Keiichi Arawi - nichijou ~My Ordinary Life~ Manga

nichijou — stylized in all lowercase — is a surrealist slice-of-life comedy manga written and illustrated by Keiichi Arawi, serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace from 2006 to 2015. Set in the fictional town of Tokisadame, the series follows a loose ensemble of high schoolers — the endlessly scheming Yuuko, the secretly BL-manga-obsessed Mio, and the deadpan, inscrutable Mai — alongside the eight-year-old genius Professor, her robot creation Nano who desperately wants to attend high school and be treated as a normal person, and a revolving cast of teachers, neighbors, and background characters who exist in a world where the mundane and the completely impossible coexist without comment. The school principal wrestles deer. A student commutes on a goat. A tiny girl fires a bazooka at a boy who touched her hair.

What makes nichijou a singular achievement in comedy manga is Arawi's absolute commitment to escalation. Each gag — whether a string of terrible puns, a rock-paper-scissors tournament, or a casual conversation that somehow ends in a catastrophic explosion — builds with precise comic timing to the most absurd possible resolution, then cuts away cleanly. The series mixes traditional manga panels with four-koma strips, haiku, and visual non-sequiturs, giving it a freewheeling, improvisational energy that never lets you anticipate what the next page holds. The art is deceptively simple, with Arawi's clean linework capable of snapping from gentle warmth to full slapstick chaos in a single panel transition.

Selected by Guillermo del Toro as one of the top comics out of Japan for Asahi News' SUGOI Japan project, nichijou has sold over a million copies worldwide and inspired a now-legendary 26-episode anime adaptation by Kyoto Animation in 2011 — directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and widely considered one of KyoAni's most technically ambitious productions, celebrated for the sheer extravagance it brought to depicting ordinary teenage chaos. The series resumed serialization in 2021 with a Vol. 11, but the Vertical Comics English run covers the original complete ten-volume run. Fans of Azumanga Daioh, Cromartie High School, or K-On! will find this essential — though nothing quite prepares you for it.

Other Notable Works

Keiichi Arawi: CITY, Helvetica Standard  
Comparable Peers: Azumanga Daioh (4-koma absurdist comedy peer), Cromartie High School (Deadpan surrealist comedy peer), Yotsuba&! (Gentle everyday absurdism peer)

Series Details

Japanese Name: 日常 (Nichijō)
English Title: nichijou
Story & Art: Keiichi Arawi
Original Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten (Monthly Shōnen Ace)
English Publisher: Vertical Comics
Release Years: 2006–2015 (Japan) / 2016–2019 (English)
Volumes: 12+ 
Age Rating: Teen (13+)
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Surrealism, Shonen

Comics & manga are assumed VG+ or better unless otherwise noted. No broken spines, no writing, no stickers, and may have light shelf wear. Mid-2000s or earlier manga may have slight yellowing due to the age of the paper. All manga and comics are assumed to be pre-owned.