Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou Episode 04 Quick Thoughts

Now, as much of a change of pace as this episode was (in that it actually had a flowing plot structure), it didn’t really quite hit the mark for me. I hate to be the pessimist but, Nichijou seems to be running out of steam so to speak. It still has its quirks and character traits remain largely the same but the joke material seems to be coming in from new albeit, random directions. I don’t mind having new characters but introducing a whole new crowd in one episode and setting up very situational jokes just didn’t seem to cut it. In a sketch show like Nichijou, exposing a large set of characters is important so as to avoid loosing impact by repeating jokes and tropes however, I had higher hopes than what we got in this episode.

Now don’t misunderstand, the episode was still funny but upon comparison to earlier episodes, it just didn’t have that odd but loveable flavor which made us fall in love with the show from the start. Not to nitpick but Nichiijou has steadily been getting less and less funny and whilst we are only 4 episodes in on a 12 episode run, I do hope this trend is more anomalous than reflective of what we can continue to expect. I mean, I love random stuff as much as the next person, but this episode was a bit too random. Some of the jokes felt forced, like the sketch with the 2 welcomers for the cultural festival. If the text hadn’t explained, I wouldn’t have really understood what the meaning of it was. And I thought the whole doppelganger misunderstanding sketches were quite dry as well. They looked the same, went to the same school (same uniform) had the same voices, right until they turned around – at which point they were completely different people. I don’t care to nit pick an anime which isn’t meant to be a salient piece of logic but I just didn’t see how this made any sense nor what was supposed to be so funny about it.

So can I say I’m disappointed with this episode. Yes. Am I still looking forward to the rest of the season. Damn yes. Despite what the trend so far indicates, I’m holding out and believing Nichijou will come through once more characters are fleshed out. And next episode, it looks like we’re back to our hilarious trio.