Okay, so here is my review/reaction thing for episode 2 of Nichijou. It starts with a game involving rock paper scissors and then taking turns to go up some stairs. The amount of steps a person can take depends on choosing a word and dividing it based on syllables. Mio does her turn normally, but Yukko adds the word bonus to her word. Her excuse is that she thought everyone did that. Then it's Mai's turn. Her method of winning is to choose a “unique” word, which she calls the spell of revival. It is stupidly long and gets her up all the stairs. 

After the OP, which I'll repeat is fantastic in terms of animation and music, we cut to Mio in bed. Her alarm clock had stopped in the night. Also, her mum, who she had asked to wake her up, was gone and had left a note. She'd gone to watch sports. So, Mio has to run to school. Stopping to catch her breath, she realises that she'd gone past something freaky. Well, I guess it was something easy to miss. So what was it?

It was a fellow school girl with a freaky bear mask. Well, I can see how you'd… wait, what?

No time to think about that, because it is now running at Mio and chases her when she runs from it. It catches up to her and starts offering masks to her. In fear of the abominable bear girl, she offers it money in exchange for a gold mask. It takes her money and then rips off it's face. Don't worry, Nichijou isn't a gore type of anime. No, it's just one where bear mask girls run around and wear wrestling masks under their masks. That's much more normal.

Anyway, the bear girl, after laughing at Mio's reaction, finally takes off her second mask. It's Mio's sister! Dammit! I was expecting it to be Dio, but instead it was Mio's sister! Anyway, Mio punches her with a fantastic corkscrew punch, as a random gentleman with a cane and a top hat comments as he sees the sight. Yeah, I agree with top hat guy and his random friend, who watch as Mio beats up her sister with a smile of their faces, smiles that show the joy that can only be experienced by seeing  wonderfully performed punches in the morning. Ah, I know that feeling well. In Britain, it's common for people to desire the spectacle of well performed combat moves in the morning. Postmen are often badgered into performing fighting moves for passers-by. 

We briefly cut to Mai, who uses her “revival spell” in a game password entry system. So, her revival spell is an actual thing she memorised. Bah, who cares? Not me. I'm totally not jealous of a cartoon character, you idiot!

Now, we go to the Professor, who is looking at clouds. Nano appears and asks her what she is looking at. The Professor says she has just seen a cloud that looks like a shark. She points it out and Nano agree that it does look like a shark. She then remembers to mention the milk to the Professor. Unfortunately for her, the vast time of a few seconds was too long and the Professor was now asleep.

We then cut to a Daruma doll, as the Professor is asking Nano about the milk. If Persona 5 has told me anything about Daruma dolls, it's that this is a sign that the Professor is likely planning to become Prime Minister and will need to be stopped to save Japan. Also, this will involve her ripping off her shirt to reveal that she is secretly insanely muscular and then trying to punch her enemies to death. I'm sure you can all see the obvious logic in my deductions!

Anyway, the Professor shows why she asked for milk, by having a cake roll pop out of Nano's arm. So, we get more of Nano being horrified at the modifications and weird functions installed in her and the Professor just not getting the issue. Nano at one point uses the example of going to the music store and having a part holding a roll could pop out of her head there if she got knocked on the head. What the Professor gets from this is that perhaps the part could be used as a CD tray. Yeah, this sort of thing just makes me feel sad. The idea of parts of your body that are freakish or not properly under your control or matters of body dysphoria in general, are unpleasant. Thankfully, the Professor is just way too young to comprehend the issue and she is hurting another, unlike Azumanga Daioh's Mrs Yukari, who does her thoughtless acts because she's a massive ass.

Well, Nano get's a bit of revenge when the Professor is after the roll she has and Nano just eats it in front of her. But it does get combined with the revelation that the Professor does have a perfectly serviceable fridge and does know to store cake in it. In fact, her back up cake is in it. Nano is understandably upset that she had the cakes put in her, rather than in the fridge.

We then get the same ad break bits of the Professor and Nano playing rock paper scissors, this time with a cake roll poping out of Nano's arm, followed up by the skipping rope gag. This time, it's Yukko, who jumps over the rope and slams onto the floor.

The second half of this episode starts with Yukko approaching Mio in class with a smile on her face.  The reason why is that Yukko forgot her homework and needs to use Mio's notes. Yukko insists that this will be the last time she asks for this when Mio points out that this could lead to exam problems. Again. Well Mio gives in and hands over her notes. But there is a problem. You see, Mio remembers after handing her notebook over that she had drawn something in it. So, what was it? What could dive Mio into despair at the possibility of it being discovered?

It'a a sexy picture of goat rider-kun, also known as Sasahara. Well, why would you feel ashamed of that, Mio? It's only an erotic pic of a crazy pompous goat riding ass who you have a crush on for some reason. Now, I just need need to go into another room because I wish to not laugh at that for ages. Yes, I'm definitely not laughing at that. Yeah.

Well, I did initially misspell goat as ghost. Now, that would be a lost more impressive. But Sasahara does not ride ghosts.

So, Mio throws everything into getting that notebook back. As you might expect, that's hardly impressive. The animation on the other hand is very impressive. If you were only as effective as the animators portraying your anxiety, Mio, you'd have much better luck in getting that notebook back. Screaming that what in it is terrible and then trying to bribe Yukko were definitely not good ideas. Yukko realised that Mio was trying to hide something and just runs off with the notebook. As Mio fails to catch up with Yukko, we get a very typically over the top sequence as Mio reacts to the prospect of her life being over and even has a “my life so far was good” sequence worthy of if Mio was about to die at the hands of a cruel villain. Well, I guess having a friend seeing something like that could be considered death. I wouldn't know. I don't have these things called friends.

But there is a solution, one heralded by a intense blaze of yellow light. Yes, Mio is going to tap into the power of the legendary super saiyan and defeat Frieza before Namek explodes! Wait, wrong anime… and anime genre. But I guess the legendary power of the super saiyan… I mean the intensely animated Nichijou character could also work. Yes, break the bounds of normal animation and tap into the great depths of Nichijou level intense animation! We'll go further than before!

But no! It's not enough! Yukko is just too fast! But wait, there is still one move that can save the world.. I mean Mio's dignity. Yes, Mio unleashes the power of “No running in the halls!”, which finally halts Yukko's relentless effort to escape. Yes, despite the odds, Mio has won!  Now, time for our super happy ending. 

Oh, Mio forgot to erase her drawing before handing her note book in. Well, fuck.

We get some quick jokes. The first is simply the Professor leaving Nano with a room to clean. The second is of a student called Annaka, who has a large ribbon in her hair. It's like she has a pair of ears, like a rabbit. Mrs Sakurai stops her to remark on their size. Well, the rabbit ear thing was intentional and Annaka just responds to the query with “Pyon”, which is supposedly how the sound a rabbit makes is referred to in Japanese. Yeah, as you'd expect, Sakurai is sweating bullets at realising what she has to try and deal with. Then we see Mai going to the shop, passing the Professor and Nano who are eating sweet rolls. Mai tries to get one, but there is only an impractical pack of them.

Well, that was a nice batch of small gags.

We get one more bit with Sasahara and Misato, the student who shot him in episode 1. They are working together on the cultural festival committee. It is going well, by which I mean Misato shoots Sasahara again. Sadly, as shown by the previous episode, guns cannot stop pretentious assholery. He just has to pause drinking tea from a cup and saucer for a moment to wipe the blood away with a patterned handkerchief he naturally has. Because Sasahara is a slow learner, by which I mean he does not learn from experiences like this at all, he is soon being shot at with a variety of weapons and departs for the toilets at one point with a cloud of smoke coming from his as a result of the missiles fired at him. Sasahara survived that because, as I've said, that level of firepower really is insufficient for an ass like Sasahara. Some might say it's just anime nonsense, but pretentious assholery is an nearly indestructible force. This is just basic science. One day, we might be able to tap into that power for good rather than assholery. One day….

Anyway, that was a lot of fun to watch. I hope you enjoyed reading this. This is a great series. I know I've only watched two episodes, but I would definitely recommend it.