Nichijou: My Ordinary Life Blu-Ray

Yuuko Aioi, Mio Naganohara, and Mai Minakami are three high school friends in the town of Tokisadame. Yuuko is energetic, easily excited, and rarely thinks before acting. Mio is more grounded but harbors a secret passion for drawing boys-love manga and will destroy anyone who gets near her sketchbook. Mai is quiet, serene, and weaponizes her apparent gentleness with absolute precision, deploying deadpan pranks with the patience of a chess grandmaster. Their school is also attended by the Professor — an eight-year-old genius who built herself a robot companion named Nano to take care of her — and Nano herself, who wants more than anything to attend school like a normal person despite having a large wind-up key protruding from her back. The school principal is engaged in an ongoing war with a deer that appears on school grounds. A talking crow bites people. Salmon fall from the sky. The series is structured as a series of loosely connected sketches — some lasting thirty seconds, some several minutes — which range from gentle warmth to escalating absurdist comedy to surprisingly quiet emotional moments, sometimes within the same episode.

Nichijou: My Ordinary Life is a 26-episode series produced by Kyoto Animation — the studio behind The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On!, Clannad, and Violet Evergarden — directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, written by Jukki Hanada (also responsible for the Steins;Gate screenplay), and scored by Yūji Nomi, based on Keiichi Arawi's manga serialized in Monthly Shōnen Ace and Comptiq. It aired on TV Tokyo from April to September 2011. Despite modest Japanese ratings, the series became a slow-burn international cult phenomenon — one of the most-quoted and most-gifted anime in Western fandom — driven primarily by the extraordinary production quality KyoAni brought to material that rewards it enormously. The animation budget went to a running gag, a reaction shot, a two-second pratfall, and it shows in the best possible way. The original FUNimation Blu-ray + DVD combo (7 discs, February 7, 2017, sub only) was one of FUNimation's rare subtitle-only releases at the time. FUNimation later produced an English dub released on Blu-ray July 23, 2019. The FUNimation Essentials Blu-ray (sub only) followed September 1, 2020.

Notable Staff & Voice Talent

Director: Tatsuya Ishihara (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Clannad, Kanon)
Series Composition: Jukki Hanada (Steins;Gate, Love Live!, OniAi)
Original Manga: Keiichi Arawi (serialized in Monthly Shōnen Ace / Comptiq, Kadokawa Shoten; English license: Vertical / Kodansha USA)
Studio: Kyoto Animation (Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On!, Clannad, Violet Evergarden, A Silent Voice)
Music: Yūji Nomi
Opening Theme 1: "Hyadain no Kakakata Kataomoi-C" by Hyadain
Opening Theme 2: "Hyadain no Joujou Yuujou" by Hyadain
Ending Themes: Multiple character-specific endings across the series run

Japanese Cast:
- Mariko Honda as Yuuko Aioi
- Mai Aizawa as Mio Naganohara
- Misuzu Togashi as Mai Minakami
- Hiromi Konno as Hakase / The Professor
- Shizuka Furuya as Nano Shinonome
- Minoru Shiraishi as Sakamoto the Talking Cat
- Chika Horikawa as Izumi Sakurai

English Dub Cast (FUNimation — 2019 dub, not on 2017 sub-only release):
- Morgan Lauré as Yuuko Aioi
- Leah Clark as Mio Naganohara
- Brittany Lauda as Mai Minakami
- Jād Saxton as Hakase / The Professor
- Monica Rial as Nano Shinonome
- Anthony Bowling as Sakamoto
- Christopher R. Sabat as Narrator (ep. 17)

Blu-ray / DVD Features (FUNimation 7-Disc Original Set, February 7, 2017)

- All 26 Episodes on 7 Discs (Blu-ray + DVD combo)
- Episode 0 OVA (~24 min)
- Textless Opening Songs (multiple)
- Textless Closing Songs (multiple)
- Subtitle Only — No English Dub on this 2017 release
- Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Stereo (Blu-ray)
- FUNimation Previews

Spoken Languages: Japanese Audio Only, English Subtitles (2017 release)

Edition Details

Japanese Title: 日常 (Nichijō / My Ordinary Life)
Runtime: 650 Minutes (Complete Series, 26 Episodes + Episode 0 OVA, 7 Discs)
Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Blu-ray + DVD Release Year: 2017 (U.S. Original 7-Disc Combo, February 7 — FUNimation Entertainment, UPC 704400023811, sub only); English dub Blu-ray July 23, 2019; Essentials sub-only Blu-ray September 1, 2020 ($34.98)
Original Broadcast Date (Japan): April 3 – September 25, 2011 (TV Tokyo)
Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
Rating: 14+
Region: Region A / Region 1 (North America)
Note: 2017 original 7-disc release is subtitle only — English dub on separate 2019 Blu-ray release. Includes Episode 0 OVA. One of FUNimation's rare sub-only releases at time of publication. KyoAni's extraordinary production budget applied to absurdist sketch comedy.
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Themes: Surreal Comedy, Robot Girl, Child Genius, Sketch Format, Kyoto Animation Production

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.