
Producer: Hideaki Hatta
Production supervisor: Takeshi Yasuda
Character design: Futoshi Nishiya
Art director: Joji Unoguchi
Composer: Yūji Nomi
Music producer: Shigeru Saitō (of Lantis)
Photography director: Kazuya Takao
Editor: Kengo Shigemura (of Studio Gong)
Sound director: Yota Tsuruoka
Sound effects: Eiko Morikawa
Series writing cooperation: Keiichi Arawi
Theme songs
Opening themes
by Hyadain (episodes 1–6, 8–13)
by Hyadain (episodes 14–16, 18-23, 25)
Ending themes
Insert songs
, written and performed by Miyuki Nakajima (episode 19)
Video game
A PlayStation Portable video game titled developed by Vridge and published by Kadokawa Shoten was released solely in Japan on July 28, 2011. In the game, the player takes the role of a producer from "Galaxy TV" running the anime adaptation of the manga, whose objective is to keep the ratings high by correctly deciding on what unusual situation to insert in the show. The Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the game a score of 27 out of 40 based on four individual reviews.
Sales and reception
The Nichijou manga series sold 1,005,300 tankōbon volumes in 2011, reaching 49th place in the year's best-selling manga series chart released by Oricon.
The Nichijou anime has reportedly had low BD and DVD sales, and did not come close to meeting the break even line according to animation director Shunji Suzuki. The first DVD volume sold 924 copies in its first week of sales, while the second and fourth BD volumes sold over 2,000 copies each in their first week.
Anime News Network (ANN) reviewer Carl Kimlinger gave the series' first seven episodes a B, stating that the anime is a "slice-of-life comedy with a penchant for lunacy and a taste for huggable cuteness...", giving praise especially to Kyoto Animation's lively animation of the series: "a rare chance to see talented animators fully indulging their love of the art." Fellow ANN reviewer Theron Martin stated in his review of "Nichijou Episode 1" that despite the series' ability to entertain, it is "absolutely not a series for everyone". Chris Beveridge of the now defunct Mania.com reviewed the first four episodes, giving each succeeding episode a lower grade (B for episode 1 down to D+ by episode 4). Beveridge stated in his review of episode 4 that "[Nichijou is] so full of fluff and pointlessness that it's hard to get enthused about."
After the North American Blu-ray release of Nichijou in February 2017, Nick Creamer of ANN gave a highly positive review for the series, considering it "one of the finest anime comedies of all time", in contrast to the reserved praise previously given by other reviewers. Creamer stated that "As a tumultuous collection of madcap skits, Nichijou is an unparalleled success.... Blessed by some of the most beautiful animation in recent memory, nearly every gag is elevated to some kind of surrealist beauty. Beyond that, the show's sense of heart is nearly as strong as its sense of humor." Beveridge would also revise his negative opinion of the series by 2017, giving it a grade of A+. He stated that "[Nichijou] is that rare cult series that has such high end values to it and so many layers and richness that people will overlook because it's a comedy that I cannot recommend it enough."
Crunchyroll's editorial team chose Nichijou as one of the twenty-five best anime of the 2010s decade and writer Kara Dennison commented it is "a relatable slice-of-life series" whose characters and "charming art style, makes it impossible to look away. Writing for Forbes, Lauren Orsini considered it to be one of the five best anime of 2011; she wrote, "no matter how off the wall the story gets, its dedication to the realistically awkward teen girls who must navigate it gives it heart".
References
External links
at Kyoto Animation
2011 anime OVAs
2011 video games
Anime series based on manga
Crunchyroll anime
Kadokawa Dwango franchises
Kadokawa Shoten games
Kadokawa Shoten manga
Kyoto Animation
PlayStation Portable games
PlayStation Portable-only games
School life in anime and manga
Shōnen manga
Surreal comedy anime and manga
Tokyo MX original programming
Vertical (publisher) titles
Video games developed in Japan
Japan-exclusive video games