Manga / Nichijou

aka: My Ordinary Life

Seems pretty ordinary to me.

"I once overheard Sasahara-senpai talking to someone... our everyday lives may, in fact, be a series of miracles. They just may be... no, I believe they must be..."

— Mio Naganohara

Nichijou (or My Ordinary Life) is a Japanese comedy manga by Keiichi Arawi. It is a Sketch Comedy series about a group of Ordinary High-School Students and their teachers. Except for the robot girl with a wind-up key in her back. Or the girl who keeps bringing guns to school that she procures from nowhere. Or the Principal who has a penchant for wrestling deer. Or the science teacher who occasionally poisons her students (and herself)...

The manga began serialization in the December 2006 issue of Kadokawa Shoten's manga magazine Shōnen Ace and ran until 2015, with 10 volumes to its name (plus a "Volume X" which collects miscellaneous magazine chapters and unused concepts and three Helvetica Standard books compiling illustrations, comic strips, and store bonuses). An anime adaptation by Kyoto Animation premiered on Japanese television in April 2011 and went for 26 episodes, preceded by an "Episode 0" OVA by sub-studio Animation Do released a month prior. It suffered from bad ratings from the start though, due to its rather quirky content and unlucky premiere date choice^note It aired on the heels of the 2011 Touhou Earthquake & Tsunami and faced stiff competition from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Add to this the poor sales, caused partially by Kadokawa highly overpricing the DVD and BD sets, and one can see this turned into an unusually disappointing entry in KyoAni's line-up.

The series was directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, with Jukki Hanada serving as series composer, Futoshi Nishiya serving as character designer, and Taichi Ishidate serving as co-director.

The manga was released in English by Vertical in 2016. The anime was once available to legally watch online in US and Canada on Crunchyroll, but the license expired at the end of August 2014. Funimation announced the license of the anime in November 2016, and released it sub-only on February 7, 2017. However, due to Crunchyroll's merge with Funimation, as of August 6th, 2018, Nichijou is once again available to watch there. In April 2019 it was revealed its Blu-Ray rerelease in July would come with an English dub.

In a surprise for many, Arawi decided to resume Nichijou in Shōnen Ace starting from October 2021, and serializes it simultaneously with his then-current gag comedy Amamiya-san.

Not to be confused with Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou.

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Nichijou provides examples of:

#-F

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • Used for a rotating shot of the entire classroom in Episode 6. The switch back to traditional animation is very smooth, however.
  • Also happens during the Dog and Pen Laser scenes regarding the laser fired due to pain. We are given a dramatic circle shot before Yuuko's laser takes out the rest of the planets because she accidentally stabbed herself with a pen.
• Abandoned Pet in a Box: Nano has no choice but to leave Sakamoto behind when she first finds the cat in a box, only to find him again at home courtesy of the professor.
• Accidental Truth: Yuuko had no idea it actually was Nano's birthday.
• Acme Products: Provided by the Daiku Conglomerate.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: As manga, Nichijou and Helvetica Standard were by the same author, but wholly separate series that ran in different magazines. The Nichijou anime makes Helvetica Standard a recurring sketch, though the only in-series connection is as a Show Within a Show.
• Adaptation Expansion: Several manga stories have expanded scenes in the anime, most often the ones involving emotional resonance, such as when Yuuko visits Nano's house.
• Agony of the Feet: Right in the first chapter/episode, Nano stubbed her toe in a doorway. Fortunately for her, her foot just comes off. As does her big toe: It's instantly launched like a rocket when one spins the screw on her back.
• Alien Abduction: Annaka was abducted by a group of aliens in one episode. She's okay and back on Earth a few chapters later.
• Alien Invasion: Downplayed. A group of aliens arrive to break and then repair one of the school walls twice and then they flew away, taking Annaka in the process.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Weboshi likes Nakanojou because she thinks he's a delinquent due to his mohawk. This is hilariously inaccurate, and his mohawk is entirely involuntary.
• All Just a Dream: Chapter 92 and 131 of the manga. Generally they involve Mio winning a manga contest before being rudely reminded she's dreaming by absurd things coming one after the other. When Mai started acting friendly and bubbly, Mio realized something was wrong.
• Amusing Injuries: Part and parcel of the story. Any injury is given a 20/10 reaction as if it's the most painful thing ever felt, which while completely overboard is not unrelatable.
• Anachronic Order: While the exact timeline of the stories never matters too much, occasionally the manga will skip around its timeline. Some chapters only take place a couple weeks/months before others, but other chapters flash back to the main girls' middle school years, or skip forward to their young adult selves.
• Anti-Humor: Sketches frequently end with random nonsense, or even with no punchline altogether.
• Arm Cannon: Nano has one hidden in her right arm. It's loaded with beans, so that the Professor isn't harmed when she fires at her.
• Art Evolution: The art in the manga gets much better as it goes on. It becomes much smoother, and some aspects such as Cheeky Mouth start to vanish gradually. This is somewhat reflected in the anime.
  • The post-revival chapters give everyone rounder and stockier proportions and more saturated coloring, which reflects Arawi's art circa his late 2010s web shorts and Amamiya-san.
• Art Shift:
  • During a chase scene in Episode 2, as well as a quick shift to the ED style at the beginning of the episode.
  • Actually all over the place, mostly during the Mundane Made Awesome sequences.
  • Extremely prevalent in Episode 19's Helvetica Standard.
• Artifact of Doom: Mio's wood cubes and Mi-chan's 'mud pie' (as revealed in Episode 21).
• Ass Shove: Mio, Mai, and Yuuko all play a game of Musical Chairs in Chapter 175, but with a pointy bamboo shoot instead. While Mio intentionally set it up so that the rush of getting to the seat overpowers their common sense of not sitting on a pointy cone, Mio herself is foolish enough to get there first and subject herself to the pain. What makes it more humiliating is that the other two knew it was a fruitless endeavor and didn't bother indulging her.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The Professor. Then again, she IS a little kid.
  • Also, Sakamoto, when his cat nature takes over and he gets distracted playing with something.
  • Mai's dog, Oguri, in Episode 15.
• Baby Talk: The Professor regresses to this from time to time, befitting her age.
• Badass Adorable: Mio, of course. Misato also counts to a smaller extent.
• Battle Aura: Often particularly Mio.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Mihoshi, being a serious-minded kendo practitioner, wants to be able to score at least one point on her peers, including the Assistant teacher of her kendo school. She does, eventually get one—while she was aiming for Mio's sister, and when none of these relevant characters are even in the kendo room (she accidentally hit him while he was biking to the dojo).
• Berserk Button:
  • Mio:
    • Hearing the compliment that Yuuko's drawing is cool compared to her own.
    • Whenever someone messes with her food.
    • Or if anyone sees her Yaoi manga drawings.
    • While she is a generally nice person, she seems to have a Berserk Keyboard with all the things that make her mad.
  • Mio hits several of Yuuko's during their argument in Chapter 46/Episode 14, signified by a switch being flipped on.
  • Do not insinuate that robots are not cute in the Professor's presence.
  • Nano frequently gets highly upset whenever the Professor installs some useless new feature in her. Later on, the Professor installs a plastic pellet machine gun in one of her arms. This turns out to be a mistake.
  • Sasahara's very existence is this for Misato. To the point that you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to talk to her about him without getting hit in return. And don't even think about suggesting she should admit her feeling towards him. Not even blood relations will save you from her bazooka if you do.
• Bifauxnen: Ms. Nakamura is easily mistaken for a guy before you hear her voice. Even some of the subbers are fooled, making it even less obvious to the viewer.
• Big Red Button: A fire alarm Button. Mio is tempted to push it.
• Big Sister Bully: Mio's older sister. She loves pranking just about everyone (even Nano, when she runs into her and accidentally detaches her arm), but her sister is her favorite target.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • The NASA people in Episode 10.
  • Annaka is very prone to this; "Eeeehhh?!" is practically her Character Catchphrase, and became her Image Song. She even has a sort of "Big What tennis match" with Takasaki-sensei in Chapter 62/Episode 15.
  • She has another one with him in Episode 17. Almost the exact same set up and punchline too.
  • And of course there is the occasional "DO YU KOTO?" (WHAT IS THIS?)
• Big Word Shout: SALMON!
• Blade Run: A 4-koma of disconnected panels ends with the Principal standing on the blade of a naginata that the Vice Principal had apparently been attempting to slash him with, while Annaka looks on in shock.
• Blatant Lies: Nano learned her methods from the Professor.
• Blood from the Mouth: When the principal tries to catch a deer that wanders onto the grounds. The deer headbutts him.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • Nano, justifiedly — she is a robot after all.
  • Once averted with Sasahara, who bleeds a little after being shot in the head. Most of the time he just turns white from the smoke. Though, considering he was shot in the forehead with a pistol, you'd think there'd be a lot more blood involved
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Yuuko's preferred brand of humor, usually with Mai. She's not very good at it, and Mai (her preferred partner) is exceptional at being stoic. Their dynamics are actually reversed: Mai is the intelligent one but plays the absurdist Boke role, while Yuuko is the less enlightened one and yet issues the corrections. This allows Mai to play Yuuko like a fiddle.
  • Episode 17 has Yuuko try to abstain from engaging with Mai, only to find that she actually enjoys correcting her!
• Book Dumb: Yuuko. Mio has to cheer her up so she won't feel too bad about her low grades (read: 1%).
• Book Ends:
  • The first and last official volumes of the original run feature Mio, Yuuko, and Mai in a classroom scene. The positions of all students in the picture are exactly the same, with minor differences applied.
  • The anime series begins and ends with a section about motivation, complete with a shot of cherry blossoms popping up spontaneously.
  • The time capsule story that ends the manga's original run, Chapter 192, has Nano's letter beginning exactly as her introductory narration did at the beginning of the manga.
• Book Safe: In one Helvetica Standard skit.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution:
  Mio: LET THE LIGHTNING JUDGE YOU!
• Bratty Half-Pint: Mi-chan. Also Professor and Misato's little sister, Mihoshi.
• Brick Joke: Several!
  • Right in the first episode there's the objects that go flying in the explosion at the start and, more significantly, the poor boy who only shows up atop a chimney at the end of the episode when you've forgotten all about him.
    • At the very beginning of the next episode, the boy walks in front of Mio, Yuuko and Mai as they play the stair game, showing he did, in fact, get down. Somehow...
  • The Next Episode Preview segment will typically be some inanimate object voiced by an experience seiyuu telling the audience to be excited for the next episode. Of note is Episode 18's, which is Mio's extremely lengthy coffee order that was not even seen in the episode itself, reciting its full description at super speed!
  • In episode 2, Mai wins at the stair-climbing game by reciting a password from the original Dragon Quest. Later in the episode, she's actually trying to play Dragon Quest, only to realize she misremembered the password and can't start her game.
  • A dorayaki Tanaka pulls out of his afro for Sakurai-sensei resurfaces in an appropriate 'Short Thoughts' segment later in the same episode.
  • At the beginning of Episode 8, Nano accidentally activates a Rocket Punch, and she's seen chasing after it while Yuuko and Mio walk to school. Her right hand then flies across the sky during Sasahara's segment (causing him to write a haiku about it), and comes back again later to sock Misato in the head. It's also the primary reason why there's no rock-paper-scissors segment that week -- that's her rock-paper-scissors hand.
  • And at the end of the episode we see Misato cooking at home, with a bump from the head injury she got earlier visible.
  • In Episode 22, Misato's little sister, Mihoshi, tries to hit Mio's big sister with a shinai, only to accidentally hit the assistant kendo instructor (who just happened to appear at the right moment), knocking him off of the bicycle he was riding. Later, when Fecchan tries to make the best of having dropped her ice cream by claiming that she can still eat it after cleaning it off, the bike (and the instructor) come by and ruin what was left of her ice cream. In Episode 25, while Ms. Nakamura is walking down the street, the bike is incredibly, still continuing its path without the rider.
    • However, the manga chapters these two skits were based on were consecutive; still, to bother animating the bike at all...
  • A bored Daiku is eager to see Ogi return to the unaptly-named "Igo Soccer" club, only for him to quit. Later, once it turns out that igo soccer is an actual sport, Ogi stands from the sidelines of an intense competition, citing the official rules and techniques by heart before himself jumping into the fray.
  • In Chapter 119, the girls try to pool their money together for lunch. One of the coins is Mio's Argentinian Peso from the segment where Yuuko accidentally got her yaki soba.
  • In Chapter 125, Nakamura-sensei loses control of a robot named Peace-kun, which tackles her and sends her flying through the sky. Two chapters later, both of them suddenly crash down into the principal, who was struggling to carry a frustrated Mio to the hospital in a wooden cart.
  • In Chapter 178, Nano tries to stop a french fry thief escaping via jetpack by using what's implied to be a rocket launcher in her arm. It instead dispenses a cake roll like in one of the earliest stories, causing Nano to Face Fault so hard she gets stuck in the ground. Biscuit MK-II tries to help in her stead, only to use the same disappointing rocket punch from his debut chapter.
• Bring My Brown Pants: The Professor suffers a late night Potty Emergency, and would've held out if not for a particularly fierce bolt of lightning.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Nano, mostly due to the Professor's rather childlike inventions placed throughout her body.
  • Yuuko, whether she accidentally sets Mio off, falls for one of Mai's pranks, gets competitive, annoys her mom, or just witnesses something weird, the universe doesn't like her. In fact, Episode 23 of the anime gives us a small montage of the universe being mean to Yuuko.
  • Mio can qualify as well, since she has to deal with Yuuko, often unknowingly, pressing her Berserk Button, her own Covert Pervert tendencies landing her in a position that's far from ideal, and her Gadfly of an older sister.
  • Sakamoto. Looks like his fate is to be the pet of a well-meaning but careless Mad Scientist, no matter where he goes.
  • It turns out that almost anyone can can get hit with this. Two big contenders are Nakanojou (in addition to his complex about his hair, bad things continually happen to him) and Annaka (what with the universe almost seeming to hate her as much as Yuuko in terms of the weird stuff that gets thrown at her).
  • Fecchan is this in Misato's group, with unfortunate events happening to her and she being beaten by Misato and Weboshi because of her mouth and actions.
• Call-Back:
  • In a Chapter 135, we see Mio buying her wooden cubes at a street stall, with two panels matching exactly what she saw when her life flashed before her eyes after trying her sister's fish jam.
  • In Chapter 169, Mio sees Mai playing Darumaotoshi set atop Yuuko's head, another one of the things she saw flashing before her eyes in the fish jam story.
  • Chapter 199 features call backs to the first two games of Red Light Green Light, one of which was a short in the anime.
• Call-Forward: In a short in Chapter 190, Mio is reading a nursery teacher textbook, calling forward to an earlier Flash Forward chapter that reveals she'll be a preschool teacher.
• Calvin Ball: 'Go-Soccer', kind of. The guy who wanted to invent it (Daiku, the club president) was never actually able to come up with any rules. However, it later turns out that the sport is real, has existed for at least a decade (since Takasaki-sensei was an actual member of the club in his high school years), and there are some rules in the game, as Makoto Sakurai later demonstrates. Though what they actually are is still a mystery, as the rules aren't fully explained aside from showing a lot of complicated steps that somehow involve soccer balls, go stones, and wrestling moves. The Go-Soccer match that occurs between Makoto and Takasaki-sensei does nothing except leave even Sekiguchi with her jaw hanging open.
• The Cameo:
  • The next episode previews are done by various voice actors, expressing the thoughts of inanimate objects that appeared in the show. Almost all of these voice actors are industry vets with 20-40 years of experience — for example, Norio Wakamoto was a set of hair decs, Aya Hirano as a shogi piece, etc.
  • All the airship segments are filled with cameos of ultra-famous seiyuus doing extremely trivial roles. Hilariously enough, the voice actors of Kirei, Rider and Tokiomi all appear one after the other within the span of 5 minutes during the airship sequence in Episode 21, the first two of whom are killed within minutes of each other.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: The principal tells old jokes that no one gets, while Yuuko's are just terrible.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Mio with regard to her crush, Sasahara.
  • Misato appears to have this regarding Sasahara as well, with explosive results.
  • Also, Takasaki-sensei with Sakurai-sensei.
  • Many of Sekiguchi's feature strips imply that she has an unspoken crush on Daiku.
• Cast Herd: The series has two distinct casts: the Shinonome household, and the school. Even within the latter group there's further division, such as with the teachers, those involved in the Sasahara romance, the Go-Soccer Club, and of course the main trio.
• Caught with Your Pants Down:
  • Nakanojo's mother walking in on him trying to make his hair flat is played as if it were this trope.
  • In the manga, Yukko gets a little too excited playing with the automatic windup on their new vacuum. When her mother walks in, they both react in this way.
• Cell Phones Are Useless: Deliberately invoked in the post-credits short of Episode 25, where he prefers to watch a video on his flip phone rather than use it to get him and Tachibana un-lost.
  • In a broader sense, the setting is notable for having zero cellphones in it (outside of the short mentioned above), which would have resolved many storylines like Yuuko forgetting her homework (of course she'd have to remember to do that, so for her it would have made little difference).
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Yukko copies test answers in chapter 188, when everyone else falls asleep. She copies a different answer from each individual in class, so as not to be exposed by identical papers, but somehow manages to only copy wrong answers earning her a zero score.
• Cheeky Mouth: Happens to Mai in Episode 10 where she is blowing a bubble that she subsequently eats.
• Cheerful Child: Professor.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Chapter 160, Mio unsuccessfully tries to wrench a cutting board from a vending machine, only to receive a mini cutting board from the change dispensary. Later on In Chapter 165, Mio is saved from a nail flying full speed at her chest, because she kept that mini cutting board in her uniform chest pocket.
  • Nakamura visiting Shinonome Labs in Episode 25 of the anime has a bunch of this, with Biscuit and the vandalized daruma being used to scare her off, only to get caught in the super glue trap.
• Cherry Blossoms: Used to great effect at the start (and end) of the show.
• Child Prodigy: Despite being only eight years old, the Professor knows enough to build a Ridiculously Human Robot and constantly "upgrade" said robot throughout the story without her noticing.
  • In Episode 6, when she's told she can get out of the bath when she gets to ten, she says "20 log square root 10". Which is 10.
• Clothing Switch: Episode 16. Yuuko and the Professor switch outfits.
• Cloudcuckooland: The series is set in a contemporary Japanese city, but with enough oddities of its own to count as this, such as traffic light symbols being birds instead of people and a sport combining go and soccer apparently being real and treated as Serious Business. The characters' daily lives frequently alternate between very normal things turned awesome and very weird things turned normal, causing the characters to have a totally inverted perception of what's supposed to be made a big deal.
• Coincidental Dodge: The final episode contains a scene made of these.
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Yuuko swears off doing punchlines the same day Mai cranks her set-ups to eleven.
• Color Failure: Nearly everyone gets this, sometimes even combined with Blue with Shock.
  • A lesser version whenever the principal tells a joke — the students are faded and have Dull Eyes of Unhappiness.
  • People shot by Misato tend to come out completely white as well, such as her younger sister, and especially Sasahara.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: In Episode 3, Sakamoto walks around under an overturned box in the distant background; the box loses its conspicuous light whenever he stops moving.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The stained glass windows in 1-Q, the main Homeroom. What at first looks like a throwaway gag has consistently been given the nod ever since. Even in the OPENING!
  • The chapter where Yuuko asks Izumi what one of the test's sketches is refers back to an earlier story where she had trouble identifying it.
    • In the anime, these stories are reversed, so instead the nod is Yuuko struggling to remember what Izumi said the sketch was when she asked about it.
  • In Episode 17, Yuuko reflects upon Mai's past practical jokes when she swears off reacting to them. This is notable because in the manga the story happened far earlier, before Mai's teasing was fully established, and so many of the jokes hadn't happened yet.
  • Episode 23: Mio and Yuuko sport bandages where Mai's dogs bit them the previous chapter/episode.
  • In the manga, you can very often see other characters in the background, living out the story they were featured in in an earlier chapter, or clearly on their way from what they'd done in the last chapter. This most often happens between consecutive chapters (for example: Chapter 78 ends with the crow flying away. In Chapter 79, you can see the crow, still wearing Sakamoto's ribbon, in the background of the first page), but can go much further in length. Chapter 80 features the Vice Principal's daughter and grandson visiting him. In the background of page 6 of Chapter 75, you can see his daughter and grandson; he's even showing his mother the ball of mud he made for his grandfather. They're also on the first page of Chapter 76.
  • Episode 25: When Misato blows out the school's windows and the camera pans out to show it, we can see Yukko chasing Mio briefly... and this is "before" the scene where we see that that was her reaction!
  • In Chapter 135, we see Mio buy the wooden cubes that she wears at all times, due to her hair getting a bit long. These two panels were previously seen much earlier in the "fermented fish jam" story when her life flashes before her eyes.
    • In this same storefront, you can see Annaka's large bow, and the wrestling mask used by Mio's stalker in Nichijou's prototype chapter.
  • The "Today's Heaven Delivery" sheets the angel in Chapter 167 had referenced previous near-death experiences Yuuko & Mio had experienced.
  • Nano still has the roll cake function that was installed in her arm, as it's used for a gag when she's about to shoot a guy for stealing her french fry.
  • Mio remembers every single trap she's fallen for, with Chapter 179 showing a panel referencing all of them up to that point.
  • In Episode 26, Nano's birthday is revealed to be on the 7th of an unspecified month. In Chapter 211 of the manga (released much afterwards), her birthday is stated as March 7th, adhering to the anime.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: For her birthday, Mio gives Yukko a can of octopus-flavored wasabi that she just found laying in her house. Yukko is understandably less than enthralled by it, and it gets even worse when she can't even open the can.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • Yuuko seems to have earned this with the Professor in Chapter 50/Episode 16.
  • After some rough patches at the beginning, Mai's relationship with the Professor becomes this as of chapter 100.
• Cool Bike: Super Bicycle!
• Cool Plane: Kenzaburou uses a Blackbird to arrive at school.
• Couch Gag:
  • Nano and the Professor's games of Rock Paper Scissors on the commercial break.
  • Every Helvetica Standard segment has a different logo.
• Covert Pervert: Mio. The whole chase in Episode 2 was the result of such a moment. Also, in Episode 5, she stops what she's doing immediately upon hearing that Yuuko was going to attempt to draw a cool guy and ends up getting carried away.
  • She later ends up trying to turn herself in for a crime she didn't commit and bribe a police officer just to keep him from searching her bag and finding her drawings. When that fails, she beats the crap out of him, Yuuko, the "OH GENTLEMAN" guy, and Sasahara's goat.
• Crappy Carnival: The festival Annaka goes to in Chapter 99 is kind of scummy. The shooting game she tries out only has two types of cheap brand-name prizes (caramels and eggplants), and both types are nailed to the stalls, so even when Annaka can shoot them cleanly she couldn't win more than a ripped off piece of eggplant. And when the poor girl tries to point it out, the stall vendor ignores her wholesale.
• Crash-Into Hello: Subverted. When Nano crashes into a boy from school, it results in an Earth-Shattering Kaboom instead, followed by both parties landing on separate rooftops.
• Credits Jukebox: The second half of the show has a collection of Real Song Theme Tunes, covered by Sayaka Sasaki and the primary cast.
• Creepy Cockroach: In one segment, Nano has a cockroach trapped under a bowl, but is too terrified of it to lift the bowl to kill it (or let someone else do so).
• Cringe Comedy:
  • Yuuko is a master of getting into awkward situations:
    • Chapter 97 is second-hand embarrassment fuel for Yukko. From giving up her seat to an old lady only to be rejected, to her paranoia when Tachibana's little sister keeps laughing at her, to her and Mai preparing for a Trick-or-treating event the day after Halloween, things end up so awkwardly for her.
    • Chapter 121 has Yuuko suffer from a series of unfortunate mishaps, capped off by her awkwardly trying to avoid telling an old man about his misaligned hairpiece and then imitating her Chapter 114 pose where her classmates could see.
    • Chapter 144 has her embellish her pre-Nano life as exciting and filled with adoration, but she slowly starts realizing that she's also telling this story while Mio and Mai are there too.
    • Chapter 176 spends a god half a chapter on Yuuko poorly rapping, much to the awkward reactions of her friends. And even when it's clear that they aren't biting, she keeps going.
  • Chapter 116 has Takasaki and the principal awkwardly try avoiding talking about the latter's wig and hair care products being left out in the room. This ultimately culminates in the principal's wig being set on fire, and Takasaki can't bring himself to tell him.
• Cupid's Arrow: The clumsy angel that was supposed to send Mio to the afterlife is also in charge of Love at First Sight or the prevention thereof. While trying to ruin an encounter between Sakurai and Takasaki, she accidentally looses an arrow into the former's head. Trying to get it out only results in Sasahara getting pierced instead, while he is looking at what is heavily implied to be an off screen Tachibana.
• Curtains Match the Window: The majority of the characters, though there are a few exceptions, such as Professor.
• Cute Bruiser: Mio may be a pigtailed schoolgirl, but when rage overtakes her she is capable of incredible violence.
  Mio: What color is your blood?
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Both Nano and the Professor instantly fall victim to this once Sakamoto sits on Nano's lap in Chapter 28/Episode 3. Also, Mai to the Professor in Episode 23.
  • In chapter 187, Mio reacts with pure glee when the Professor (or more accurately Nano in the Professor's body) hugs her.
• Death as Comedy:
  • The airship segments, where Red Shirt Army soldiers repeatedly drop like flies.
  • Chapter 201 has Annaka comically die and get brought back to life repeatedly, because of a super-fast beetle flying into her.
• Deconstructive Parody: Nakamura-sensei visits Shinonome Labs. Knowing that Nano-chan is a robot, and that the Professor is extremely intelligent, she behaves terrified, like a normal person would in a (potentially mad) scientist's lair. She even notes that the Professor appears too young to have built Nano.
• Denied Food as Punishment: Nano frequently threatens the Professor with this, but then either forgets or just simply forgives her for whatever the Professor did to cause said punishment in the first place.
• Deuteragonist: While the series mostly has an ensemble cast, the first ending and second opening themes treat Yuuko and Nano as this, giving them the most prominent roles within the segments.
• Disaster Dominoes: When goof-off Yuuko does her homework and her studious friends don't, they trigger this. The high school trio hides out in a nearby shrine during the rain, Yuuko tries to pay a coin to the shrine, Hilarity Ensues, and ends with the entire place destroyed.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mio performs disabling wrestling moves on anyone who saw or was eating the manga she was drawing in Episode 16, whether it's a cop, Yuuko, or a goat.
• Distant Finale: The formerly final chapter ends with future versions of Yuuko, Mio, Mai and Nano going to dig up a time capsule that contains letters they'd written to their adult selves back when they were teenagers. To Mio's dismay, it turns out that the sapling Yuuko buried just above the letters has grown into a massive tree and completely enveloped the capsule, making it impossible to reach.
• Do-Anything Robot: Nano, much to her chagrin. She even has a reaction function.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Yuuko swears off jokes, only for Mai to dial her 'boke'ness up. Yuuko's reaction after letting it all out is...interesting, to say the least. Even more so in the episode this skit's featured in (17).
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Sasahara gets shot repeatedly by Misato, but the damage seems minimal, including head shots.
• Dreadful Musician: Nano, as revealed when she plays trumpets with the Professor, but it turns out Nano is the only one of the two who can make her trumpet make any noise.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In the Funimation dub, Mio's reactions to Yuuko trying to expose Nano as a robot is treated as this, with Mio pointing out that Nano is extremely uncomfortable about it and Yuuko should leave her alone. In the original, Mio simply expresses disbelief that Nano could be a robot at all.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Ms. Nakamura is seen looking for Sakamoto in Episode 3 after the Professor and Nano adopt him. The Kendo assistant instructor turns up to offer Mio sage words of advice in Episode 18.
• Elevator Failure: Happens to Yuuko, Mio, and Mai in Chapter 25 / Episode 8.
• Emotionless Girl: Mai behaves this way as a vehicle for her pranks.
  • Sekiguchi from the Go-Soccer Club, too.
• Energy Weapon: This is Played for Laughs, but Yuuko and Mio can shoot them if they scream in pain loud enough.
• Epic Fail:
  • Jumping rope. Except for Mai, everyone who does it gets it wrong in some fashion.
  • Yuuko's losing her shoes in Episode 14. She kicks off one, which lands on a car that promptly drives off. While giving chase, she stumbles and loses the other shoe, which a dog runs away with.
  • Mio and any non-combat sport. She is completely incapable of performing any sport correctly, despite being decently athletic. She manages a high jump completely by accident, and headbutts Yuuko in the process.
  • Nakamura with nearly everything. In particular her attempts to drug Nano, both of which end up with her drinking the drink she drugged. The second time she does it reflexively by sipping off the excess after she pours too much. The second time also occurs after it's confirmed the drug wouldn't even affect Nano.
  • Dolph killing himself by tripping over his own feet and breaking his neck upon impact with the floor.
  • Chapter 188 features everybody except Yuuko falling asleep in class. Yuuko nabs this opportunity to start copying answers off everyone else's worksheets. Yuuko is just Genre Savvy enough to realize that copying from just one worksheet could expose her due to identical answers. So she copies a different answer from each person in class. Such is Yuuko's luck that every individual answer she copies is incorrect.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No one seems to know what the Professor's given name is.
• Exact Words: Annaka participates in a raffle in Chapter 129. The second time she wins a prize, she's supposed to get the third place "wonderful seafood", but instead receives a roll of fishcake.
• Expy:
  • Mai basically looks like a bespectacled Osaka with a dull expression on her face. Though many have also been relating Nano's look to Osaka.
  • In contrast to Mai being a stoic version of Osaka, Yuuko definitely gives off Tomo vibes with her similar hair style and Tareme Eyes, overzealous earnestness, slacking, and Butt-Monkey status, though most of the time she's a good deal less annoying when hyped up.
    • The Professor is like an over exaggerated version of Chiyo-Chan. A blue-eyed red-head Child Prodigy who relapses into childish behavior when overly happy or upset. Her being paired with the Osaka-resembling Nano only makes this more apparent.
  • When Arawi did a tribute comic for Azumanga's 10th anniversary, his way of drawing Osaka was almost literally just Nano in Osaka's uniform.
  • The Professor looks like Becky and her robot Nano looks like Himeko (no relation).
  • Sasahara looks and acts like Keima Katsuragi, all the way down to the collar, to the point of multiple people calling Sasahara "Keima's long-lost brother". He also reminds many people of Miles Edgeworth, with his collar and classy attitude.
• Extreme Omni-Goat: Kojirou (Sasahara's goat) is shown eating a piece of paper.
  • He took a bite off one of Mio's drawings in Episode 16. Poor, poor Kojirou.
• Eyes Always Shut: Makoto Sakurai.
• Eye Scream: Here's a useful tip: Never tease an extremely violent Tsundere when she's got two sticks of Pocky.
• Face Fault: All over the place. It's one of Nano's many functions, even!
  • "Let's go all the way to Okachimachi like this."
• Failure Is the Only Option: Poor Nano.
• Fall of the House of Cards Chapter 9/Episode 17 has Yuuko and Mio's efforts to keep their card stack stable ends up in flames; while they were successful in getting Mai to stop messing with it, Yuuko stepping out for a bathroom break inavertedly caused the ceiling lights to unplug and drop right on the stack.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: Double subverted. The guns Misato uses are fairly realistically displayed, and quite powerful since they cause quite some damage to the surroundings. However, it still comes off as this trope since the characters hit are so Made of Iron that they only end up with smoke emitting from their bodies, and occasionally slight bleeding.
• Fiery Redhead: Misato, complete with Hyperspace Arsenal.
• First-World Problems: Mihoshi's rich friend Sumika just ends up making her friends depressed whenever she laments her life. She tries to relate to not having a talent by mentioning she only has her obscene wealth, and complains about being late for school because she had to take a limousine to school instead of her usual helicopter.
• Five-Second Rule: An early segement features Yukko desperately and over-dramatically trying to prevent a wiener from her lunch from hitting the floor. She ultimately fails, but as the food hits the floor Yukko is desperately and over-dramatically counting to three as she gets it, eats it, and declares herself safe thanks to the 3-second rule.
• Flash Forward: The ninth and tenth volumes have several chapters focusing on the characters about ten years later.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Chapter 176, when Yuuko dodges Mr. Takahashi's slap with his book, attention is called to her foot. This foreshadows that she didn't dodge out of pure instinct, but instead slipped on a coin.
  • In Chapter 206, the new daifuku mascot makes a wooden statue of a daifuku warrior. This is a clue that it's Mai in the suit!
• For Science!: The dub peppers this into most of Ms. Nakamura’s internal monologues about capturing and “possessing” Nano, likely to reinforce that she’s a Stalker without a Crush.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four main girls at the end of the TV series. Yukko is Sanguine, Mio is choleric, Mai is melancholic, and Nano is phlegmatic.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Chapter 187 has one of Nakamura's inventions switch around the souls of the Shinonome household. Nano and Hakase get switched around, as do Sakamoto and Biscuit Mk. II. Later on in the chapter Nano switches bodies with Biscuit.
• Freudian Trio: Two sets. Mio (super-ego), Yukko (id) and Mai (ego) before Nano appeared. Also Misato, Fecchan, and Weboshi.
• From Bad to Worse: Chapter 82 has the girls go to a shrine, before it suddenly starts to downpour. Taking shelter from the rain is no easy picnic either, as everything they do, short of breathing, either breaks the shrine or gets them trapped underneath the floorboards. On top of that, the art piece Yukko was so proud of completing gets destroyed.
• Funny Background Event:
  • The background artists certainly felt like they had fun working on this show. Take the second episode — the Go-Soccer club has recruitment posters up on the classroom walls, there's a 'don't sweat it in the hallway' poster up in the hallway, the convenience store has Wou~i Ocha ^note parody of 'Ooo-i Ocha', the first sound representing a shout across a field and 'Overcooked Soup' (the black one being sold for 100 yen — cheaper than the others!), the list goes on.
  • Chapter 129 has two workers for Snaq run around looking for something in the background. It turns out to set up a joke in Chapter 130, where Nakamura infiltrates the Shinonome household with a costume of the Snaq mascot.
  • In Chapter 134, you can see a kid beating his own face up while Yuuko and Mai are talking together.
  • Chapter 161 has Annaka still flying off from the events of the previous chapter. She's up in the sky in the first panel.

G-L

• The Gadfly: Mai. Almost makes you wonder why Yuuko and Mio are friends with her sometimes.
  • Also Mio's sister.
• Gag Series: Pretty much.
• Genius Ditz: Yoshino, according to Misato "all she can do is kendo".
• Genki Girl: Yuuko. In the manga, her introductory character description is the single word 'genki'.
  • Misato's friend Fecchan.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: At one point, Yuuko is already getting over a cold and discovers that she has an exam tomorrow, after missing three days of school. She tries to give herself another cold to buy time by sitting in a tub full of ice water. It doesn't work.
• Girlish Pigtails: Mio and Misato's little sister, Mihoshi.
  • Sakurai-sensei, sometimes.
• Going Commando: As revealed in Chapter 187, the Professor sometimes doesn't wear underwear under her enormous lab coat (fortunately, it's off-panel).
• Grand Finale: The anime invents two brand new stories to serve as this in the final two episodes. In the penultimate episode, after Mio has her breakdown over Sasahara, Yuuko Nano and Mai devise a charming way to give her a "Voucher to be Friends for Eternity" to cheer her up. In the final episode, Nano finally accepts herself as both a robot and a person, and all six main characters are in the same location for the very first time.
• Gratuitous English: LOTS.
  • In Mio's Imagine Spot:
    Sasahara: Happy New Year.
    Mio: M...me too!
  • Yuuko is prone to outbursts of gratuitous English when shocked or utterly confused.
    • GOD IS DEAD
    • Koucho (Principal) DEATH
    • When she is forced to wait a very long time for her order at a restaurant: "Goddamn!"
    • Episode 11, Super Ultra Great Delicious Wonderful Yabai ("yabai" is Japanese for "bad"). Her attempt to catch a cold Come On, Come On too, which was especially amusing as she was trying to catch a cold in order to avoid having to take an English exam.
  • Nano in Episode 6 when she's trapped a cockroach under a bowl.
    • Death or Die!
    • Good Timing!
    • R-R-R-Rock and Roll!
  • Mai after catching a fish: Release.
  • The whole rocket launch sequence.
  • Off za book
  • Episode 12 has several instances, including a segment ("Killing Time") centered around not using English words.
  • Also from Episode 12, two back-to-back "Things We Think Are Cool" segments each have multiple instances: "NICE CATCH!" followed by "Oh! Superball! and "WOW!" followed by "Oh! Slipstream!"
  • "Oh! Gentleman!" The manga expands that joke specifically quite a bit, with several pages containing no dialogue but sound effects all written in Roman letters along with such English outbursts.
  • In Episode 17:
    Takasaki: NO FUTURE!!!
    Takasaki: Gonna Move!!
    • "SEE YOU SOON!"
  • In episode 18 we have "Trick or Treat" and:
    Yukko: Nice timing, announcer!
  • Episode 19:
    "Domestic violence!"
    Ogi: A final rabudo!
  • Episode 21:
    Takasaki: GOOD! ENOUGH!!!
  • Episode 24:
    "Delicious."
    Mio: RENDEZVOUS!
  • Episode 25:
    Nakamura-sensei: SHOULDER BLOCK!
  • From the pilot OVA:
    "Oh! L.E.D."
• Gratuitous Foreign Language:
  • Yukko's default greeting, "Selamat pagi!" is actually either Malay or Indonesian. Flame wars have been fought to determine which of the two languages Yukko (tried to) speak (although most linguists would tell you that Indonesian is just a standardised form OF Malay).
  • Episode 6's "Rock-Paper-Scissors" ends with the Professor saying "I love you" in Korean ("saranghaeo").
• Gratuitous Japanese:
  • Gratuitous Romaji after Yoshino removes Nano's wind up key: "TORETA!!!"
  • A more classic example of Gratuitous Japanese: In the Helvetica Standard segment of Episode 9, as Piko sells out Chirashizushi to Namahage, each syllable is accompanied by its corresponding Japanese characters.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Chapter 52 / Episode 7 has the Professor and Nano playing baseball with Sakamoto officiating, but neither player has any idea how the game works.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Mio. At least she's the one who's angered most easily, due to all the things she considers Serious Business, and her overreaction to them.
  • Second only to Misato.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: The Go-soccer match between Makoto vs Takasaki-sensei.
  • Mio and Yukko often.
• Head Pet:
  • Yuuko and Nano in the first ED.
  • Sakamoto does this more often in the anime rather than in the manga, especially starting from season 2's between-chapter segments.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Mai is virtually shut off from her surroundings when using ear buds, as Yuuko finds out.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: Nakanojou and his father (the daifuku guy), as revealed in Episode 16.
• Here We Go Again!: The last segment of Episode 26 is quite similar to the first one from Episode 1. It even has the same title.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Nano literally overheats as she reads Mio's manga.
• Honest Axe: Yoshino pulls a rather insane variation with fish sculptures.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Nakanojou invokes it. As a Straw Atheist, he wants to be able to disprove every supernatural phenomenon and confidently say that anything "evil" is merely the result of humans rather than ghosts or somesuch.
• Hurricane of Puns: The Professor uses this to test Nano's reaction function in Episode 15.
  • The Dub version of the "Cat Hakase" scene that opens Episode 5:
  Hakase: I'm a cat, check me-owt!
  Nano: Hakase... I think your cat look is purr-fect!
  Hakase: Checking me-owt?
  Nano: That's paw-some!
  Hakase: Here and meow?
  Nano: So a-mew-sing!
  Hakase: You're checking me-owt!
  Nano: I'm really feline it!
  Hakase: Meow! I'm a cat!
  Nano: You're kitten me!
  Hakase: I'm fur real!
  Nano: Meow you're talkin'!
  Hakase: Meow and fur-ever!
  Narrator: It's another peaceful day at the Shinonome household.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Misato conjures everything from hand grenades to a full-size iron cannon.
  Sakurai-sensei: U-um, you're not allowed to bring that to school!
• Hypno Fool: In Chapter 127 of the manga, Yukko tries to hypnotize Mio into becoming an idiot. It doesn't work, but Mio pretends it does to try to freak her out.
• Ice-Cream Koan: Pretty much every episode has at least one.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Inverted. The chapters are nameless and are simply referred to as "Nichijou Episode (number)". The anime changes this slightly so that some segments have actual names.
  • Played straight in Episode 0, where all three segments have the "Ordinary [X]" naming scheme.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Although she is generally happy, Nano is very self-conscious about her status as a Ridiculously Human Robot. She particularly hates the large wind-up key protruding from her back, since it immediately marks her as different from other girls.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Nano's main reason for her wanting to be normal.
• Imagine Spot: The over-the-top reactions and sequences are to this effect half of the time, comically exagerrating a particular scene or emotion only to snap things back to normal the moment it's ended and continue as if something much more normal happened instead. For example, when Yuuko accidentally stabs herself with the sharp end of a mechanical pencil, her reaction blows out the top of Mio's house and destroys most of the outer planets, but once the sequence is over, Mio's room is unharmed. The other half of the time, of course, the Imagine Spot actually has happened to the degree it's shown, such as Nano accidentally running into the jogger in the very first episode, or Mio KO-ing everyone and their goat to stop them from viewing / consuming her manga.
  • Yuuko's in-class dreams of the Fey Kingdom. Takasaki-sensei and Mio occasionally have these with their respective love interests. Mio once even comes up with an entire romantic scene for Nano and Sasahara when Yuuko convinces her they're dating, complete with a slight Art Shift.
  • Chapter 138 has Misato delusionally dream about dating Sasahara and upgrading to a First-Name Basis in the middle of her explanation about Mihoshi's (fake) confession letter.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Makoto Sakurai uses this excuse when his older sister finds a dirty magazine in his room. She buys it.
• Innocently Insensitive: The eight-year-old Professor thinks that robots are incredibly cool, and cannot fathom why Nano wouldn't want a large wind-up key sticking out of her back.
• In-Series Nickname: "Yukko" for Yuuko.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: In one manga chapter (Episode 8 in the anime), Yukko tries to get a rise out of Mio and Mai with a series of bad Japanese puns and only gives up after they get to school with no reaction whatsoever.
  • Yukko's second character song, "Yukko no Gag Hyaku Renpatsu", is essentially an extended version of this scene in song form. It consists of pun upon pun upon pun, only broken up by the chorus where she wishes that her friends would laugh. The song title translates to "Yukko's Hundred Gag Barrage".
  • The fact that the Ridiculously Human Robot is named Nano, making her a Nano-bot.
• Inherently Funny Words: When the main trio are trapped in an elevator and fall into a stupor, Mio just saying the word "eggplant" for no particular reason is enough to send them into hysterical laughing fits.
• Instant Bandages: Yuuko sports some on her head in Episode 24 shortly after Mio finds out that she was lying about Sasahara and Nano getting a little too friendly with each other.
• Iron Butt-Monkey: Yuuko — considering the universe that she lives, she needs to be. Sakamoto also counts, to a lesser extent.
• It Was a Gift: Nano cannot process a lot of food, being a robot. However, she'll gladly accept any food that comes her way if it is given to her by friends. That being the case, she gets royally pissed when a thief steals the one french fry given to her by Yuuko.
• Iwo Jima Pose: Mio imagines raising a Sasahara flag this way when she talks to him at the drinks machine in Episode 24.
• Iyashikei: The Like Love segments break the pace with sequences that are there just to be heartwarming.
• Joshikousei: The series is a lot like Azumanga Daioh on lots and lots of acid.
• Jump Rope Blunders:
  • In Episode 1, Mio runs up to two people holding onto a jumprope and jumps up, and then she bumps her head on the rope.
  • In Episode 2, Yukko tries to do a flip when two people are holding the other sides of a jumprope, only to fall right on her face. Then they accidentally hit her with the rope.
  • In Episode 5, the teacher Izumi Sakurai attempt to jumprope. However, she touches the rope the instant she runs in, and she just starts frantically jumping with her eyes closed while the rope isn't even going.
• Just Train Wrong: This scene. You can hear four wheel sets (2 bogeys) pass over a track joint while the train moves barely a foot. Of course nobody gives a darn since in Nichijou Reality Is Out to Lunch of which main course is apparently crack.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Annaka takes off her incredibly heavy bow in Chapter 177 in order to retrieve a child's balloon.
• Life Saving Misfortune: Played for Laughs, but still: One manga chapter has Mio blow all of her money trying to buy a chopping board from an uncooperative vending machine, only to end up with a miniature version of said board. A few chapters later, Nakanojou unknowingly strikes a nail so hard it flies straight towards Mio; since she had stored the board in her school uniform's pocket, it stopped the nail from piercing her heart, to her horror.
• Like Reality, Unless Noted: You wouldn't think so with a setting this bizarre, but it's true! The setting is assumed to be an urban area of Japan and the world generally works as you'd expect it to (which is why it's so funny when it does not).
• Line-of-Sight Name: In a short in Chapter 186, Yuuko is on the phone to name bird species she discovered. One is "mole" after her mother came home during the call wearing a shirt with a mole on it, and the other is "Vertical Moncione" after Mio taught her what that is in a preceding short.
• Locker Mail: In chapter 180, Yuuko slips a fake love letter in Mio's shoe locker in an attempt to snap a funny photo of her reaction.
• Loophole Abuse: In Mai's bio in Chapter 211, it's stated that she once took the lens off her glasses when playing a game of strip rock-paper-scissors.
• Love Hurts: Happens to Mio in Episode 25. She ends up taking a very long run in the process...
• Lucky Charms Title: The first opening song is called "Hyadain no Ka-ka-kata☆Kataomoi-C".
• Luminescent Blush: Misato, bordering on High-Pressure Emotion.

M-R

• Mad Scientist: Both the Professor and Nakamura-sensei. The former is much nicer and much more competent, though.
• Made of Iron: Sasahara can take everything Misato does to him with barely any damage.
• Magic Countdown: Invoked by a teacher in the TV series, who drags out the countdown to give the last few students time to finish a test before she declares that their time's up.
• Magic Skirt: Oh so much. Three glaring examples are when Yuuko does a fliptake after making several horrible puns ("What nice tenki (weather) today... I MIGHT BUY A TEN KEY PAD!") and yet her skirt magically stays up. Another is her time spent as the coffee shop. Several angles show her throwing herself around in frustration at being unable to buy an expresso, and most of them are at her legs yet her skirt is always protected by a wonderfully convenient impossibely cast shadow. The last major one is when Mio does a 50-foot jump into the water.
• Maybe Ever After:
  • The anime does this with Kenzaburo/Yuria and Sasahara/Misato.
  • From the manga: a Flash Forward chapter (186) shows Ms. Sakurai wearing a wedding ring. Chapter 190 features a cupid accidentally dropping an arrow on Ms. Sakurai's head while Mr. Takasaki is in front of her. This arrow is later accidentally transferred to Sasahara, who's looking down the barrel of a cannon...
• MegaCorp: Daiku operate lots of businesses around the place including a coffee shop and a fast food joint. The owner's son is rich enough to commute to school by helicopter, and they even own an SR-71 blackbird!
• Milestone Celebration: The stories every 50 chapters in the manga tend to be more touching and thoughtful than usual:
  • Chapter 50 has Yuuko give Nano a surprise visit at home, and affirms that she likes Nano just for being herself. It was the first time Nano had been seen with anyone from the regular cast since she was introduced over 40 chapters earlier.
  • Chapter 100 has Mai visit and connect with the Professor, by sketching sharks, ending with Mai smiling on the way home as she holds the Professor's sketch.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Yuuko accidentally presses the sharp end of a pen, and destroys the solar system.
• Mistaken for Badass: Due to Nakanojou's natural mohawk, many of his classmates believe he's a delinquent. In actuality, he's a polite young man who gardens and takes care of baby birds.
• Mistaken for Gay: In chapter 180, Yuuko, trying to take funny pictures of people, slips a fake love letter in Mio's shoe locker to try and capture her reaction. Annaka sees the letter sticking out of the shoe locker, and mistakenly believes it's genuine, which isn't helped by Yuuko's over-the-top attempts to take a good picture of Mio.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • A blunder on Mihoshi's part (writing her name on a Love Confessor letter to Sasahara) causes Misato to think she is also gunning for Sasahara, when Mihoshi's intention was to end Misato's tsundere shennanegans overall. The air would have been cleared in the 16th Ordinary Short, but then Mihoshi decides to double down to make Misato either give up or finally admit her feelings.
  • In Chapter 133, Mio and Yuuko's hypnotism experiments on Annaka and Nakanojou (which somehow makes both of them start acting like rowdy cows) cause rumors to circulate about the pair being a very weird couple.
  • Takasaki-sensei accidentally sets off a Love Triangle between him, Sakurai-sensei, and Nakamura. Chapter 156 has him try to get out of Sakurai discovering he has her highschool photos by passing them off as one of Nakamura—and in the process makes both think he's interested in the latter woman.
  • Chapter 180 has Annaka putting a message to Mio, written by Yuuko, in Nakanojou's locker, but when Nakanojou shows up in the classroom with it, Annaka grabs the letter and runs away, giving him the impression that she was giving him a love letter.
• Moe Couplet: Nano and the Professor.
• Moment of Weakness: Inverted when Mio & Yuuko get into a serious argument. Yuuko accidentally blurts out a sincere complement and the argument ends up defusing.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Mio's Heroic BSOD run in Chapter 104 / Episode 25. You think this might be the show's first Tear Jerker, given that she's seriously hurt when she thinks Sasahara and Misato are dating.... but then Mio jumps out of the window.
  • In Chapter 166, Fecchan and Weboshi have a navel gazing conversation about aliens, and at the end Fecchan casually mentions that she bought a gun.
• More Dakka: Misato. As she gets more and more embarrassed, she pulls out bigger and bigger guns (getting as far as a bombard at one point).
  • Nano uses this on the Professor after discovering she had a machine gun installed on her right arm. Fortunately it only shoots BB's, but that doesn't stop Nano from shooting the Professor repeatedly as a result.
• Mundane Made Awesome: With its over the top jokes and everyone generally overreacting to everything, this show may as well be called "Mundane Made Awesome: The Series."
• Myth Arc: The anime adds a very light one with Nano's existing desire to be a normal girl, thus a bigger deal is made over her convincing the Professor to let her go to school to make new friends. This is helped by the manga not showing Nano at school for long stretches of time, allowing her to not attend school for over half the episode count without affecting anything. Nano enrolling is notable enough to warrant a new OP / ED set, and the final episode has her accept the key on her back for the emotional climax, a storyline that doesn't happen in the manga.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Mai after learning that her dogs almost bit the Professor. She compensates her later.
• Never My Fault: Whenever Nano expresses displeasure with one of the Professor's practical jokes, it immediately becomes Sakamoto's idea. Nano does sometimes falls for it, though.
• Nice to the Waiter: Yuuko orders an unusual rice dish at a soba restaurant, oblivious to how much trouble she's putting the staff through (including making an old woman walk out in the summer heat to get the fresh ingredients). When the dish finally arrives after the long wait, she erupts at the waitress, who walks off sobbing.
• Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: Played with in episode 13. Professor has a Potty Emergency late at night, but she appears to be more spooked by the thunder than by the darkness. She has Nano walk to the bathroom with her, but then a sudden bolt of lightning startles her badly enough to make her piss herself.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Once in a while Sakamoto will let himself fall for one of the Professor's pranks only for said prank to be more than he bargained for.
• No Name Given: The Professor (although this borders on her name being the title, Hakuse), and Misato's two friends Fecchan and Weboshi.
• Non-Standard Character Design: All birds on this show are drawn realistically...with the exception of the crow voiced by Daisuke Ono, who could best be described as a two-framed black cone.
• Noodle Incident: Many of the character bios in Chapter 211 reference some random piece of trivia about them that is not elaborated on.
• Nose Bleed: In an early episode, Mio suffers a subtle one after having an Imagine Spot with Sasahara in it. In the next scene her nose is plugged with tissue and her friends are carrying her away.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Sakamoto. For all his protesting he can be caught up in his catlike behaviors more easily than he likes.
  • In manga chapter 141, Yuuko is repeatedly pulling out the retractable vacuum cleaner cord and experiencing euphoria when it snaps back into position with a "paching". She gets told off by her mother... who proceeds to do the exact same thing.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Nakanojou unintentionally doess this to the principal in Chapter 184, where he defends him against Tanaka's accusations that he stole his afro. He did, and quite obviously, but he lied and said that the hair grew spontaneously.
• Odd Name Out: All the character songs are named in Japanese as "<character name> no <song title>", which just means "<character>'s <song title>"... with the sole exception of Mio's second song, which is only named "Yukko wa Honto ni Baka da naa" ("Yukko's really an idiot").
• Once an Episode: There are actually several of these in the anime in the form of recurring shorts, although they phase in and out of use:
  • One is two people wearing the daifuku "costume" from chapter 16 swinging a jump rope, and one of the characters attempts to join in.
  • Then there's the Professor and Nano playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, only the Professor's modified Nano in a way that's either humiliating, or works things out in the Professor's favor. In later episodes, the two do a little dance instead. The segment made a comeback in Episode 26, in which Nano finally wins! ...But Sakamoto accidentally covered the Professor's face, preventing her from seeing it.
  • The "Things we think are cool!" segments, which cover, well, scenarios that the cast finds interesting.
  • The "Like Love" and "This is..." segments, which cover silly and sweet short scenes.
  • Helvetica Standard will usually get a segment.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Misato's two friends Fecchan and Weboshi.
• Only Six Faces: There are only four or so unique faces, and even those are subject to change based on the situation. This is actually the source of a lot of stylistic parody — the school trio and scientist trio lend themselves well to being photoshopped into other character's costumes.
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Poor Yuuko in Chapter 115. She desperately tries to put up a fight against Mai, but the instant she starts she gets instantly smacked down. What's worse is that she was not only playing to buy juice for the winner, putting Yuuko at 13 servings in debt for Mai. In the anime she keeps trying for even longer, leading to her owing Mai over 20 drinks.
• On the Next: Delivered by something from the preceding episode that you wouldn't think would be able to talk (an apartment, coins, onomotopeia), voiced by a different voice actor, and amounts to little more than bemused ramblings, not about anything related to the next episode.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Played positively in Episode 26 when Yuuko completely ignores accidentally pulling off Nano's arm, quickly giving it back to her and asking if she and her friends can visit Nano's house after school. Nano realizes the significance of this towards the end, since Yuuko would normally gush about her robotic features. That she didn't helps Nano realize that she has friends who truly care about her, robot or not.
  • In the manga, Mio is able to tell that she's dreaming when Mai runs in and acts like an expressive, extroverted Genki Girl.
• Orphaned Punchline: In the anime, Mai can be seen in the background of a short with some crows. In the manga, this is the punchline to the previous chapter where crows steal the principal's hairpiece, dentures, and a baseball player's cap, but this chapter was never adapted in the anime.
• Overcomplicated Menu Order: After Yukko fails miserably at ordering off the complicated new coffee list, she invites Mio to the same coffee shop to watch her fail, but Mio flawlessly recites one of these.
• Overly Long Gag:
  Professor: Hakase da nyan!
  Nano: Moe desu!
  Professor: Hakase da nyan!
  Nano: Moe desu!
  • The boredom of the girls when stuck in the elevator, featuring long pauses and incredibly still cinematography combined with tiny shots on a black background.
  • Annaka going "Eeeeehhhh?" in Episode 10.
  • The Professor's tantrum for shark sponge cake in Episode 13.
  • Episode 21 features a Repeat Cut of Takasaki-sensei giving Yuuko a smack on the head with his class binder. As in, repeated over 50 times. In the manga, it went on for a few pages.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Nano thinks she's fooled everyone into thinking she's a normal, human girl. She hasn't as seen with Mio's older sister.
• Parental Substitute: Nano and the Professor each perform this role for the other. Nano generally acts as the responsible parent figure who watches over the eight-year-old Professor. But as Nano's creator, the Professor is the closest thing she has to a parent, and she comforts and consoles Nano when (for example) Nano is scared by lightning.
• Parlor Games:
  • Yuuko is particularly bad at shiritori, often falling afoul of the N rule.
  • In a drawing-based variant while passing notes to Mio during class, she draws the Superman character and notices that she will lose since it ends with N. She tries to correct this by changing it to Supermans, but Mio doesn't buy it and crosses out the "s" and the extra Supermen she drew in a hurry.
  • While the girls are trapped inside an elevator, they start playing shiritori to pass the time: Yuuko's first word is Mikan, or orange (in the dub, it's the similar Mandarin). It takes their isolation-addled minds several seconds to realise that there's a problem. They also play shiritori in Chapter 190.
  • The girls play Musical Chairs in Chapter 175, but for the grand honor of sitting on a spiky bamboo shoot.
• Period Piece: While not initially written as one in 2006, a monthly update schedule, hundreds of chapters, and a six year hiatus have reulted in this, because all of the stories take place within a single year of high scool (except for Flashbacks and Flash Forwards). The anime adhered to this, as did the manga when it returned from its hiatus in 2021. As a result, none of the characters have cell phones, Mio has to remind Yuuko that she doesn't have a computer, and recording something off the TV is a headscratcher.
• Phrase Catcher: Takasaki has a tendency to say "EEEEEEEEHHHHHHH?!" when chatting with Annaka.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Misato Tachibana does this in one episode.
• Piss-Take Rap: Chapter 176 focuses on Yuuko doing an absurdly bad rap for her friends, to the point where Mai breaks her deadpan character just to make her stop.
• Pocket Protector: The coin-sized cutting board that Mio recieved from a vending machine a few chapters earlier shields her heart from getting pierced from a projectile spike.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Nakamura inflicts this on herself in Episode 15.
• Power Limiter: According to a short in Chapter 177, Annaka's bow is heavily weighted for this purpose.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: While the manga jumped all over the series timeline before generally settling on one continuity, the anime attempts to make a chronological order starting from before Nano is admitted into high school in Episode 14 and continuing on through her first year of school (although some paired stories are now farther apart). Sakamoto is also introduced earlier, which makes him available for Shinonome household shenanigans, and some skits are reordered and placed in different parts of the year to emphasize their lack of or inclusion of Nano.
• Product Placement: Snickers, in Episode 14. Credited at the end, even.
• Promotion to Parent: Oddly enough, Nano often plays the parental role with regard to the Professor, sometimes helped (or hindered) by Sakamoto. Well, the Professor is still a little kid after all.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The ending songs of the anime's second season use popular Japanese public domain songs sung by the cast.
• Puni Plush: Also has a bit of Azumanga Daioh influence as well.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Sasahara's glasses are "just for show". Misato, who accidentally broke them and thought he was Blind Without 'Em, was not amused.
• The Quiet One: Mai.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Done to Yuuko by Mio in Episode 20... over drawing paper.
• Retraux: When Yukko recites her first poem in Episode 11, the scene changes to the style of an old-school anime. There was so much attention to detail when recreating the feel of physical animation cels that you'd be convinced that it was from an actual old-school anime; and comes complete with dust particles, scratches, film grain and fidgeting backround.
• Remember the New Guy?: An interesting variation. In the manga, Nano is attending school from the very beginning, but is absent from almost all the school stories for nearly 50 chapters, and it takes even longer before she's treated as part of the Yuuko/Mio/Mai group. In the anime meanwhile she isn't enrolled until more than halfway in, but once that happens, she has a more prominent role in several stories, including several she didn't originally appear in (such as when Yuuko and Mai help Mio draw her manga submission).
• Repeat Cut: Episode 21 feature a single shot repeated over fifty times.
• Ridiculously Human Robot/Robot Girl: Guess who.
• Road Runner vs. Coyote: Nano is the roadrunner to Nakamura's coyote. Nakamura is constantly devising schemes to capture Nano so she can study and learn about her robotic nature, but her plans always spectacularly fail when they don't outright blow up in her face, and Nano remains none the wiser.
• Rocket Jump: Misato pulls one off in tChapter 132 while running away from her sister.
• Rocket Punch: Nano has one. And a rocket toe. A USB rocket toe.
  • Nano seems to have no control over the timing of said Rocket Punch. It just fires when it feels like it.
• Rule of Cool: Not only does Daiku's family own an SR-71 Blackbird, but it's also either VTOL capable or the chauffeur (or Daiku himself) is somehow capable of landing it on the school roof.
• Rule of Funny: This series' bread and butter.
• Rule of Three: Episodes 8 and 9 both have a "Things we think are cool!" segment, done by the schoolgirl trio. In Episode 10, it's subverted — Mai does the segment herself, in her usual manner.
• Running Gag:
  • Yuuko has a tendency to throw together haiku on the fly, but she consistently ends them all with "Mogami-gawa" (Mogami River). This is a parody of the rather large number of haiku by Basho that do the same.
  • Whenever in trouble, the Professor tries to convince Nano that Sakamoto told her to do it or that Sakamoto was a partner in crime.
  • Throughout the series, when Yuuko is having a hard time, this one dog (later identified as "buddy") walks up to her and puts a paw on her to comfort her. A couple times you see him running long distances (with his master in pursuit) to reach Yuuko. He later gains a companion, an identical looking puppy (appropriately named "Kobuddy"), who joins Buddy on comforting Yuuko and occasionally Mio.

S-Z

• Say My Name: When the Professor names Nano.
  • And after the Professor allow Nano to go to school.
  • Yukko during Mio's Heroic BSoD run.
  Yukko "MIO CHAN!" and "CHAN MIO!"
• Scenery Porn: Just the standard for Kyoto Animation.
• Schmuck Bait: Sakamoto usually falls for these from the Professor.
• Schoolgirl Series: Downplayed; while the main characters are schoolgirls and many of the segments that focus on them follow a lot of tropes from this subgenre, there are also several male characters who get their own focus and there are plenty of scenes that take place outside of school.
• Secretly Wealthy: While his wealth isn't exactly a secret, Daiku dresses, talks, and acts like an ordinary student, despite being heir to the enormous Daiku corporation. This puts him in stark contrast to Sasahara, who does everything he can to present himself as a sophisticated aristocrat despite having little if any wealth.
• Sensei-chan: Sakurai-sensei, who acts more like a timid schoolgirl than a teacher.
• Serious Business: Being a daifuku mascot, to the daifuku guy.
  • Mio and drawing. Especially her Yaoi drawings/manga.
  • Go-Soccer, as seen in Episode 19.
  Ogi: Someone may even die.
  • Mio and food. In Episode 14, Yuuko buys her yakisaba (grilled mackerel) by mistake instead of the yakisoba (fried soba noodles) she wanted, and she flips the fuck out.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • Chapter 9/Episode 17 has Yuuko and Mio's efforts to build a house of cards and dealing with constant threats that might knock it over. In the end, the light fixture above them randomly detaches itself from the ceiling and flattens the house at two cards short of completion.
  • Chapter 157 follows Mai trying to read a book on Relay Cropping while in a freak wind storm. By sheer luck and perseverance, she manages to dodge every obstacle in her way, but is stopped when the wind subsides and rain starts roling in.
  • The formerly final chapter focuses on a time capsule that the main girls bury near school. Everyone spent a long time coming up with a suitable letter (with Mai even putting hers in a safe), after which it is buried with Yuuko planting a seed over it to mark its location. Ten years later, after everyone finally gets the chance to reunite, they discover they can't even dig it up because the plant grew into an enormous tree with roots tangling each other and the capsule.
• Shapes of Disappearance: At the beginning of Episode 16, Yuuko attempts to ask Nano if they want to walk home together, startling the latter. Yuuko decides to turn towards Mio's desk to ask Mio the same thing, only to notice that she left already, indicated a dotted outline of her blinking at her desk. Yuuko then turns back to Nano, but she's no longer at her desk, with a dotted outline of Nano blinking in her place.
• Shout-Out: at the subpage.
• Show Within a Show: The manga Helvetica Standard is both adapted into segments in the Nichijou anime and shown as an in-series manga. It's similar as the main show except there is no continuity.
  • The Grim Reaper is a recurring character. A bit of a klutzy reaper, though.
• Shrinking Violet: Sakurai-sensei. Except around her little brother.
  • The Coffee Shop girl.
• Silence Is Golden: Despite being a verbal and physical series, Nichijou does have its moments:
  • The Card Pyramid (Chapter 9/Episode 17) uses this. In the anime version, they use the excuse of not trying to wake Nano up while working.
  • The Shrine Incident segment (Chapter 82).
  • Chapter 66 is a silent chapter about the principal getting his hairpiece snatched by birds.
  • Chapter 118 (adapted in the last episode of the anime) has Yuuko and Mio attempt to break a pumpkin. No dialog was spoken until the very end, when Yuuko complains about the pumpkin's indestructible nature.
• "Silly Me" Gesture:
  • The Professor often does this when questioned by Nano about the latest weird device she has installed on her.
  • Chapter 137 has Nakanojou pull this when he forgets to tell Tanaka that he took his afro wig to save some baby birds. From Tanaka's perspective he'd had it stolen because he made fun of Nakanojou for the events of Chapter 133.
• Sistine Steal: Mai pulls this off on Episode 4, in the middle of an exam, by touching a drawn hand on a chalkboard. The manga attributes this as an homage to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
• Skyward Scream: Parodied: when Yuuko finally breaks after trying to stop herself from reacting to Mai's jokes, the camera zooms out into space to show how loud her scream is. Most of the town heard it, and even Mai looked surprised, not expecting to get that strong a reaction out of Yuuko..
• Slumber Party: Chapter 70 focuses on Misato, Fecchan, and Weboshi having a sleepover and talking about boys they like (or in Weboshi's case, her lack of a crush).
• Sneeze Cut: In a flashback chapter to the end of the girls' middle school years, Yuuko complains how hard it is to study, and wishes she were a robot so she could do calculations easily in her head. Cue Nano elsewhere, about to sneeze. Then Yuuko asks Mai to "wind her key" to motivate her; cue Nano sneezing out a screw so fast that it pops Mio's gum bubble from a fair distance away.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Episode 16. Used by Mai to slightly burn Yuuko's hand when the latter was playing a game of guess which hand has the eraser.
• Spanner in the Works: Yukko in "My Ordinary life 111" complete with Convenient Dodges.
• Spoiler Opening: It's difficult for such a wacky and episodic series to really have such a thing as a spoiler, but both openings lift scenes directly from stories that appear later in the show.
• Springtime for Hitler: Yuuko's attempt to catch a cold would in real life have given her hypothermia. Of course, she wakes up completely healthy.
• Standing in the Hall: Yuuko ends up like this quite often.
• Status Quo Is God: Semi-averted for Nano in Episode 13 — the Professor allows her to go to school, which was the status quo in the manga from the start... Although outside of two gags early on, all of Nano's scenes in the manga involve the laboratory in some way.
• The Starscream: Heavily implied with the high school vice principal, which is, of course, ridiculous—he's a high school vice principal.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Sakurai-sensei and her little brother, all the way down to the hyperhidrosis.
  • Misato and her sister Mihoshi.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Oh so much.
• Super-Scream: When Yukko accidentally stabs her thumb with a pen, she lets out a scream so loud that it blasts through all of the planets. She and Mio pull more of them when they get bitten by Mai's dogs (with Mio's blasting through a nearby building).
• Super Window Jump: See your crush arm-in-arm with someone else? Jump out the window and keep running.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: "It's not like turning it will turn my thumbs into USB ports like a robot or anything..."
  • Misato, each and every time Sasahara is mentioned.
    Misato: Why do I have to marry him?!
• Swipe Your Blade Off: Apparently, Yuuko needs to do this after epically slaying mosquitoes.
• Take a Third Option: Episode 4: You've forgotten to buy your cat food because you bought a snowman on a whim and were then blackmailed by your creator into buying her snacks, so what do you do? Feed him shaved ice.
• Talking Animal: Sakamoto, the Professor's pet cat, thanks to a scarf she made for him.
  • Which she then "borrows" to put on a crow in Episode 17. Given that the crow re-appears later on in the manga, it's likely that the Professor surprisingly kept her word in making Sakamoto another one.
• Tempting Fate:
  • "I should be happy that I wasn't hit by any raw foods." Not even five seconds later...
  • Mio in Episode 5: "I can't believe I drew that picture. Even though I lost control, it could have been worse." Cue naughty picture being used as part of a quiz.
  • "Mai forgetting her homework? That's as likely as it having a chance of rain today! A downpour even!" Not even one second later, the rain comes down hard on everybody, and it only gets worse from there.
  • In Chapter 214, as the girls try and get back at Yoshino for pranking them, Yuuko notes she never got her before. Cue Yuuko stepping on a conveniently placed lego block.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mio occasionally gets so mad at Yuuko that she rants about the stupid things the latter has done, which occasionally causes Yuuko to retailiate. Yuuko does it to her once in a while as well, usually in an epic, Ham-to-Ham Combat style.
• The Scapegoat: The Professor is almost always quick to blame Sakamoto for any misfortunes, or at the very least, try to make him a guilty party to it, such as when she knocked down the laundry line while it was raining, then trying to claim he told her to drop the clothes in the mud. Nano however, hardly ever finds him guilty of those incidents, and instead punishes the professor instead. Or not...
• Third Line, Some Waiting:
  • The anime is currently divided between two main plotlines and multiple minor plotlines. The stories around Yuuko, Mio, and Mai and the story at Shinonome Laboratories are presented in equal measure, and are usually the featured "big story" of a given episode. The running plot about the Go-Soccer Club is presented less than a minute at a time at first, but become longer once it turns out Go-Soccer is a real sport. The teachers' romance and Misato/Sasahara also get their day as "big stories", but infrequently.
  • Meanwhile in the manga, there's a bit more overlap between the school trio and Nano, as Nano starts out as a student in the manga — everyone knows she's a robot, but are too polite to tell her they figured it out. This was changed for the anime in order to more decidedly separate the Shinonome Laboratory skits.
• Third-Person Person: The Professor. Justified by her age — referring to yourself in third person is markedly childlike in Japanese.
• This Is a Drill: The corkscrew punch Mio uses to punish her older sister looks like a drill.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • Yuuko is sent to stand in the hallway after forgetting her homework at home — the homework she remembered to do all by herself, for once — and a dog appears standing next to her. It puts its left paw on her shoulder. A universe out to get her, yet a small dog is ironically the one to throw her a bone! The dog, later identified as Buddy, would go on to do this multiple times for Yuuko; see Running Gag.
    • He has a smaller companion that serves the same function for Mio. His name? Kobuddy (little buddy). Both of them show up after Yuuko and Mio get trolled by Mai's dogs. Unfortunately, being dogs they still scare off Sakamoto and the Professor.
  • In Chapter 122, after all of the embarrassing situations Yuuko gets thrown into for Volume 7, has her at her luckiest yet. Her horoscope said that she'd have one of the luckiest days of her lives, and while she gets soaked by a hose on her school commute, her grumbling and tripping saved the prime minister and she has yet to realize that she has a day off from school.
  • Chapter after chapter of Mio fretting about her manga never winning awards results in Chapter 179, where she not only gets a call-back from the people she submitted her work to, but also gets considered as an illustrator for Mr. Sakurai's upcoming novel. Not that she knows that yet, anyway.
  • Nano gets one when the Professor lets her go to school.
    • And a really big one when Yuuko basically tells her she doesn't mind about her being a robot.
    • Episode 26 is basically one big bone for Nano.
• Time Skip: A couple of chapters take place an indeterminate number of years in the future, where things have changed but the girls remain close friends. The Professor is now a teenager (judging by her uniform, now attending the same school her older friends did some years back), Yuuko had left Japan but is coming back soon, and Mai and Mio are working on manga together.
• Title Drop: Several times:
  • Sasahara, in Episode 4, in his typical overdramatic fashion. With bombastic background music.
  • Nano, in Episode 26, when she's remembering her life with her key.
  • Episode 25, from the page quote:
  "I once overheard Sasahara-senpai talking to someone... Our everyday lives may, in fact, be a series of miracles. They just may be... no, I believe they must be..."

  — Mio Naganohara
• Toilet Humor: This series doesn't use it often, but Chapter 150 centers around Tanaka's farts being near-lethally awful smelling. What's more disturbing is that Yuuko, Mio, and Nakanojou, Tanaka's victims, end up liking the smell after being knocked out from it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Professor loves omelet rice and strawberry juice. She also loves Sharks, including "Shark Cake".
• Training Montage: Possibly parodied in Chapter 59/Episode 79. When Mio can't do the high jump properly, Yukko agrees to train her. This results in a training montage featuring clips of Mio and Yukko jumping set to inspirational music, and includes a clip of Mio being given inspirational words by the Kendo instructor about what hard work can do. Mio then tries the high jump one last time; but instead of getting it right, it results in her failing even more spectacularly than before.
• Troll: Mai, of course. She even trolls Hyadain in her character song, by inviting him to sing the male parts before letting her time cut out in the middle of one of his lyrics.
  • With no one else around, Mai will troll herself.
  • As seen in Chapter 143 of the manga, not even Mio's sister can beat her at trolling.
• Tsundere: Misato is a Type A taken to ridiculous proportions.
  • You could even call her a gundere.
  • Nakamura has a bit of this, given her flustered reactions whenever someone calls her cute.
• Twice Shy: Non-romantic example between Nano and Sakurai sensei. Both are reduced to stammering with awkwardness when the latter notices Nano's screw.
• Two-Teacher School: Averted. There are lots of teachers who get the appropriate amount of attention.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Mai's puppy seems to be as big a troll as she is.
• Unsound Effect: GASCOIGNE!
• Unstoppable Rage: In Episode 16, Mio lays waste to all who sees her Yaoi drawings.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A girl with a big key in her back? Who lands on a roof? Huge explosions obliterating cars? Nobody in the town seems to care.
  • Misato's guns and Sasahara smoking head and charred clothing because of said guns.
  • Often Sakurai-sensei subverts this and does notice, with rather odd results.
  • In-universe, Yuuko is surprised when no one responds to the fact that she's saying "selamat pagi" instead of "good morning".
• Upper-Class Twit: Sasahara certainly acts like one, with his style of dress, insistence on riding everywhere, and general naivety. Subverted since it's revealed early on that he's not actually upper-class, and his actual background is that of a farmer. Some speculate this is a parody of the inflated self-worth some farmers in Japan have.
• Vengeful Vending Machine: Sasahara encounters one, the vending machine dispenses the drink then the cup.... and declares it a Worthy Opponent.
• Wacky Homeroom
• Wave-Motion Gun: Mio's and Yuuko's screams of pain are capable of destroying roofs, skyscrapers, and planets. "Aaaah," indeed.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 13. Nano will go to school. Definitely worthy of a Dynamic Entry.
  • Episode 14 proves why this is such a big deal, as it changes the dynamic of the school scenes to match the manga. Then it turns it up a notch with a full-scale shouting match between Yuuko and Mio, and the revelation that Go-Soccer is an actual sport. And there's a new opening.
  • Chapter 172 of the manga is this for being the first Flash Forward story, revealing that the Professor is now old enough to go to Yuuko's old school, Nakamura is living with her and Nano, and Yuuko herself is returning to Japan after an absence!
• When She Smiles: Mai with her usual dull, emotionless expression, becomes rather adorable the few times she smiles, or even laughs.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • Chapter 134 covers Yuuko when she first meets Mai in middle school.
  • Chapter 154 shows the Sakurai siblings when they were younger (Izumi in high school and Makoto in elementary school), and how they started growing apart.
  • Chapter 169 covers Mio's first day of high school and how she met Yuuko and Mai.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Nano is absolutely terrified of cockroaches and lightning (understandably, since she's a robot).
  • The Professor can't handle dogs, she even mentions it in both of her character singles. She's also scared of the sound of the wind banging around the thing on the roof.
  • Sakamoto is also scared of dogs, but again, that's perfectly normal for a cat.
  • Chapter 194 shows Mio hates caterpillars, to the point she can't even stand still for long enough for her friends to get it off her.
• Wiki Walk: One of the school faculty members has one in Episode 11.
• Wind-Up Key: Nano's most noticeable feature, much to her dismay. Not only is it a dead giveaway to the fact that she's a robot, but it's also useless: its only purpose is to launch Nano's toe like a rocket when spun manually. The Professor still absolutely refuses to remove it, as she finds it cute.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Subverted. The Professor might be able to build robots that can eat and feel emotion, but she's still a little kid emotionally.
  • Nano as well. Physically and somewhat emotionally she acts like a high-school student, but she is (for the most part) very skilled and mature as acting as a Parental Substitute for Professor.
• With Friends Like These...: Yuuko, Mio and Mai all get on each others' nerves at different points. But, beneath it all, they're Vitriolic Best Buds.
• Word Salad Title: The manga/segment Helvetica Standard gets it name from the font that the English component of Nichijou's logo is typeset in. The numerous logos for Helvetica Standard are never in the eponymous font.
• World of Ham: Where preventing a sausage from falling on the floor is a breathtaking adventure, and being bitten by a dog results in an Earth-shattering nuclear explosion.
• Wrestler in All of Us:
  • The principal finishes off the deer in the schoolyard with a suplex after completely missing it with a moonsault. As seen here.
  • Mio hits Yuuko with a Dragon Screw and later a crossbody when she chokes and coughs into the food.
  • Yuuko's mom performs what appears to be a modified Japanese arm drag on Yuuko during her fit in Episode 10.
  • Makoto Sakurai performs a german suplex on himself in Episode 14.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Mio is caught a few times doodling Yaoi characters. She's also a rather big fan of drawing pretty boys in general.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Most characters have black or brown hair, but others have hair in more unusual colors like blue, green, purple or pink. No one seems to find this strange, though considering the kind of series this is, the world the characters live in is weird enough.

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