or, “Why I Headcanon That Chapter 1 Contains A Reference To Double Cheeseburgirl”

I noticed something odd while rewatching Nichijou episode 1 recently, and one thing led to another and I ended up digging up some tidbits that I don’t think have made their way into the western fandom yet, so I thought I’d throw my findings on here. (I also ended up with a headcanon, and although it’s very silly, it’s also very ‘Nichijou’, so I figured I’d include it here too.)

So to start with … Yukko’s family owns a cat:

As far as I’m aware, its name is never mentioned in the anime. There’s a similar-looking cat called Chicchi, but that belongs to Mai.

In the manga though, in fact in the very first chapter, there’s a little hint as to what its name might be:

These panels, where Yukko’s mother discovers Nano on the roof, got cut from the anime. (Nano still ends up on the roof, but Yukko’s mother never shows up.) What’s interesting is that the sign on the little doghouse says “Muga” (無我), and since this is apparently the Aioi residence, that implies Muga is the name of their cat. That’s the general consensus in the Japanese fandom. (The English Nichijou wiki actually says the cat is called “Magu”, but I think that’s just a transcription error.)

There’s a problem though: in the second volume of Helvetica Standard (2014), there’s actually some art of Yukko’s cat revealing that its name is in fact “Chissan” (チッさん). I found a tweet basically accusing Arawi of forgetting that he’d already named Yukko’s cat “Muga” in the first chapter. The tweet also points out that on the back cover of volume 2, it says Chissan is the nickname of Mai’s cat Chicchi. So maybe Arawi just got them mixed up – volumes 1 and 2 were published way back in 2007 after all. But to be honest, I think Arawi would sooner let Mio x Sasahara sail than forget Crucial Information like the name of a minor character…

So let’s give Arawi the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the cat really is called Chissan. What’s Chissan doing in a doghouse that says its name is Muga? This (finally) brings me to the thing I noticed in my rewatch of episode 1. Even though the scene with Yukko’s mother got cut, the anime does briefly show this shot from Nano’s perspective:

It’s not Chissan at all!

Looking back at that panel from Chapter 1, the animal in the doghouse does look a bit too big to be Chissan. (And it is a doghouse after all.) So is Muga actually the Aioi family’s pet dog, introduced in the first chapter/episode and never to be seen again?

Well, it turns out that the house Nano lands on is actually not the Aiois’ at all. Here’s a quick comparison (Yukko’s house on the left, Muga’s owner’s house on the right):

Returning to the manga, this leads to the question: what’s Yukko’s mother doing in the garden with Muga, if that’s not her house?

Well…

What if that’s not Yukko’s mother?

Okay, hear me out. The woman in the garden does look a lot like her, but there is a difference. In every subsequent appearance, Yukko’s mother has dark hair, whereas the woman in the garden has light hair:

That might seem like a bit of a stretch, but remember everyone already mistook Muga to be a cat rather than a dog. Near-doppelgängers aren’t that unusual in Tokisadame – a lot of people also mistake Chicchi for Chissan, and Rokugou (the boy who said “Hey everyone, it’s a dog!”) looks a lot like Daiku in the manga. Some people even think Ukai Mami and Oogo are different people (but that’s another story).

So what we end up with is Muga (who at first glance looked like Yukko’s cat) and Muga’s owner (who at first glance looked like Yukko’s mother). That’s two members of this near-mirror image of the Aioi household, but what about the last one? We just need someone who at first glance looks like Yukko herself, but upon closer inspection is actually someone entirely different.

…Sound familiar?