Nichijou - Episode 10

Note to self: never play red light, green light with Mai - that girl is evil.  Such is the life lesson which Nichijou's tenth episode kicks off with.

From here onwards its pretty much a typical serving of the bizarre and slightly bonkers (with the occasional dose of cuteness) from this series, whether it's another dose of Mai cruelty as she ensures that Yuuko pays the price for being late to school, Yuuko the "invincible alien" proving to be anything but... in fact, a decent chunk of the episode seems to involve some kind of violence against Yuuko, which is understandable really.

Away from all that, perhaps one of the better sketches this time around involves the serving of nagashi soumen in a skit that turns from the random through to some kind of outright romantic drama, while Nano and the Professor make a couple of appearances involving the playing of trumpets (and I use the word "playing" loosely) and the Professor's attempts at acting maturely which leave Sakamoto with egg on his face.  No really, I mean he literally ends up with egg on his face.

As episodes of Nichijou this actually wasn't a bad little instalment - it wasn't hugely hilarious, but it was quick-fire enough and had a few smiles and giggles to feel somewhat satisfactory, and certainly an improvement over leaving me stony-faced as some episodes of this series have contrived to do.  Once again, Nichijou's biggest issue seems to be its assumption that it needs an over-reaction to absolutely every gag or moment of interest - this actually serves to drain from the show's humour more often than not rather than add to it, and simply put it's something that I wish they'd stop, especially now it seems to be extending beyond Yuuko's character who we've come to expect it from.