nichijou Series

ongoing ordinariness

mio vs. a caterpillar. the vice principal vs. all the clubs. the professor vs. sleepiness. yuuko vs. a perfect score. misato vs. a jaguar. nano and sakamoto vs. a strange box. annaka vs. a beetle. mr. takasaki vs. a ham. fecchan vs. a deserted island. mai vs. a daifuku. and so the ordinary days continue…

que será surreality

a game of musical chairs takes a sharp turn. nano pulls out all the stops in a battle against a fry thief. a bizarre body-swap situation occurs in the shinonome household. yuuko displays a talent for naming things. we get a glimpse of mio’s dream job, as everyone writes a letter to their future selves…

humdrum conundrums

Yuuko has a depressing doppelganger. Tanaka has a secret weapon. Mai becomes engrossed in a new best-seller. Mio squares off with a strange new vending machine, and a near-death experience creates chaos for a guardian angel…

mundane madness

A U.F.O. causes Yuuko’s lunch to come out her nose. Ms. Nakamura tries an adorable new ploy. Mihoshi’s big plan backfires. Mai successfully dodges a trap. Hypnosis doesn’t work, until it works all too well. And Weboshi might actually be able to read minds…

Mio makes an abrupt confession. Mihoshi tries to help her sister Misato confess her feelings to her crush. Mai heeps pulling the rug on Yuuko with her deceptive sense of humor. Tanaka stubbornly refuses to break a promise to Nakanojou. Yuuko gets mistaken for a celebrity, and Mr. Takasaki unwittingly foils Ms. Nakamura’s sneaky plans…

standard surreality

Mio finally has her dream come true. Ms. Nakamura ends up in a nightmare situation after discovering the shinonome lab. The Princess goes on a rampage to recover wood cubes. Mai makes a new friend, and nio makes a heartbreaking discovery that propels her to learn something important about life…

uniquely quotidian

Mio enlists her friends to help her meet a major manga deadline. Mr. Takasaki makes a deal with the devil to get closer to his crush. Sakamoto’s scarf is repurposed for a chatty crow. a sacred temple must fend off a new brand of fiend, and Ms. Nakamura is tripped up in her quest to capture Nano by a deeply unscientific reaction to compliments.

tag along for more typically atypical days in Tokisadame…

yranidro.

The denizens of the fey kingdom must placate their princess. Mio invents an explosive athletic move. A newly-opened cafe bedevils Yuuko. Yuuko seizes a chance to send Mio’s already-active imagination into overdrive, and Nakamura, the science teacher, takes a professional interest in Nano.

have another slice of nowhere-near-ordinary life.

extra ordinary

The professor gets everyone stuck in a sticky situation. Mio goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her passionate pet project. Unexpected feelings for another teacher have taken root in Mr. Takasaki’s heart. And an unfortunate misunderstanding ends up bringing two friends closer together.

The hijinks continue in this out-of-the-ordinary tale of high school life.

Yuuko tries a string of puns that goes very far off the rails. Misato pulls out the big guns when dealing with the maddeningly level-headed Sasahara. The professor adopts a surprisingly chatty cat, and a dog shows up at the right time to lend a paw.

Just as nothing is ordinary in the world of my ordinary life, nothing is standard about Helvetica Standard.

The second half of this behind-the-scenes peek at the surreal aesthetic of Keiichi Arawi contains a heavier emphasis on artwork created to tie into nichijou as well as a hearty helping of short-format manga, tales and snippets from Arawi’s life as a working manga artist, and the identity of the mysterious novelist John Mark Ware is revealed…

In this just-surreal enough take on the “school genre” of manga, a group of friends grapple with all sorts of unexpected situations in their daily lives as high schoolers.

The gags, jokes, puns, and haiku keep this series off-kilter even as the cast grow and change. Check it out and meet the new ordinary.

The follow-up to the hit manga series nichijou (and heavily referenced in the artwork of that series), Helvetica Standard is a full-color anthology of Keiichi Arawi’s comic art and design work. Funny and heartwarming, this two-part series is a humorous look at modern day Japanese design in comic form and a deep-dive into the artistic and creative mind of Keiichi Arawi. Part comic, part diary, part art and design book, Helvetica Standard is a deconstruction of the world of nichijou.