Nichijou

Nichijou

Cover of volume 1 of Nichijou, published by Kadokawa Shoten.
日常
(Nichijō)
Genre Comedy, Slice of life, Surreal humor
Manga
Written by Keiichi Arawi
Published by Kadokawa Shoten
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Shōnen Ace
Comptiq
Original run December 2006 – ongoing
Volumes 9
Original video animation
Nichijou Episode 0
Directed by Tatsuya Ishihara
Studio Kyoto Animation
Released March 12, 2011
Runtime 24 minutes
Anime television series
Directed by Tatsuya Ishihara
Studio Kyoto Animation
Licensed by
Network TV Aichi, Chiba TV, TVS, KBS, Tokyo MX, MRO, FBC
Original run April 3, 2011 – September 25, 2011
Episodes 26
Game
Nichijou: Uchuujin
Developer Vridge
Publisher Kadokawa Shoten
Genre Visual novel
Platform PlayStation Portable
Released July 28, 2011

Nichijou (日常 Nichijō, lit. Everyday) is a Japanese comedy manga by Keiichi Arawi (あらゐ けいいち Arai Keiichi). 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. A 26-episode anime adaptation by Kyoto Animation aired in Japan between April and September 2011. A PlayStation Portable game by Vridge and Kadokawa Games was released in July 2011. The manga and anime series were initially licensed in North America by Bandai Entertainment but both releases have been cancelled.[1] The anime series has been licensed by Madman Entertainment for Australian distribution.

Plot

The series follows the lives of a group of high school students, Mai, Mio and Yuko, and their school. The series also focuses on eight-year-old Professor Shinonome and her sentient android robot Nano, who longs to go to school like the other girls in the neighborhood. Various oddities and absurdities abound, like a boy who rides a goat to school with his butler, a girl who can produce various guns out of thin air, a cat that can speak, and a principal who has wrestled a deer. It shows the silly situations the characters get involved in, but despite its bizarre settings and characters, they still lead normal lives.

Characters

Main characters

Yūko Aioi (相生 祐子 Aioi Yūko)
Voiced by: Mariko Honda
Yūko is an energetic high school girl with short brown hair. Her nickname is Yukko (ゆっこ). Because she is often too lazy to do her own homework, she always copies from either Mio or Mai instead. She knows that Nano is a robot but never tells anybody about it. Although she is a generally an easygoing person, her mood changes instantly when she is insulted. She often greets her friends with "selamat pagi" (Indonesian/Malay for good morning).
Mio Naganohara (長野原 みお Naganohara Mio)
Voiced by: Mai Aizawa
Mio is a bright and cheerful girl, sporting light blue hair pulled into pigtails and held by two small wooden cubes (however, when at home or having just woke up, her hair is untied). She has a crush on Kōjirō Sasahara. At first glance, she appears quite ordinary in comparison to her friends Yūko and Mai but actually harbors a very short temper, prone to tantrums and acts of violence in order to avoid humiliation; once, she assaults a police officer to keep her yaoi manuscript from being discovered. She often has to humor Yūko to make her happy. A talented artist, she occasionally draws homoerotic pictures of Kōjirō in her notebooks and has entered several erotic manga into contests that promise serialization to the winner.
Mai Minakami (水上 麻衣 Minakami Mai)
Voiced by: Misuzu Togashi
Mai is a quiet and intelligent girl who wears glasses. She excels at a wide range of activities, including fishing, wood carving, and arm wrestling. Despite her serene and rather unemotional demeanor, she has a rather eccentric sense of humor, often frustrating her friends with her pranks. Her sometimes deadpan mannerisms often make people wonder what is going on in her head. She has two pet dogs who share her sense of humor.
Nano Shinonome (東雲 なの Shinonome Nano)
Voiced by: Shizuka Furuya
Nano is an android schoolgirl, built by the Professor. 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 is the Professor's caretaker, and spends her days helping her and doing all the household chores.
Professor (はかせ Hakase)
Voiced by: Hiromi Konno
The Professor is a brilliant 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 often acts like a spoiled eight-year-old girl most of the time, as she likes snacking, playing around, and sharks. She enjoys spending time with Nano's friends, particularly Yūko 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. Her real name is never mentioned, but her family name is Shinonome.
Sakamoto (阪本)
Voiced by: Minoru Shiraishi
Sakamoto is a black cat. He wears a red scarf made by the Professor, which allows him to speak. He was a stray that fell out of Ms. Nakamura's window, and he was found by Nano before mysteriously turning up at the Shinonome home. 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 to his shame, he occasionally succumbs to his cat-like 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 she uses to walk him. His original name was Taisho (Boss); he was once Ms. Nakamura's pet cat, but left because of constant unintentional neglect on her part.

Teachers

Izumi Sakurai (桜井 泉 Sakurai Izumi)
Voiced by: Mami Kosuge
Izumi Sakurai is a young, constantly flustered and easily frightened teacher. 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 braver when it comes to her brother, once confronting him about an erotic magazine found in his room. She is the older sister of Makoto Sakurai.
Manabu Takasaki (高崎 学 Takasaki Manabu)
Voiced by: Tetsu Inada
Manabu Takasaki is a male teacher who has romantic feelings for Izumi, but is unable to tell her as he thinks too much and is 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 subject matter of which imply that Takasaki is only interested in Izumi because she is an adult who still looks and acts like a highschool-aged girl.
Principal Shinonome (校長先生 (東雲) Kōchō-sensei (Shinonome))
Voiced by: Chō
Principal Shinonome is the bald principal at the school, where part of the story is set. While known for his old jokes and puns, unknown to most, he is a talented wrestler.
Vice Principal Kōsuke Ōra (教頭先生 (邑楽 耕介) Kyōtō-sensei (Ōra Kōsuke))
Voiced by: Hiroshi Naka
Known for wearing glasses and a yellow tie, he hates the Principal and doesn't hide the mean things he does to him.
Kana Nakamura (中村 かな Nakamura Kana)
Voiced by: Kaoru Mizuhara
Ms. Nakamura 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 a 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 Sasahara (笹原 幸治郎 Sasahara Kōjirō)
Voiced by: Yoshihisa Kawahara
A flamboyant high school boy who acts like a rich aristocrat when in reality his family are just farmers. He likes to ride his goat Kojirō Sasahara (笹原 コジロウ Sasahara Kojirō) to school and is often seen with his butler. He is very suave and popular, yet acts like any other teenage boy, which most girls willfully ignore to preserve their "Prince Charming" mental image of him.
Misato Tachibana (立花 みさと Tachibana Misato)
Voiced by: Chika Horikawa
A peach haired high school girl who generally acts as a tsukkomi towards Kōjirō whenever he does anything to annoy her. Misato, however, does this by shooting him with various guns and heavy weaponry that come out of nowhere, which he miraculously survives despite being injured, due to the weapons' ammunition being 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 Nakanojō (中之条 剛 Nakanojō Tsuyoshi)
Voiced by: Kazutomi Yamamoto
A student with a natural mohawk which he detests. Tsuyoshi 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 him believing in them.
Haruna Annaka (安中 榛名 Annaka Haruna)
Voiced by: Kaori Sadohara
A girl with a large ribbon on her head. She unfortunately sometimes runs into crazy individuals much to her confusion. She likes to read manga.
Kenzaburō Daiku (大工 健三郎 Daiku Kenzaburō)
Voiced by: Ryōta Yoshizaki
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 has since become 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 Kenzaburō 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 own many of the businesses visited by the main characters.
Yuria Sekiguchi (関口 ユリア Sekiguchi Yuria)
Voiced by: Ai Hirosaka
A quiet girl who is a member of the go-soccer club. She has a crush on Daiku Kenzaburō, the president of the club and stays in the club so that he won't be lonely.
Makoto Sakurai (桜井 誠 Sakurai Makoto)
Voiced by: Takahiro Hikami
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 Takasaki into becoming their advisor with pictures of his sister in her highschool years.
Tanaka (田中)
Voiced by: Kōta Yamaguchi
A boy who wears a large black afro wig. He is friends with Tsuyoshi Nakanojō.
Weboshī (ウェボシー Weboshī)
Voiced by: Yōko Tamaoki
Weboshī is Misato's green-haired classmate, who has a ponytail. Her real name is unknown.
Fe-chan (フェっちゃん)
Voiced by: Yumi Higuchi
Fe-chan is Misato's classmate. Ends her sentences with "fe". Her real name is unknown.
Mihoshi Tachibana (立花 みほし Tachibana Mihoshi)
Voiced by: Manami Honda
Mihoshi is Misato's younger sister and a kendo student. She envies her senior, Yoshino (Mio's older sister), for being extremely talented while rarely practicing.

Other characters

Yoshino Naganohara (長野原 よしの Naganohara Yoshino)
Voiced by: Motoko Kobayashi
Yoshino is Mio's easy going 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. 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; as of December 10, 2013, nine volumes have been published.[2] The manga uses a combination of normal comic format and four-panel comic strips. Bandai Entertainment licensed the manga, but later cancelled its release.[3][4] The manga is published in Finland by Punainen Jättiläinen[5] under the name Arki, which is Finnish for weekday.

Anime

A 26-episode anime television series produced by Kyoto Animation and directed by Tatsuya Ishihara aired in Japan on TV Aichi from April 3 to September 25, 2011 and was also simulcast by Crunchyroll under the name My Ordinary Life.[6][7] The series was re-edited into twelve episodes for broadcast on NHK Educational TV in January 2012.[8] Prior to the airing of the anime series, an original video animation episode, titled "Nichijou Episode 0", shipped with the sixth manga volume on March 12, 2011.[9] The series also incorporates skits from Arawi's other manga, Helvetica Standard (ヘルベチカスタンダード Herubechika Sutandādo), which is published in Kadokawa Shoten's Gekkan NewType magazine. Bandai Entertainment had licensed the anime,[3] but its release was later cancelled.[10] However, Madman Entertainment still plans to release the series in Australia and New Zealand in subtitles only.[11] It is being released as a two part collection containing 13 episodes each. The first part was released on April 11, 2013.[12]

Theme songs

Opening themes
Ending themes
Insert songs

Video game

A PlayStation Portable video game titled Nichijou: Uchuujin (日常（宇宙人） lit. Regular Life: Alien) developed by Vridge and published by Kadokawa Shoten was released on July 28, 2011.[13][14]

Reception

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.[15] The first DVD volume sold 924 copies in its first week of sales,[16] while the second and fourth BD volumes sold over 2,000 copies each in their first week.[17][18]

Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network stated the anime is a "slice-of-life comedy with a penchant for lunacy and a taste for huggable cuteness; a rare chance to see talented animators fully indulging their love of the art."[19]

References

  1. ↑ "Ken Iyadomi on Bandai Entertainment's Downsizing". Anime News Network. January 3, 2012. Retrieved January 3, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Nichijō Manga #9 Delayed Until December 10". Anime News Network. December 6, 2013. Retrieved December 10, 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Bandai Entertainment Adds Nichijou, Gosick Anime". Anime News Network. July 30, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Bandai Entertainment Will Not Release Nichijō Manga Also". Anime News Network. January 3, 2012. Retrieved January 3, 2012.
  5. ↑ "Nichijou Punaiselta Jättiläiseltä" [Nichijou to be published by Punainen Jättiläinen] (in Finnish). Anime (Finnish Magazine). October 14, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Nichijou Manga Gets Anime by Kyoto Animation". Anime News Network. May 22, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  7. ↑ "Crunchyroll Simulcasts Nichijou/My Ordinary Life Anime". Anime News Network. March 29, 2011. Retrieved March 29, 2011.
  8. ↑ "NHK's ETV to Air Re-edited Version of "Nichijou"". Crunchyroll. November 25, 2011. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Nichijou Manga's 6th Volume to Bundle Anime Episode 0". Anime News Network. May 23, 2010. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  10. ↑ "Bandai Entertainment to Stop Releasing New DVDs, BDs, Manga". Anime News Network. January 2, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Australian Firm Still Plans Gosick, Nichijō Releases Without Bandai Ent.". Anime News Network. January 25, 2012. Retrieved January 25, 2012.
  12. ↑ "Nichijou - My Ordinary Life Collection 1 (Eps 1-13) (Subtitled Edition)". Madman Entertainment. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
  13. ↑ "アニメ化も決定している人気コミック『日常』がPSPでゲーム化される。" [The Popular Comic Nichijou That's Been Made Into an Anime Has Been Made Into a Game] (in Japanese). Famitsu. April 5, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2011.
  14. ↑ 家庭用ゲーム開発実績 [Home Game Development Record] (in Japanese). Vridge. Retrieved April 14, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Animator Shunji Suzuki Confirms Nichijō, R-15, Itsuten's Low Sales". Anime News Network. October 1, 2011. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
  16. ↑ "Japan's Animation DVD Ranking, June 20-26". Anime News Network. June 28, 2011. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
  17. ↑ "Japan's Animation Blu-ray Disc Ranking: July 18-24". Anime News Network. July 26, 2011. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
  18. ↑ "Japan's Animation Blu-ray Disc Ranking: September 26-October 2". Anime News Network. October 4, 2011. Retrieved October 6, 2011.
  19. ↑ "My Ordinary Life Episodes 1-7 Streaming". Anime News Network. June 17, 2011. Retrieved November 17, 2011.

External links