| So Nichijou, after 8 years, is finally getting a dubbed version by Funimation. Some of you may be excited beyond all belief as you have always wanted to watch this show but you do not like watching subs. The rest of you knew this day was coming and are dreading this announcement with the thought "how could they possibly dub Nichijou?" Well I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, yes, Nichijou is getting dubbed so all you dub fans can rejoice! The bad news, is that there is a reason the sub fans have been dreading this day. Simply put, Nichijou is a very difficult show to dub possibly more than any other show currently on the market. The difficulty in creating a dub for Nichijou is a combination of two different characteristics. First being, the show features a very eccentric, exaggerated script which is difficult for English VAs to pull off. Secondly, some of the humor in the show requires an extensive cultural understanding of Japanese culture. What do I mean by "some of the humor" you may be wondering? Well read on. The Cultural Context of Nichijou: It is very important to understand the cultural context of Nichijou in order to appreciate the jokes that the show is going to tell you. If you are not prepared, you may end up hating the show. English viewers who have seen Nichijou have very polarized opinions on how successful the show is with it's humor. In my own personal opinion, I feel the negative reviews for this show, while each having their own rightful opinion, are largely misinformed about the context of the humor and why they didn't find it funny. The humor in Nichijou is half derived from the slap-stick absurdity and exaggeration of the situations and half from the script's character dialogue. I will start with the first half of the show's humor which is the half I feel most English viewers appreciate, then I will move to the second half and explain why the character dialogue is so tricky to translate into English. Slap-stick and exaggerations: Nichijou is telling jokes to the audience before they even watch the show, whether or not they realize it. In Japanese, Nichijou means "Everyday" which is an ironic joke presented to the viewer so as to lead the viewer to have a false expectation of the show's content. You could think of "everyday" as a variety of aspects of life; the minutia, the routine, the ordinary, while in truth, nothing about Nichijou is ordinary at all which is the leading theme of the show. The slap-stick humor is almost more like an American cartoon with the crazy facial expressions and overly eccentric characters. Nichijou's animation style plays heavily into this slap-stick humor. There are times when the characters and backgrounds are quite simple and bland. This was done on purpose to lead into the moments of high intensity and distress where the characters are pressured into scenarios, while mundane to most people, to them, are met with extreme reactions and over-exaggerations. These scenes are where most praise is given to the show and it's animation budget. Most of the budget was spent on these scenes as they are important to the show's central theme of exaggerated everyday life. I found humor in these scenes with the exaggerated scenarios to be the most humorous as those scenes didn't require an in depth cultural understanding for me to find funny. Dialogue and character script: A big criticism from a lot of Westerners is that a lot of the jokes spoken by the characters simply do not make sense. This is because the jokes require the audience to have a lot of cultural understanding of Japanese life with some jokes even requiring further knowledge into Asian countries located around Southeast Asia. The requirement of background knowledge means that the jokes can get heavily complex and are very hard to translate into English. One particular scene has two characters sitting in a cafe where they play a game. The game being whoever says an English word first loses the game. How they will translate this into English I have no idea, but I trust Funimation will think of something. Another example is one of the main characters named Sakamoto. In the Japanese version , part of the characters humor is that he speaks with a southern Japanese dialect which most Japanese viewers would find funny. In the English version there is no southern dialect thus throwing out that aspect of the characters personality. These are two examples that are quite easy to grasp but there are quite a lot of obscure jokes in Nichijou as well like Yukko's "selamat pagi" greeting and a scene between Mio and her sister regarding Japanese jam (the type you put on toast). The punchline of the scene is There were quite a lot of jokes like this where I had no idea what the punchline was supposed to mean. Difference between Nichijou and Lucky Star, a comparison of humor: Lucky Star is a show that has been sort of thrown into the same category as Nichijou over the years as they are both "moe", however their humor could not be any more different. Lucky Stars jokes are largely based on the minutia of everyday life and a "4th wall breaking" view of anime culture with a more satirical "dry" tone. Nichijou takes the minutia and heavily exaggerates it to create crazy situations nobody would find themselves in, in real life. Lucky Star is what I would refer to as the "Seinfeld" of anime considering they both follow the same "minutia and dry" structure of humor. In time we will see the true success or failure of the dub and how Funimation decides to translate these jokes. Conclusion: I hope this post helps people understand why they may or may not like Nichijou going into it. Remember that humor is subjective, just because you do not find a joke funny does not mean it is a failure of a joke, you may just not understand the joke and the context surrounding it. I wish for everyone to experience Nichijou if you are an avid anime fan, whether or not you end up liking it in the long run. Also an important aspect to understand about Nichijou is that every episode is self-contained, sort of like an American comic strip, with no overarching plot. If you do not like one episode you may like another down the line. |
yousefmaher25 said: I have watched the first 2 episodes of the dubbed version an so far it is not bad, the main problem here imo is not the dialogue but that the original voice acting of nichijou is one of the best i have ever heard (the emotions they put, how the character change their tune while talking, etc..) And compared to that the dubbed version is meh Yeah I cannot watch the dubbed version it just sounds cringey to me and that is coming from someone who normally prefers dubs. |
| Nothing compares to Hakase's voice by Hiromi Konno |
| I recently found this anime and I love the humor, the long scenes with music like an elevator scene or house of cards scene are making me roll on the floor. Can anyone recommend another title with a similar vibe? |
jurekjurek said: I recently found this anime and I love the humor, the long scenes with music like an elevator scene or house of cards scene are making me roll on the floor. Can anyone recommend another title with a similar vibe? If you like that crazy randomness - Asobi Asobase, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, and Joshikousei no Mudazukai (arguably bit weaker compared to others, but still delivers) |
Roonagu said: If you like that crazy randomness - Asobi Asobase, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, and Joshikousei no Mudazukai (arguably bit weaker compared to others, but still delivers) I already tried to watch Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, but it's not as good as Nichijou. Makes me laugh sometimes (literature girl scenes are great) but generally the humor is a bit hit or miss. But I'll try the other two titles you mentioned, thanks! |
Roonagu said: I already tried to watch Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, but it's not as good as Nichijou. Makes me laugh sometimes (literature girl scenes are great) but generally the humor is a bit hit or miss. But I'll try the other two titles you mentioned, thanks! You could try Nerima Daikon Brothers. It is a comedy with a lot of musical acts. Pretty much the only "musical theater" anime that exists. The songs are quite catchy. There is an overall plot, but each episode focuses on something different. The humor is a lot more vulgar than Nichijou almost South Park-ish. I would actually recommend the English version because the translation makes more sense and the songs sound a lot better in English being it is a "musical". |
| I love the dub. Really got it to work well. But something I noticed that I didn't in the sub (somehow) is just how cruel Mai and Mio's sister are. Maybe it is because hearing it is different than just reading it but the 20th episode in particular was hard to watch as Mio broke down. |
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| Well said. I'm personally not going to bother with the dub, but I'm quite enjoying the sub. I realize that simply by not being Japanese or having extensive knowledge on Japanese culture, some of the jokes will go over my head, which I am fine with. I came to terms with this when watching the Monogatari series, and it's fine because I find that there's plenty more entertainment to be had regardless. Sometimes I enjoy looking into the humor of a joke when I don't get it, thus learning something about the culture and its humor. While I realize that many people probably won't bother with this, I find that fun as well. Most of the time when I am watching something like this or Monogatari, if I don't get a joke I think "oh that must be a Japanese thing" and either look into it or just let it pass by. It's fun and educational. I find it interesting that sometimes I will understand that something is different about the joke, but not necessarily what that thing is. For instance, what you said about Sakamoto. I enjoy his voice and thought his dialogue was funny in the way that he said things, but I didn't know why. What you said puts that into perspective for me and I understand it's because of his accent. While I don't know much about that accent specifically because I'm not Japanese, I still find it humorous because it sounds different and makes many of his line deliveries more funny. I find it all very interesting, and it's part of what makes me love anime like this. |
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| Basically its like monogatari series. Hard to dub. |
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Hillary_Clinton_ said: It's important to remember this show was a flop in Japan. Even knowing the cultural context, you can go back, rewatch some of the jokes and realize that the comic timing just... doesn't work. At the time it aired, there was a disaster at Japan. Look at the year it came out. So not many people were aware of it. The BD sale prices were expensive didn't help. However, Nichijou has been popular since it's release and has been making money for the rights holders via streaming and TV syndication for many years... I rewatched many jokes in YouTube while watching, and they made me appreciate them even more. |
| "All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
Hillary_Clinton_ said: It's important to remember this show was a flop in Japan. Even knowing the cultural context, you can go back, rewatch some of the jokes and realize that the comic timing just... doesn't work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. There are a few funny bits and the characters have a lot of chemistry, which maybe makes it worthwhile. But overall? It's the polar opposite of the seemingly closest show, Azumanga Daioh. Azumanga has bad animation but it's funny, Nichijou has good animation but it's unfunny. Each person finds different things funny or unfunny. And numbers don't matter at all when we talk about quality. |
| It’s a slap-stick comedy so of course there are going to be some individuals who needlessly nit-pick because it doesn’t fit their taste. Some people just can’t enjoy simple comedy like this and it kinda bugs me. I guess some people can’t just turn off their brains and have fun. The show was created to simply entertain, not create some convoluted scenarios that will bend your mind in ways that it never has before (aka Pani Poni Dash, which is a good comedy in of itself). I think, it sort of suffers the same way Yuru Yuri does in the sense that it doesn’t have much “comedic diversity.”(I could be wrong, I’ve only watched 6 episodes of Nichijou at this time). They focus on select aspects of comedy, that if you don’t enjoy, you won’t enjoy the show. So if you are a fan of slap-stick comedy, I 100% recommend you watch this. It is a masterclass of a comedy, the best in the industry (however, Yuru Yuri is currently my favorite). But if you have an “advanced” sense of humor and are looking for something deep, then stay away, this show is not for you (possibly). |
under”Mebius” is my salvation  |
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