Random continuity
Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Keiichi ARAWI
Translation: Jenny McKeon
What They Say:
standard surreality
mio finally has her dream come true. ms. nakamura ends up in a nightmare situation after discovering the shinonome laboratory. the princess goes on a rampage to recover the wood cubes. mai makes a new friend, and mio makes a heartbreaking discovery that propels her to learn something important about life…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Continuity in gag manga is interesting in that as much past lore is established, the series as a whole is still primarily built upon gags that last only a few pages at most. There isn’t a pressing need to know where people live, or even the names or gimmicks to some characters because the gag is over after a couple panels anyway. And yet Nichijou volume 6 makes this subtle nod to its world-building in a way that tweaks its format of jokes oh so slightly and I’m unsure whether or not it’s to the series’ benefit.
In the case of the Shinonome Labs cast, there’s been a noticeable shift from the professor and Nano doing cutesy stay-at-home things together, to Sakamoto and Nano falling victim to the professor’s bratty attitude more and more often. While the professor has always been prone to ignoring the better judgement of her caretakers, this volume’s gags take less time establishing that much and delve straight into the professor’s antics with the other two struggling to rein her in. The humor is much more immediate because Arawi doesn’t feel the need for any setup, as brief as it already was.
The same can be said for all other running gags covered this volume. Now that readers have become familiar with characters and scenarios, Arawi spends less time establishing what’s going on, and goes head-first into the gag. This results in chapters like the numbered hat guards coveting Mio’s cube-hair-ties having a slightly different style of pacing. We’re already aware of what’s going on and how things will end, so more time is spent on the gag itself. Likewise with chapters on the Go-Soccer Club; we know the club has no meaning and yet more and more details on the sport end up being revealed as if it were an actual sport that existed. It’s not that the jokes dropped in quality or are running stale. Rather, it’s that our own familiarity with them has resulted in the author finding different ways to approach the same scenario.
That said, some of the more enjoyable chapters come from characters or situations that are less trapped within the confines of a running gag. Seeing the secondary trio of Weboshi, Fecchan, and Misato stuck in the rain, or Mio literally running from her problems offers more room for characters and gags to breathe. If anything, the inherently random nature of the series calls for unique scenarios to keep readers on their toes.
In Summary:
The gags and general feel of Nichijou volume 6 is a lot more haphazardly random than before. Cause and immediate effect of gags are more reliant on our familiarity with characters by now, so the randomness feels less thought out and significantly more chaotic. Whether or not that’s an improvement from earlier chapters is up to the reader to decide.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Vertical Comics
Release Date: January 10, 2017
MSRP: $10.95
