Nichijou(日常): My Everyday Life Manga Thoughts

   Nichijiou which literally means "Everyday" in Japanese, is a Manga series that began publication in 2006. The series was meant to be a short series for magazine serialization but the series took off in sales. By the tenth and final volume, Nichijiou had become the forty ninth best selling Manga of that year in Japan. Nichijiou's creator; Arawi Keniichi was then informed that the series would be turned into a twenty six episode anime. Sales for the anime did not met the same expectation sales of the manga sadly but the series is still one of the manga that is very pertinent in Japanese pop culture. Helvetica Standard is somewhat of a continuation of Nichijiou as the two part manga is based off the series while also taking on a story of it's own.

   There's nothing ordinary about Nichijiou in Manga form. It's about the everyday life of a group of female students but that's not all. Everyday life happens in the plot but thats not the central focus. Readers of this manga defiantly wouldn't call these girls's lives ordinary by any means. So much happens in the pages of each volume that you can put the events in one box or use one word to describe what you witness. Hmm…. I guess if I had to use a word to summarize Nichijiou, the word would be "ridiculous".  Ridiculousness jumps off the pages of this manga and it will leave you feeling a mix of emotions. Each chapter is about four to five pages. Sometimes longer but the lay out of this series is like many other manga based on comedy. This one's just totally full of cray cray. The jokes are so off the wall that they descends the point of what's realistic and what is not. I was hooked on the manga after reading the first chapter of volume one. I laughed hysterically while reading the pages since the comedy fit my sense of humor. One of the funniest qualities of Nichijiou is the simple fact that the girl's school life is never the focus of the plot. They just so happen to be in school with different characters. These party of characters have their own personalities that fit into the wackiness of all the happenings. I'm sure that some of the stuff that happens in this manga is how people see the world after smoking weed……Mai is my favorite character because she always has her shit together. She's the only character that is always one step ahead of the foolish pranks the girls play on each other. Her unemotional demeanor makes situations with her insert in even funner too. Nichijiou will have you scratching your head then laughing out loud for however long it takes you to read all ten volumes.

   The art is like a whole big art project shown through different mediums. The comedy aspect of the series has the art drawn in many ways. Original sketches are the cute kind. Round face with a normal size body. Made for the sole transitions of different expressions and actions of the characters depending on the situation. Arwai's talent for drawing really shines in the many character expressions that don't always take the form of a normal looking human facial expression. Even weirder than normal manga character exaggerated facial expressions.

   I see Nichijiou in the same category as the Sunday funnies that come with the Newspaper in America. A buyer of the Sunday Newspaper gets a section of comics that are comedy based. Nichijiou might have been in a column like this in Japan. Well, In a magazine, not a Newspaper.