Not That Guy - nichijou ~ Freak and Nitro TV!

As promised a review of the 24 episode anime Nichijou. I suspect it is also called "My ordinary Life" Nichijou is an anime of pure situation comedy. If you've read it's manga serialization you should be aware that they are identical scene for scene, with some temporal exceptions (Nano goes to school around episode 11-12 as opposed to at the beginning for example).

It also has had a gaming spin off, "Nichijou: Uchuujin" for the PSP Portable. I found a video preview for the game, watch it, let me know if you can figure out the game concept from just that.

Anyways onto the anime. It's cute. It has its moments. It can also sometimes have long moments of nothing between those little gems of comedy that spring forth. I left this anime with the impression that much of it is aimed at a younger audience then myself (perhaps 14?). That and I suspect much of the high-brow comedy consists of play-on words and culturally related jokes that I do not think translate over very well. None the less, Nichijou is apparently experiencing a wave of popularity out west that surpasses its success in its native land.

Still an enjoyable watch though. I feel two aspects make this anime anime work so well; the characters and the overall perversity of everything else. Every character has some redeeming quality that makes them interesting to watch. Even minor characters such as the Principal and Vice Principal are interesting by their own right. Then there is the plethora of content not related to the primary plot that is exceedingly entertaining. The mid anime sub serials such as "helvetica Standard", "Small Miracles" and my favorite "Like Love" are just some examples. Generally completely unrelated to the anime but a welcomed addition. They are short 15-30 second clips of funny or cute (Helvetica Standard = funny, small miracles, like love = cute). There is also a subplot that occurs whenever one of the main characters, Yuko, falls asleep in class and those are always comedic.

The main plot involves a large cast of characters each with their own plot but all interacting in some manner, typically through the school they attend/work in. The main catch is that, in general most of what goes on is fairly normal per-se but is twisted in such a way as to make it comedic (OMG it situational comedy defined!). The plots can neatly divided by characters. There is Nano and Proffessor. Nano is a two year old robot girl invented by Proffessor, a 6 year old girl. Nano has the maturity of an upper classmen but has to deal with the fact that she is a robot (a fact she despises) a maintain face at school (which she now attends).She also looks after Professor, who although a genius, is still just a 6 year old who likes to play practical jokes, draw pictures of sharks and eat treats. There is Yuko, Mio and Mai who are three friends who each sit on a their own respective place on the scale of energetic (Yuko>Mio>Mai). Together they are almost normal. There is also Manabu and Isumi, two easily flustered teachers with a slight love for each other. Then theres Kojiro and Misato. Kojiro is a farm boy who acts like an aristocrat (he has a butler change his pants while walking and like to ride a goat to school). Misato is a female character that often has to work with Kojiro on school events. She has a slight crush on him but also an ability to pull out heavy weapon stock and fire it off whenever she becomes frustrated with him. So many other characters with their own welcomed contribution as well but I fear I must simply direct anyone interested to either watch the anime, read the mange or at worst the wiki instead.

The animation is generally simple in Nichijou though the word generally needs to be stressed. There is a wide variation of animation techniques adopted and displayed throughout the episodes and even what I can only describe as "experimental animation". Mostly they play around with the various types of animations between scene transitions. Some of the more unusual examples included, staring at a printer printing birthday cards, staring at turtles sun bathing on rocks and an bug spray can shooting a bullet at a glass panel. The format for the first two examples (printer and turtles) I found really enjoyable. I might need to make a video example of this to illustrate how it works. Basically each episode follows the characters for a single day (from morning till Nano and Proffessor go to sleep). These cut scenes which a scattered through out the anime follow the actual time of day, and transition as you would expect them to.

Edit: I have put together a short 2 min collection of the transition scenes from this anime.

Then there is the second season OP which I secretly suspect is why I watch this anime. It is entertaining to watch, a bit fast paced and perhaps a bit overwhelming at first. I found I needed to watch it a few times just to get it all in. Enjoy.