I wonder about the amount of anime I chose to blog about this season. It's a much larger number than last season, but it should be okay because I'm on vacation until September. We'll see.
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| Passion usually leads to danger. |
This episode of Nichijou was actually my favourite of the season (thus far). With this second half, the story had suddenly picked up a lot, with all the characters tying in together. The shorts always occurred within the same continuity, more or less, except it would feature things like Annaka being at a fair while Mio and Yukko spent the day at an amusement park. In this episode, the stark difference of all the shorts occurring within the same storyline was prevalent. Annaka's scene, for example, had to do with what occurred to Nakanojo and consisted of telling Takasaki-sensei as he was watching the Sakurai siblings. Such complex story-telling is so reminiscent of School Rumble that it forces me to raise this anime's rating.
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| Here's a secret: I have no clue how abacuses work. |
The episode began with Yukko telling Mio that she was going to set out to prove that Nano was a robot. With the OP occurring in between, Yukko headed off to ask Nano a difficult math question, telling her that she could use her features to solve it. This prompted Nano to struggle with an abacus and a piece of paper, until Mai showed up with the tactful present of oil. When Nano happily put it away, Mai presented a wrench. With Nano not showing any signs of her reality, Mio got annoyed with her friends and apologized to Nano, at which point Yukko revealed that she hoped that they could be friends. In the furore, Nano reached into her mouth to see what was wrong with her teeth...only to pull out a bolt...with Mai video-taping. I wonder what came of this event?
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| Respective in their old age. |
The quick scene in the middle featured a group of children desecrating a certain bust in their hometown. This was the "location of the episode", shown again at a later point. Had Rho not pointed it out, I wouldn't have caught it; it showed a large time skip, wherein the same group of children had grown up and were now very respectful of the statue. (Rho caught the background change from rolling hills to cityscape, which is exactly the kind of rapid development that happened to the previous generation in Japan.) These little things, once again, really makes these episodes quite good.
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| It's not enduring if you give in that fast! |
This episode also introduced Nakamura-sensei (I can't remember seeing her before), who is fixated with Nano and is sure that she is a robot. Her desire to catch Nano for studies will obviously set up an ongoing story. In this scene, she decided to test whether or not Nano was a robot by giving her coffee with sleeping powder, theorizing that it would not have any effect only if she were a robot. Unfortunately, she accidentally had the coffee herself and fell asleep before she could use a certain "Mr. Short Circuit" device to short-circuit Nano.
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| Surprisingly, there was no permanent damage. What is this teaching me? |
I must say, Professor really annoyed me this episode. Why won't you take Nano's key off? Moreover, why do you keep adding these strange devices?! Playing God must be fun... Nano's desperation was more obvious in this episode, as she pelted Professor with the bullets of the new weapon within her right hand (I'm going to assume a BB gun). I wonder if Nano will ever get her key removed... (Maybe that old magician will be of help...!)
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| Even a non-robot would suffer from a taser. |
The extremely long scene comprising of several short scenes began right after the scene with Nano and Professor. Nakamura-sensei, knowing that Nano would be walking in, positioned herself next to the door with Mr. Short Circuit (which turned out to be a taser). Unfortunately, it was Nakanojo that walked in (Nano was out in the hallway talking to Annaka), and Nakamura-sensei proceeded to zap the mohawk-boy. After realizing what she had done, her quick-thinking had her running away.
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| He's too old for nosebleeds? |
Meanwhile, Takasaki-sensei accidentally spotted Sakurai-sensei and Makoto in the hallway, acting quite intimate (in his eyes). Sakurai-sensei, for once, was able to speak completely fine, trying to pursuade him to button his top button. As Takasaki-sensei eavesdropped and alternatively either freaked out or daydreaming (such as about how Sakurai-sensei was "sloppy at home"), Annaka ran in to tell him that Nakanojo had fainted in the Science Room. Not wanting to leave, Takasaki-sensei's exchange with Annaka was definitely hilarious; he suggested that Nakanojo was just sleeping, and told Annaka to draw his eyes in. However, after finding out that Makoto was Sakurai-sensei's brother, he sped off towards his student...in the wrong direction.
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| But then there's a mess to clean up... |
A handful of shorts appeared right after, including a baseball club where one of the players and the female manager clearly had something going for each other. (It's such a typical story...) I wonder if they'll show up later? Yukko became annoyed with the two schoolboys behind her on the bus, pressing random stops even though they weren't getting off, and went home to take it out on a helpless calendar. (Some might say it's better than yelling at them in public, but I disagree.)
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| Sakamoto had no real screentime... |
The final scene was Nano attempting to get Professor to remove the key once more, only to have Professor tell random puns that caused Nano to react quite strangely. It turned out that she had a new reaction chip put in, causing her to do weird things, such as yell out, "Coin! Coin! Coin! Zoom!" While the scene was amusing, it added to my dislike of Professor, so let's just say the episode ended with Nano rocketing through the roof of the house and looking at the setting sun.
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| Vandalism in their youth. |
I was incredibly surprised with how quickly the continuity picked up, since there had only been glimpses in previous episodes. It really feels like School Rumble, where I looked one day to find a full-fledged story taking place. I can't wait for that to happen here~
~Aaro
