CITY THE ANIMATION

Nichijou is the best comedy anime of all time.

That's not an opinion; that's simply a fact. Even a decade and a half since it came out, Kyoto Animation's seminal adaptation of Keichii Arawi's slapstick masterpiece is the bar against which all other comedy anime are judged. Nothing else comes close to its utterly deranged, over-the-top animation, the sheer lunatic genius of its gag delivery, or the joyful delight of its wonderful cast. Other shows may try- some may even come close- but much like infinity itself, it's a concept one can only ever approach, yet never truly touch. Nichijou is iconic. Nichijou is one-of-a-kind. Nichijou is the kind of magic you can never truly replicate, no matter how many times you try.

But if you are going to try, then getting the same studio to adapt the same mangaka's other work might be a good place to start.

That's right, folks: the spirit of Nichijou is back like it never left, and it's name is CITY the Animation. Once again, KyoAni is helming an adaptation of Arawi's manga that uses the sheer, raw power of animation to push the concept of comedy and heart to limits it has never before reached. And while it would be reductive to simply think of CITY as Nichijou 2.0 (Or perhaps, 2-chijou? Since "Ni" in Japanese is 2? Eh? Eh?), watching this show felt like witnessing a miracle for the second time. It was already something close to inhuman how perfectly executed KyoAni's first stab at this was back in 2011. But pulling it off twice? And in some ways, maybe even surpassing it the second time? Folks, KyoAni is operating on levels we simply aren't prepared for. This studio is going to ascend into true divinity at some point and we'll all be better off for it.

Much like Nichijou before it, the appeal of CITY is in following a huge cast of characters living interconnected lives, getting up to all shorts of slapsticky shenanigans. Also like Nichijou, it's anchored by a trio of female protagonists ragebaiter Nagumo, ragebaited Niikura, and the wonderfully autistic Wako who's so full of joy and whimsy she has no concept of rage itself. The key difference is while Nichijou was about a cast of primarily teenagers dealing with the chaos of high school cranked up to 200%, CITY is about a cast of primarily adults dealing with the chaos of, well, living in a city. A very surreal city with talking animals and cryptids and time machine inventors, but a city nonetheless.

It's a subtle difference, but one that allows CITY a much wider range of emotional expression. With a much broader pool of ages and life experiences to draw from, the same bombastic comedy that Nichijou mastered gets to be applied to the absurdities of people from all walks of life. The self-aggrandizing restaurant owner Makabe, the determined-but-stupid theater troupe leader Nobuteru, the vicious old landlady Obaba, the perpetually put-upon mangaka Oni Kamaboko... these are just a few of the people making up CITY's expansive, interconnected community. And by turning Nichijou's level of animated hyperbole on their more adult concerns- making money, midlife crises, a particularly harrowing beach trip- it's able to make you lose your shit laughing in so many new and exciting ways.

On that note, something I've realized about Arawi's writing watching this show is that beyond the visual exaggeration, so much of what makes his comedy great comes from a level of Committing to the Bit nobody else comes close to. His characters aren't just absurd, they're constantly one-upping their own absurdity as if to back down would be tanamount to death itself. Ditto the absurd situations they find themselves in; when shit gets crazy, it only gets crazier with every attempt by the more reasonable character to diffuse the tension. So you end up in scenarios where a bunch of wild personalities are smashing heads with each other and refusing to back down, and things can only escalate with each character pushing their bizarre quirks past their limit in a game of comedic one-upsmanship that only ends when the situation escalates so far, even they can't keep up with it. And it is fucking hilarious every time. There's a particular bit involving Niikura getting smacked in the face with a soccer ball that quite literally left me paralyzed with laughter. Not all of the skits hit that hard- the more surreal stuff with the weird talking animals mostly left me cold- but when it's on, it's ON.

And the animation, Dear sweet lord, the animation. Do you need me to tell you this is one of the best-looking anime of all time? Just watch any clip of it! It's every bit as bombastic and stunningly over-the-top as Nichijou, arguably with an even more appealing cel-shaded art style that feels ripped straight from a comic book. There's so much polish and exaggerated detail to every shot, every second, the mere fact of its existence might as well be a miracle. How, in this cursed industry that grinds animators to a pulp for increasingly broken productions, does KyoAni still churn out stuff on a TV schedule that gives most feature films a run for their money? Simple: because they care. They care about the artistry of animation like no other studio on the face of the planet does today. And the sheer, infectious joy in every single frame of CITY feels like the show itself is setting out to prove why that artistry matters so much. There's no less than three separate episodes where the visuals escalate to such a point that I had to stand up, throw my hands in the air and say, "This is the best that animation has ever looked in the history of animation itself." Exaggeration? Perhaps. But in the moment, you can't help but believe it with all your heart.

And yet, much like how Hakase and Nano basically stole the show in Nichijou by becoming its beating heart, it's another pair of side characters that transform CITY from a fantastic comedy into a genuinely moving work of art. God, it's been a long time since I've fallen in love with a duo as much as I've fallen in love with Matsuri and Ecchan. Here, that sense of escalating Commitment to the Bit I talked about earlier is turned on its head with two characters who's bits are just how damn much they love each other. They play off each other's nonsense with the kind of instant, near alchemical familiarity you only get between true soulmates, people so attuned to each other's wavelength they might as well be one. And it. Is. So. Fucking. CUTE. It's a never-ending game of sweetness and joy between these two goobers who are constantly pushing themselves into new heights of expressing how much they care about each other. Which then becomes heart-wrenching when we find out Ecchan's going to move abroad soon, and that Commitment to the Bit is again reforged into a shield that both girls use to try and avoid expressing how terrified they are of losing each other. Because that's the secret of Arawi's writing: he gets you in such a funny headspace just so he can lower your defenses in time to smack you with something so heartfelt and real it leaves you blubbering in your seat. It's masterful.

Sadly, there is one aspect that holds City back from the same heights as its predecessor: time. Nichijou had 26 episodes to get you invested in its lovable cast of dorks and dumbasses, time enough to become intimately familiar with all their nuances to the point they felt like a second family. CITY, a show that's even more focused on the community aspect, only has 13 episodes. And even with KyoAni bloating each episode's runtime as much as they can, some scraping right up against the 30-minute mark, it's just not enough to get that same sense of familiarity. I haven't read the manga, but I can tell just from the outside that we lost out on a lot of moments with certain characters. There's a couple of twins who show up on like two occasions but feel like they're supposed to be more fleshed out. Poor Wako, my favorite of the main trio, feels painfully underutilized in comparison to Nagumo and Niikura. There's even a whole volume of manga that gets turned into a two-minute gag poking fun at its own rushed nature, and while it's a very funny bit, I also would've liked to see that whole thing! You can't just tease me with a surreal deserted island castaway adventure and then pack it away like that!

But despite feeling that absence, what does exist here is still some of the funniest, most endearing, most astounding stuff ever put to animation. CITY at its best isn't just another good anime: it's a reminder of how high this medium is capable of soaring to when it tries. It's a triumph of animation just as awe-inspiring as its predecessor, a joyous miracle that feels like it makes the entire medium better with its presence. So what if it's a little more inconsistent and less fleshed out than Nichijou? On its own terms, this is still the most fun I've had watching anime all year, and I couldn't be happier that KyoAni's back to making new shows at last. Six years after that horrible arson attack, the studio is shining even brighter than ever, and I cannot fucking wait to see where their mandate of heaven takes them next.