Nichijou – A Modern Day Looney Tunes

It’s an often used statement to say that everything that can be invented already has been. To an extent, I feel that this is true.  There’s been a lot of history of mankind to contend against if you want to invent a new idea.  Specifically for creative fields like writing, films, and different forms of media, this can definitely feel like it’s the case, especially these days when we’re getting remakes of remakes all the time from Hollywood and television. (Did we really need another Fantastic Four?  I mean, the first one was alright but that last one was just horrifying.)

However, even if a plot or setting has been done before, that doesn’t mean that we can’t find new and creative ways of working with those ideas.  Iterating or innovating on an idea can be as 

 
great a show of genius or craft as creating something entirely new.  A famous example of this is The Lion King, which borrows heavily from Hamlet both in plot and characters, but you’d never hear someone complain that it’s just a rehash of the same thing.  Both Disney’s animated classic and Shakespeare’s wonderful play may share a lot in common but both also are able to stand on their own as great and incredibly entertaining works.

Another great example that not many may know is a film called 10 Things I Hate About You. A story about a boy (Cameron) who wants to date a girl (Bianca) but only can if the girl’s older and “shrewish” sister can also find a date.  So Cameron gets a bad boy of the school to woo the older sister for him and allow Cameron to date Bianca.  The story may sound familiar because 

 

it’s Shakespeare again with the play The Taming of the Shrew, though this time, less misogynistic.  Watching these back-to-back, you can easily see similarities between the two and a lot of borrowing on the part of the former from the latter, but the stories are not the same and the telling of 10 Things gives something new and fresh for the audience to enjoy.  And that’s really the big thing.  It doesn’t necessarily matter if “it’s been done before”, but more so “how a story or idea is being told”.  Which leads me to one of my favorite animes of all time:  Nichijou.

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Noucome Episode 1 Impressions

Episode 1 – “That Choice Put My Life in Motion!”

From the moment you wake up in the morning you’re presented with a million different choices. Do I stay asleep? Do I want to shower? Cereal or bacon? Casual or formal? Coffee or Tea? The world as we know it is shaped by decisions both small and large from what to wear to whether to go to war. So, of course, like with every other premise ever, a harem comedy has to be made about it immediately. Sporting a hideously obnoxious name, a main character with a gimmicky power, and more “plot” than you could break a bra with, Noucome is here to fill the silly-but-I-can’t-stop-watching-it role for this autumn season.



Upon translation the title reads, “My Mental Choices are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy,” and that is incredibly telling and accurate. As you might expect Noucome is a no holds barred romantic comedy, but with a twist. That being the main character, Kanade Amakusa, and his supernatural predicament whereby at completely random times he will suddenly be presented with a choice that he has to make otherwise he undergoes blinding head pain. For example:
Choose:

① Read this beautifully written review
② Backflip through a flaming hoop and then read this beautifully written review



Fortunately for you readers, you have one option that is quite frankly amazing and one that is still great, but you also have to risk your life for the luxury of treating to your eyes to my linguistic mastery and flawless opinions. For Kanade though, this is rarely the case and he more often than not gets presented with two equally awful options and he has to just pick the one that leaves him with the most dignity (though he seems to have lost that a long time ago). Throw in a kuudere best friend, an overly cheerful CEO’s daughter, a loli teacher, and a Sena Kashiwazaki lookalike who fell from the sky and you have yourself an anime.



As I pointed out in my Autumn Picks, the studio behind Noucome is Diomedea; an odd little company who have a habit of making series that could be considered to have controversial themes, especially Kodomo no Jikan that was refused a North American release both in manga and anime format. However, recently they have toned their content down a little and everything that they have produced in the last few years has been tremendous in my opinion. Whether Noucome will be a descent back into ecchi territory is yet to be seen, but after testing the waters with the recent Mondaiji-tachi OVA it would not surprise me if they planned to do just that.

What I can credit Diomedea for however is the shockingly good animation that I did not expect them to worry themselves with for a series like this. Mondaiji-tachi was beautifully animated, but in all honesty it needed to be to reflect the wonderful world of Little Garden and to do the action scenes justice. Noucome is not a series that was in desperate need of amazing artwork, but they decided to make the most of it anyway, unlike J.C Staff with Golden Time. Certainly, Noucome is not going to give Shingeki no Kyojin a run for its money and as far as harem comedies go, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai still looks better by comparison, but it definitely goes far beyond the call of duty and I have no complaints with the artwork so far.



Being a primarily silly series it was fairly obvious that there would be no plot in episode 1 and that is exactly what we got. Immediately we were dropped into an amusing, but highly dragged out history of the greatest choices of all time which if you knew enough about Japanese history and had a bit of general knowledge to back it up was actually really funny. Granted, I predict that it will be the most intelligent joke of the series, but intelligence is not what I came here looking for! I came here looking for fanservice and comedy, and while we got the latter in abundance, I am shocked to say that there was barely any fanservice in the entire episode. In fact, Kanade got more naked than any of the girls did so kudos to Diomedea for not  just trying to hook people in with boobs like so many other poor series.



Episode 1’s primary role was to introduce the main cast and it did so in a way that was genuinely completely inoffensive and made me actually laugh out loud at times. First of all we met Furano Yukihira, a sharp, but passive, silver-haired girl who reminds me of a cross between Miyako Shiina (Majikoi) and Yozora Mikazuki (Haganai). Being English, I love passive-aggressive, sarcastic wit and so I always adore kuudere characters. She cracked me up and I really hope we see a lot more from her since she is masterful at making the main character suffer in hilarious ways. I was less fond of Ouka Yuuouji, the rich CEO’s daughter, but in her defense she was not given a lot of screen time so forming an opinion of her this early would be unfair. The real surprise character so far though came crashing into Kanade’s life when he was given the choice between a beautiful girl falling from the sky, or his incredibly odd, neighbour who is a bit portly to say the least and would likely crush him to death. Obviously choosing the beautiful girl, he was astonished when she actually fell through the clouds and landed on top of him. The stunning girl in question is called Chocolat and I look forward to seeing her turn his already crazy life upside-down next episode.



All in all, Noucome was a pleasant surprise! I went into it thinking it would be a characterless smutfest, but I left actually quite looking  forward to the next episode. If you go into it expecting it to be more than a generic harem comedy you will be disappointed, but it does what it does well and it looks beautiful which definitely does no harm.



Keep an eye on Capsule Computers’ Anime Impressions section for more autumn reviews and make sure to come back next week for episode 2 of Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru.

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