Nichijou

Plot

Nichijou follows the everyday lives of various people in the town of Tokisadame, Gunma, centering on the energetic Yūko Aioi, the bright and cheerful Mio Naganohara, the quiet and deadpan Mai Minakami, the anxious android Nano Shinonome, her young creator, the Professor (Hakase), and a talking black cat named Sakamoto, along with an ensemble cast of characters. Random, outlandish events regularly occur throughout the series, mainly through the mundane situations each character goes through.

In the anime series, Nano receives the most prominent story arc out of all the characters; the first half of Nichijou involves her desire to become a student in high school, while the second half deals with her fear of being exposed as a robot while at school. Vignettes which are mostly unrelated to the main focus of the series are placed throughout each episode, some of them adapted from Helvetica Standard, another manga by Arawi.

Characters

Main characters

Yūko Aioi (相生 祐子, Aioi Yūko)

Voiced by: Mariko Honda (Japanese); Morgan Garrett (English)

Yūko (or Yuuko) is an energetic sixteen-year-old high school girl with short brown hair. Yūko's main desire in life is to make every day more fun and interesting than normal, often at other's or her own expense. 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 easygoing person, her mood changes instantly when she is insulted. She often greets people with her catchphrase "selamat pagi" (Malay and Indonesian for "good morning") in a bid to make simple greetings more interesting.

Mio Naganohara (長野原 みお, Naganohara Mio)

Voiced by: Mai Aizawa (Japanese); Leah Clark (English)

Mio is a bright and cheerful girl with pastel-blue hair pulled into pigtails and held by two small wooden cubes, which are her most identifiable feature. She has a crush on Kōjirō. Though ordinary-looking in comparison to her friends Yūko and Mai, Mio 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. Being 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. Near the end of the manga, Mio finally wins one of the contests she entered, though it is unclear if she actually accepted the publisher's offer due to her paranoia about her art. She is sixteen years old. Accordingly to a daydream of Yūko's, the cubes in her hair are supposedly magical artifacts from a Fey Kingdom zeppelin that fell on her head. Mio has minor appearances in City. Here Mio is a mangaka artist who is only referred by the pen name of "Daisuke" and is a very successful and famous manga artist.

Mai Minakami (水上 麻衣, Minakami Mai)

Voiced by: Misuzu Togashi (Japanese); Brittany Lauda (English)

Teachers

Izumi Sakurai (桜井 泉, Sakurai Izumi)

Voiced by: Mami Kosuge (Japanese); Tabitha Ray (English)

Izumi is a young, constantly flustered, and easily frightened teacher. She is an English teacher, a career adviser, and a school counselor. 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 bolder when it comes to her younger brother Makoto, once confronting him about an erotic magazine found in his room.

Manabu Takasaki (高崎 学, Takasaki Manabu)

Voiced by: Tetsu Inada (Japanese); Shawn Gann (English)

Manabu 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.

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

Voiced by: Chō (Japanese); Francis Henry (English)

The Principal is the middle-aged bald 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 as "Principal Shinonome" implying that he may be the Professor's father or relative, but this was never revealed in the series.

The Vice Principal (Kōsuke Ōra) (教頭先生 (邑楽 耕介), Kyōtō-sensei (Ōra Kōsuke))

Voiced by: Hiroshi Naka (Japanese); Charlie Campbell (English)

The Vice Principal is 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 the Principal. 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.

Students

Kōjirō Sasahara (笹原 幸治郎, Sasahara Kōjirō)

Voiced by: Yoshihisa Kawahara (Japanese); Seth Magill (English)

Kōjirō is a flamboyant high school boy who acts like an aristocratic lawyer when in reality his family are just farmers. He likes to ride his goat Kojirō (named after himself) to school and is often seen with his butler. He is very suave and, despite not having many friends, is the object of affection from most girls in the school, yet acts like any other teenage boy, which most girls willfully ignore to preserve their "Prince Charming" mental image of him. Kōjirō used to take kendo lessons with Yoshino, Mio, and Misato, which resulted in the latter two developing feelings for him.

Misato Tachibana (立花 みさと, Tachibana Misato)

Voiced by: Chika Horikawa (Japanese); Madeleine Morris (English)

Misato is a peach-haired high school girl who generally acts as a tsukkomi towards Kōjirō whenever he does anything to annoy her. However, Misato does this by shooting him with various guns and heavy weaponry that come out of nowhere. 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 (Japanese); Kyle Igneczi (English)

Tsuyoshi is a fifteen-year-old student with simplistic eyes and a natural blonde mohawk which he detests. He 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 the proof of them being "confirmed", or with embarrassing situations for him.

Haruna Annaka (安中 榛名, Annaka Haruna)

Voiced by: Kaori Sadohara (Japanese); Kristen McGuire (English)

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. 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. 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. On October 20, 2021, Arawi announced Nichijou would be serializing again in Monthly Shōnen Ace from October 26, 2021, and an eleventh volume of the manga was released on December 26, 2022. As of October 25, 2024, twelve volumes have been released.

Bandai Entertainment initially licensed the manga in July 2011, but later cancelled its release by October due to downsizing of the company. 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. The manga series was later licensed for publication in English by Vertical, which released ten volumes in 2016 and 2017. Kodansha USA released subsequent volumes, starting with volume eleven in August 2023. 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. It is also published in Germany by Egmont Manga and France by Noeve Grafx, both starting in 2023.

Anime

Kyoto Animation adapted the Nichijou manga into a 26-episode anime television series and an original video animation (OVA) episode. The anime adaptation was first announced on May 22, 2010, through the July issue of Shōnen Ace magazine. The OVA, titled Nichijou Episode 0, was directed by Kazuya Sakamoto and bundled as a DVD extra with volume six of the manga series on March 12, 2011. Series composer Yūji Nomi orchestrated the score in Hungary. The anime series aired in Japan on TV Aichi from April 3 to September 25, 2011, with the final episode written by Arawi, the creator of the original manga. It was also simulcast by Crunchyroll under the name My Ordinary Life. The series was re-edited into twelve episodes for broadcast on NHK Educational TV in January 2012. 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 Newtype magazine. Bandai Entertainment had originally licensed the anime, but its release was later cancelled. However, Madman Entertainment managed to release the series in Australia and New Zealand with subtitles only. It was released as a two-part collection containing 13 episodes each. The first part was released on April 11, 2013, while the second part was released on May 9, 2013. Funimation later licensed the series in North America and released it on February 7, 2017, with subtitles. Funimation re-released the series with a dub on July 23, 2019. On December 13, 2021, Funimation released two Blu-ray editions of the Nichijou anime for the United Kingdom and Ireland; a standard edition, and a limited edition which includes a rigid box, a 36-page art book, and six art cards. The Funimation-produced English dub of the series became available on the Crunchyroll service from March 2022.

Opening themes

"Hyadain no Kakakata Kataomoi - C" (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" (ヒャダインのじょーじょーゆーじょー; "Hyadain's Amazing Friendship") by Hyadain (episodes 14–23, 25)

Ending themes

Insert songs

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

Video game

A PlayStation Portable video game titled Nichijou: Uchuujin (日常（宇宙人）; lit. "Everyday: Alien") developed by Vridge and published by Kadokawa Shoten was released solely in Japan on July 28, 2011. In the game, the player takes the role of a producer from "Galaxy TV" running the anime adaptation of the manga, whose objective is to keep the ratings high by correctly deciding on what unusual situation to insert in the show. The Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the game a score of 27 out of 40 based on four individual reviews.

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. The manga has continued to see success following its six-year hiatus, with its 11th volume, released on December 26, 2022, ranking 8th on the weekly Oricon manga sales chart for the week of its release.

Despite the manga's success, the Nichijou anime adaptation reportedly had low BD and DVD sales, with animation director Shunji Suzuki noting that it did not come close to meeting the break-even-line. The first DVD volume sold 924 copies in its first week of sales, while the second and fourth BD volumes sold over 2,000 copies each in their first week.

Anime News Network (ANN) reviewer Carl Kimlinger gave the series' first seven episodes 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." 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". 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."

After the North American Blu-ray release of Nichijou in February 2017, Nick Creamer of ANN gave a highly positive review for the series, considering it "one of the finest anime comedies of all time", in contrast to the reserved praise previously given by other reviewers. Creamer stated that "As a tumultuous collection of madcap skits, Nichijou is an unparalleled success.... Blessed by some of the most beautiful animation in recent memory, nearly every gag is elevated to some kind of surrealist beauty. Beyond that, the show's sense of heart is nearly as strong as its sense of humor." Beveridge would also revise his negative opinion of the series by 2017, giving it a grade of A+. He stated that "[Nichijou] is that rare cult series that has such high end values to it and so many layers and richness that people will overlook because it's a comedy that I cannot recommend it enough."