”The level of comedy was too high for them. Gonna have to dumb it down for them.”
Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Keiichi ARAWI
Translation: Jenny McKeon
What They Say:
Less than ordinary
Yuuko tries a string of puns that goes very far off the rails. Misato pulls out the big guns when dealing with the maddeningly level-headed Sasahara. The Professor adopts a surprisingly chatty cat, and a dog shows up at just the right time to lend a paw.
Keiichi Arawi continues to give the daily lives of this cast of characters just an extra twist of absurd surrealism, creating unexpected hilarity and new insights into high school life.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Nichijou anime was one of the best comedy anime in recent history. Its combination of overly fluid stylized animation in tandem with its dry wit and appropriately over-the-top soundtrack made for quite the spectacle to behold. That said, I was especially curious about how the original manga fared in comparison—would a series that fully embraces the animated medium fare just as well on paper?
For the uninitiated, Nichijou is a slice-of-life story, about ordinary denizens of an ordinary town, leading their ordinary lives. You have the high school cast of Yuuko, Mio, and Mai, the child-aged professor and her robot creation/caretaker Nano, as well as the bountiful cast of secondary characters. The humor in the series is off-beat to say the least—always finding new ways to turn an initially normal scenario into what eventually unravels into quick exchanges of silence and screaming.
What author Keiichi Arawi does so well within the confines of the manga is the pacing. Alternating between full-on chapters and short 4-panel gags, Arawi knows how to take short premises like mosquitoes in your room or meeting a fraud of a shaman and stretching out the joke to its furthest reaches. Momentum in initial joke setup builds slowly, yet steadily, only to come to a screeching halt with something as simple as a sight gag, close-up, or plain ol’ slapstick. The format and execution of the humor is very traditional, yet the subject matter tends to lean to something so absurd, that it feels fresh and off-beat.
It’s the kind of humor that can easily be shrugged off as bouts of randomness being tossed against a wall until something sticks. But if you’re willing to look past its admittedly sophomoric exterior, you’ll begin to appreciate what Nichijou is able to offer. The butt as well as perpetrators of each gag come off as so utterly shameless that you can’t help but laugh at the situations they get themselves into. From the brazen façade of a shaman too lazy to put on an act of superiority, to Sakamoto the talking cat attempting to become head of his household, characters are so entertainingly inept yet still cocky enough to believe they are in full control in such a way that you can’t turn away from.
From cupped cockroaches and hordes of mosquitoes, to military-grade weapons in the presence of love confessions, Nichijou knows how to ride its waves of humor with an appropriately normal amount of style as ease.
In Summary:
Nichijou is like witnessing an oxymoron unfold before your eyes. It’s genius in its simplicity, pure in its obscenity, and silently bombastic. It’s the kind of series you’ll either absolutely love or won’t get in the slightest. At the least, I say give it a shot to figure out what party you lie in.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Vertical Comics
Release Date: May 3, 2016
MSRP: $10.95
