Nichijou

Nichijou (日常, Nichijō, lit. Everyday), also known as My Ordinary Life in North America, is a Japanese comedy 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 in ten tankōbon volumes from July 2007 to December 2015. Set in a 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 much focus on a narrative.

A 26-episode anime adaptation directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and produced by Kyoto Animation was broadcast in Japan between April and September 2011, after an earlier original video animation (OVA) was released in March. A PlayStation Portable game by Vridge and Kadokawa Games 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 have been 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. Madman Entertainment licensed the anime series in 2011 for Australian and New Zealand distribution, releasing the DVDs in April and May 2013. Funimation will release the anime on Blu-ray and DVD in February 2017.

Plot

Nichijou follows the everyday lives of various people in the town of Tokisadame,^[1] mainly focusing on the energetic Yūko Aioi, the bright and cheerful Mio Naganohara, the quiet and deadpan Mai Minakami, the anxious robot Nano Shinonome, her eight-year-old creator the Professor, and a talking cat named Sakamoto, along with an ensemble cast of characters. Random and/or outlandish events regularly occur throughout the series, mainly through the mundane situations each character undergoes.

In the anime series, Nano receives the most prominent story arc out of all the characters; the first half of Nichijou pertains to her desire to become a student in high school, while the second half deals with her own fear of being revealed to be an android while at school with Yūko, Mio, and Mai. Vignettes which are mostly unrelated to the main focus of the series are placed throughout each episode, some of them adapted from Arawi's manga Helvetica Standard.

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. Although she is a generally an easygoing person, her mood changes instantly when she is insulted. She sometimes 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 asleep, 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; even assaulting 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, under a male pseudonym, 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. Before the events of the manga series, Mai had lived in Alaska before moving to Japan. 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 named Oguri Cap and Pyon.

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 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 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.

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 originally named Taisho and was the pet of Kana Nakamura until he fell out of the window of her house, and he was found by Nano before mysteriously turning up at the Shinonome home. He decided to stay with Nano and the Professor because of Nakamura'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 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.

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 brave when it comes to her younger brother (Makoto Sakurai), once confronting him about an erotic magazine found in his room.

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 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.

Principal Shinonome (校長先生 (東雲), Kōchō-sensei (Shinonome))

Voiced by: Chō

Principal Shinonome is the 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 "Principal Shinonome" implying he may be a relative of the Professor.

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. 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 Principal Shinonome. 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 Nakamura (中村 かな, Nakamura Kana)

Voiced by: Kaoru Mizuhara

Kana 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 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 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 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 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 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 owns 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. She 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 elder 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.^[2] 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.^[2] 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.^[2][3]

Bandai Entertainment initially licensed the manga in July 2011, but later cancelled its release by October due to downsizing of the company.^[4][5][6] 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.^[2][7] The manga series was later licensed for publication in English by Vertical, with the first volume to be released in Q2 2016.^[8] 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.^[9][10]

Anime

Kyoto Animation adapted the Nichijou manga into a 26-episode anime television series directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and an original video animation (OVA) episode. The anime adaptation was first announced on May 22, 2010 through the July issue of Shonen Ace magazine.^[11] The OVA, titled Nichijou Episode 0, was bundled as a DVD extra with volume six of the manga series on March 12, 2011.^[12] The anime series 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.^[13][14] The series was re-edited into twelve episodes for broadcast on NHK Educational TV in January 2012.^[15] The series also incorporates skits from Arawi's other manga, Helvetica Standard^[16] (ヘルベチカスタンダード, Herubechika Sutandādo), which is published in Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine. Bandai Entertainment had originally licensed the anime,^[4] but its release was later cancelled.^[17] However, Madman Entertainment managed to release the series in Australia and New Zealand in subtitles only.^[18] It was released as a two part collection containing 13 episodes each. The first part was released on April 11, 2013,^[19] while the second part was released on May 9, 2013.^[20] Funimation later licensed the series in North America and will be releasing it on Blu-ray and DVD on February 7, 2017.

Theme songs

Opening themes

• "Hyadain no Kakakata Kataomoi - C"^[21] (ヒャダインのカカカタ☆カタオモイ-C, "Hyadain's U-u-u-u☆unrequited Love - C") by Hyadain (episodes 1–6, 8–13)
• "Hyadain no Jōjō Yūjō"^[21] (ヒャダインのじょーじょーゆーじょー, "Hyadain's Amazing Friendship") by Hyadain (episodes 14–16, 18-23, 25)

Ending themes

Insert songs

• "Headlight, Taillight" (ヘッドライト・テールライト, Heddoraito Tēruraito) composed, written and performed by Miyuki Nakajima (episode 19)

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 solely in Japan on July 28, 2011.^[23][24] In the game, the player takes the role of a producer from "Galaxy TV" running the television series Nichijou, whose objective is to keep the ratings high by correctly deciding on what crazy situation to insert in the show.^[25] The Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the game a score of 27 out of 40 based on four individual reviews.^[26]

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.^[27]

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.^[28] The first DVD volume sold 924 copies in its first week of sales,^[29] while the second and fourth BD volumes sold over 2,000 copies each in their first week.^[30][31]

Anime News Network reviewer Carl Kimlinger gave the series 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."^[32] 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".^[33] 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."^[34][35][36]

References

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Official website at Kyoto Animation (Japanese)
• Nichijou: Uchuujin official website (Japanese)
• Keiichi Arawi's blog (Archived) (Japanese)
• Nichijou (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia