Nichijou Episode 8

"Nichijou Episode 8" (日常の第八話) is the eighth episode of the Nichijou anime. The episode was written by Maiko Nishioka and directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto. It aired on May 23, 2011.

Prelude
On the morning of a very nice day, Nano Shinonome waters her garden; Sakamoto and Hakase are still sleeping. After finishing, Nano uses her arm to shield her eyes from the sun and comments on what beautiful weather they're having. She then checks the watch in her arm: 8:05. Nano figures she should get Hakase up soon, and puts away her hose. She then stretches and comments that she might go for a walk after breakfast. Suddenly, the wrist of her outstretched arm begins to whistle and steam. Nano curiously looks up, then panics as her fist blasts off with tremendous force.

Part 31
Nano's fist flies across the sky. Down on the street, Yuuko Aioi catches sight of Mio Naganohara and Mai Minakami walking to school and run up to them to say selamat pagi. They both say good morning back, and Mio comments on the lovely weather. Yuuko notes that yesterday they said it would rain. She looks up and notes that the weather (てんき, tenki) is not bad, so maybe she should buy a keypad (tenkey)! She then adds, "Just kidding!" Mai and Mio continue walking,giving no indication that they even heard Yuuko, who is incredibly shocked by their lack of reaction. She thinks to herself that these girls are terrible. Suddenly she changes her attitude; could it be that they actually think she actually plans on buying a keypad? A little embarrassed, Yuuko decides that joke must have been over their heads, and she needs to make a joke everyone can understand. Yuuko stretches and says outloud that it sure is hot out! All this heat (mousho) could cause baldness (datsumousho); just kidding! Mio and Mai don't respond, and Yuuko (literally) flips. Terrifying, she thinks to herself; the virtual generation is terrifying! Yuuko slowly gets up and concedes that perhaps they might think the joke was in bad taste if they knew someone who's really balding. Nano suddenly runs behind Yuuko, chasing after her hand. She grabs her face and says it's time to pull out the big guns (or rather, swords) and is filled with a new resolve. She runs up to her friends and asks if they know what the man said when a centipede attacked him. In another background cameo, Buddy the sympathy dog appears behind a fence, evidently trying to get through it to comfort Yuuko over her failed jokes, but unable to find an opening. Yuuko completes her joke: "This centipede (ムカデ, mukade) is coming at me (mukadde kuru)!" She's shocked that they still don't respond. She wonders if something is wrong with them; how can they keep a straight face after hearing Yuuko's amazing puns? Yuuko then decides that perhaps they just didn't hear her somehow. She sheepishly admits that if they didn't hear her, it's not their fault. She then runs ahead of them, walking backward in order to face them, and tells the exact same joke again. Mio and Mai walk right past her. Yuuko thinks to herself that these girls are on a high level if they are able to withstand her jokes like that. She then imagines the street rising underneath her friends' feet, and asks herself if it could be that they are actually challenging her to surpass her own best? Yuuko begins to climb the mountain Mai and Mio now stand on, telling herself that if she gives up now, she'll betray their expectations. She suddenly slips and slides down the mountain, stopping her fall by grabbing a kokeshi jutting out of the mountain. She yells and declares that she can't give in! Back in the reality, she runs with full vigor, shouting that she is completely (pacchiri) prepared for her geography (chiri)! To deliver the punchline, she sprints past them, slides to a stop, and gives the double hand signs as seen in the episode box at the top of the page. Mio and Mai actually stop, but continue to do nothing. Yuuko holds her pose and becomes increasingly despondent at the sight of their blank faces. Now shaking with desperation, Yuuko tries again: "Should I go (boku go) to an air-raid shelter (bōkūgō)?" No response. "The valley (tani) is happy! Hooray (yattani)!" Nothing. At wit's end, she feebly tries her last joke. "I've put on (tsuketemasukara) mascara (masukara)!" The alley echos as she cries out her punchline a second time, and the view pans up towards the sky. It then pans back down to the school and goes to classroom 1-Q, showing that the desks of Mio, Yuuko and Mai are empty. On a train, Yuuko sits in misery, her face red with embarrassment and buried in her hands in shame. Mio and Mai sit across from her, continuing to give their best imitations of Queen Victoria.

Igo Soccer Club Part 5
Ogi arrives at Igo Soccer Club headquarters and addresses the president, Kenzaburou Daiku, who is very happy to see him. Daiku notes that Ogi hasn't been to a club meeting in three months; he thought Ogi was dead! Daiku tells Ogi that it is great that he's shown up because he and Yuria Sekiguchi are bored with nothing to do. He asks Ogi what he wants to do. Ogi replies that he has come to quit the club.

Popcorn
Hakase throws a kernel of popcorn into the air and tries to catch it in her mouth. She fails. Out of wrath she hurls the tub of popcorn at Sakamoto.

Short Thoughts
Yuuko is peacefully lying on the beach in a sand cocoon. The female narrator asks, "Why do people cough just before the film starts in a movie theater?"

Part 32
Misato Tachibana runs through the hallway, catching up to her friends Fe-chan and Weboshii. She asks them if they have seen Koujirou Sasahara tells her she saw him taking the stairs to the roof. Misato runs off. Weboshii and Fe-chan are amused by this; Weboshii comments that Misato is already busy this morning, but that's youth for you. Fe-chan suggest they go watch; they might be up to something! Misato runs down the hall, furious and determined. Up on the roof, Sasahara is thinking, while his butler is knelt by his side. Sasahara then sees Nano's fist flying across the sky and gets inspired. His butler hands him piece of parchment and a calligraphy brush, and Sasahara writes a quick haiku about the hand flying across the sky. He finishes and happily tells himself, "Not bad!" Suddenly Misato is behind him and fires a rocket launcher at him. She angrily asks him if he understands what he's done. Behind her, Fe-chan and Weboshii open the stairwell door to get a good look. Sasahara, covered in white dust but otherwise unharmed, turns around and shrugs. He says it was a beautiful day, so he came up to the roof to compose a poem. Misato holds out a handkerchief and tells him it is what she's talking about. She asks him if he remembers it and he identifies it as his own. He begins to ask why Misato has his handkerchief, but she fires on him again, this time with a rocket launcher on each shoulder. She angrily asks him what he's talking about; she picked up his litter, that's all. Sasahara grabs his handkerchief and explains that he didn't throw it away, he simply dropped it by accident. Misato primes a grenade while Sasahara continues to talk, and then throws it at his feet. It explodes. Incensed, Misato tells Sasahara that everything he owns is garbage. He asks Misato how she knew it was his handkerchief; their homes are in completely opposite directions from the school. Misato is shocked, and then she gets angry while her entire face flushes with embarrassment. Sasahara notes that she'd even ironed his handkerchief. Misato then pulls out a cannon and, as the music reaches a crescendo, fires it, creating a huge explosion. After the smoke clears, Misato continues to be red-faced as she chews out Sasahara. His he stupid? He shouldn't get the wrong idea. She just happened to be walking that way, thinking about the world. Sasahara remains standing in the same spot, but the cannonfire destroyed the roof around him. Weboshii and Fe-chan look on in amazement. Sasahara holds up the handkerchief, was has been almost completely destroyed, and politely thanks Misato for her kindness. Misato, still embarrassed, calms down and walks over to the chainlink fence. She tells him he always drops things in the morning, something he wasn't aware of. She yells at him for littering the streets, but sheepishly adds that she doesn't mind picking up after him. Weboshii and Fe-chan are flabbergasted at what Misato has said. Getting red in the face again, Misato yells at Sasahara that he shouldn't get the wrong idea. It's simply her volunteer spirit kicking in! She holds her fists tightly to her sides while looking down with her eyes closed in anger and embarrassment. Suddenly, everyone but her gasps. Nano's hand comes flying straight towards Misato's head! Dusty and with messed up hair, Fe-chan and Weboshii walk through the hallway again. Weboshii sighs and says Misato is never going to change. Fe-chan holds up Nano's hand and asks what she's supposed to do with it. Weboshii panics and asks why did she bring it with her. Weboshii tells Fe-chan to get rid of it while Fe-chan keeps asking what she should do. Out in the courtyard, Sasahara's poem has landed on the head of the Principal's statue.

Things We Think Are Cool
Super-car bicycles!

Part 33
Mio, Yuuko and Mai are trapped in an elevator. Mio and Yuuko sit hopelessly, while Mai just lies on the floor, seemingly more bored than hopeless. Yuuko weakly says that she gives up. Mio takes being stuck in an elevator as evidence there is no God or Buddha. Yuuko reads graffiti on the elevator wall, which oddly reads," Yesterday I had pork cutlet." Mai gasps, but then says, "Oh, well." A mosquito starts buzzing around the elevator. It lands above Yuuko's mouth, but she does nothing while it climbs into her nose and then flies back out. She looks at it as it sits on the wall across from her and wonders how long they've been in there. Mio starts to drool a little. She sucks it back in and says she thinks she just fell asleep with her eyes open. Mai gasps again, but again just says, "Oh, well." Yuuko blandly asks Mio if she wants to play shiritori, but she says nothing. Yuuko goes ahead anyway and says "mikan" (a kind of orange), losing the game in the first turn. After a long moment of silence, Mio apologizes and asks Yuuko to say it again, but she can't even remember and asks, "What did I say?" Mio just takes the last part of that and tries to find a word, but gives up and asks if she can just say something completely different. She says "eggplant". Yuuko's mouth begins to twitch a little, and then she starts holding in a little laugh. It builds and soon she is trying to hold back a great big laugh. Mio's mouth starts twitching, and it, too, builds into a held back laugh. The two struggle not to laugh but eventually lose. Soon, both are laughing uproariously over "eggplant". Mio points to Mai and says she's dead, and they both laugh some more. Yuuko tells Mio help isn't coming, causing more laughter. The two are hysterical, bordering on actual hysteria. Mai trembles and thinks to herself that she's actually paralyzed.

Igo Soccer Club Part 6
Daiku is bored again, lying his head on the table while Yuria Sekiguchi reads Helvetica Standard again. Daiku laments that with Ogi gone, the club now has just the two members. With only two members, the club will have to disband. If only they had a way to recruit members. Sekiguchi looks up and asks Daiku, What does the Igo Soccer Club actually do? Daiku is disappointed, telling Sekiguchi that he thought she had come up with a good way to recruit people. Daiku admits that they don't do anything, really.

Start
Mio and Yuuko are at the school track. Mio has a stopwatch. Yuuko stretches and then bends down into starting position as Mio tells her to get set. Mio shouts, Go! and Yuuko gets up to run... at least, her legs do. The front half of her body is stuck in position.

Helvetica Standard
On the field of a large stadium after a match, a soccer player (Goto) is trying to take another player (Seki)'s jersey of his back. Seki is refusing, but Goto tells him to give him his uniform. He mentions that this was Seki's last game and the uniform will commemorate his retirement. Seki says he didn't even score a goal in the game, and a player can't score in his last game isn't worth commemorating. Goto tells him that's not true; he started playing soccer because of Seki! Seki bargains with Goto, telling him he'll take his jersey off, just when he's good and ready. Goto agrees and Seki stops struggling. Goto sees his opening and yanks the jersey off. We then see why Seki didn't want to take off his jersey: Underneath is a white t-shirt with "This is my way of life!" written on it, and Seki is frozen in embarrassment. Goto apologizes.

Tail
Sakamoto is lecturing Hakase again while the end of his tail keeps hitting the table. He tells her that she must respect her elders. Later, Sakamoto is cleaning his face while commenting that the kid is completely hopeless; the tip of his tail is still going up and down. Suddenly he notices his tail. He stares at it for a minute and then tries to pounce on it. He pounces again, and is soon chasing his tail and having so much fun doing so. Hakase sees him and finds it adorable, and Sakamoto is mortified when he sees her.

Igo Soccer Club Part 7
Daiku gets up from the desk and goes to the window. He explains that, in the beginning, he thought he could make a new kind of club, one combining the games of Go and Soccer. But once he'd made the club, he couldn't come up with any good ideas.

Part 34
Hakase is lying on the floor coloring while in her pajamas. Nano comes in and tells Hakase it's time to go to bed. Hakase's face is revealed to have crumbs all around her mouth. Nano sees this and sternly asks Hakase if she just had a snack. Hakase away from Nano before saying she didn't. Nano asks why she looked away; Hakase looks in the other direction and says she might have looked away. Nano then spots the back of snacks on the floor next to Hakase. She claims she wasn't eating snacks, but Nano asks her who's got crumbs all over her mouth? Hakase covers her mouth to hide the crumbs and coughs, pretending it's the real reason she has her hands over her mouth. Nano scolds Hakase for eating snacks before bedtime even though she keeps telling her not to. Hakase shouts back that Sakamoto told her to eat them. They look at Sakamoto, who is asleep. Hakase laughs that he's making a snot bubble. Nano talks to Hakase while they sit on the floor. She asks Hakase to brush her teeth before they go to bed. Hakase tells Nano that she already brushed her teeth. Nano points out that Hakase has eaten since she brushed her teeth, and Hakase gets embarrassed. She says that you only have to brush your teeth once, though, but Nano tells her that's not true if you eat something. Hakase gets up and starts to get mad and asks if Nano's brushed her own teeth. Nano stands and replies that she did brush her teeth. Hakase panics and tries to think of another point. Nano sternly tells Hakase that she is ready to go to bed, Hakase is the one who isn't ready. Hakase shouts out that Nano is a robot, so she can't get cavities. Nano is devastated and starts to cry a little. Hakase feels bad for what she said and tells Nano that she might get a little cavity. Nano asks, Really? Hakase tells her it's the truth, but looks away while doing so; Nano knows she's lying and falls to the floor in heartbreak. Hakase tries to comfort her by telling her she can rust, but this just makes Nano feel worse. Hakase then tells Nano that she'll give her a cavity feature, she promises! Nano feels better, and the two go off to brush their teeth and get ready for bed.

A Little Miracle
Misato is at home, complaining about Sasahara while at the oven; she has a giant bump on her head from where she was hit by Nano's flying fist. She then breaks open a double-yolked egg and gets red-faced again.

Don't Miss It!
The double-yolked egg (voiced by Seki Tomokazu) introduces itself... or themselves; each yolk says hello. The two yolks then notice how hot the pan is and, in pain, tell us that the next episode of Nichijou is Episode 9. Don't miss it! (Hot!)

Transitions
After Ogi quits the club, the terraces of an apartment complex are shown.

After Nano's fist flies toward Misato, the terraces are shown again. The closest one has hung something to dry.

After the elevator scene, the terraces are back. It is late evening and the sun is starting to set.

After Sakamoto is asleep, the terraces return. It is night, and the person inside the apartment goes outside to retrieve the towel that was drying out there.

Image Gallery
Episode 8/Image Gallery