Nichijou - 14

Oh Yuuko, you are awesome.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the last few episodes of Nichijou, but Kyoto Animation really showed me here. They pulled off a great episode.

I feel you, Nano. I feel you.
There was just so much to like this episode that it’s hard to express everything without writing a million words. After finding out that Nano was finally going to school last episode, we see her get excited (at the expense of Sakamoto) on her first day. While it’s always funny to see it in a Nichijou perspective, I’m sure everyone’s been a Nano in their life more than once. It’s like those times I’m packing up for a trip and I’ll have to make sure everything is there before I finally leave. Hakase’s complaints before Nano left were cute as always, but I’m sure glad that she gave in at the end. Burst out laughing when the not-so-subtle Snickers bar was pulled out.

The beginning of a great friendship, right here.
Her constant obsessing about the screw was pretty funny too, since it doesn’t really seem like everyone cares too much about it. While it’s great to see everyone’s “O_O” face in full display, I had to feel a bit sorry for Nano. (I wonder how exactly she put on the uniform. Even if it is custom made, that screw can’t make things easy.) Why won’t Hakase won’t remove it? One of the great mysteries of the world, perhaps.

Good marketing moving by Snickers, their ads were pretty bad.
And then we get to simply the most epic argument I have ever seen, all over the matter of fried mackerel. I know I’ve gotten into pretty large arguments over similarly small reasons, but this one is just incomparable. Pretty much everyone but Nano was unconcerned, and Mai with her normal stoic face and convenient cup of water was just icing on the cake. After things started exploding around them, I had no idea that they were going to end it like they did. Great friends make up fast. A great skit from Nichijou, with great voice acting and great supporting animation by KyoAni. Simply awesome.

Jan jan jan jan...
And with the first half of the season over, there’s a new opening by Hyadain (“Hyadain no Joujou Yuujou”) and an ending by Sayaka Sasaki, a cover of the old 1970s song by (I believe) Akai Tori, “Tsubasa wo Kudasai”. The ending isn’t really anything special, just a nice listen (and a game of “which characters do I remember?”), and the opening song is basically the same as the first. The opening animation though, is a bit more noteworthy. It feels sort of intense to watch it, lots of random moments (and great little scenes). I guess we’re also continuing the little tradition of dancing.

A surprisingly tame ending. Who would've thought?
All in all, a great way to begin the second half for Nichijou, just when I thought the quality was dropping. I’ll be looking forward to some more Nano in school, since there’s just so much to be done there. A few final pointers to munch on: first time in a while that I can remember that there wasn’t any still images in between scenes (like the printer printing, or the bakery), and there was also a lack of Helvetica Standard. Appreciated was the brief pat on the back for Yuuko, and this week Igo Soccer pretty much took a backseat, since it was sandwiched in between what I thought were two great skits. Onwards to next week!

Nichijou OP2

Nichijou ED2