First Impressions: Nichijou

Randomness seems to be the direction Nichijou is hurdling towards. What is interesting is that the show never takes this above and beyond. The sketches remain firmly grounded in normality with only a thin slice of the bizarre shoved in for good measure. The most notable arbitrary element is of course the robot housekeeper, Nano. Nano really stood out for me as the character with the most potential, there is plenty of room for back story and for Nano to develop. Unfortunately this particular episode chose to focus on the food-related antics of its preliminary school girl cast. To be honest I’m not sold with these characters, I feel like I’ve seen them a dozen times before. Their goofing around attempts to tickle the viewers’ funny bone but regrettably it doesn’t, quite often falling flat. In all, there is plenty of interesting variation between characters and situations. There is some evidence of thinking outside the box and there is also restraint. Nichijou is pretty neatly wrapped up. It’s just not funny.

Initial Rating: 6/10