

In episode 1 at 12:36, right after the scene of the principal's bad jokes
(which is the subject of this question: [How do principal Shinonome's jokes in
ep1 work (what's the joke), and what could they have to do with the meaning of
hard work?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/67767/70615)), Mai discovers a
squid tentacle in Yuuko's hair and laughs at it with tears coming from her
eyes. Yuuko thinks Mai is laughing at the principal's bad jokes, and seeing
that Mai is laughing more than she has ever seen her laugh, sees it as an
opportunity to try cracking a joke of her own. She then makes two closed hands
except for both her index fingers pointing upward, and her right hand holding
her left index finger and tells Mai to look.

Here are some screenshots:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ttZb7s.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ttZb7s.jpg)
[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GZ6O2s.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GZ6O2s.jpg)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/orcoJm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/orcoJm.jpg)
[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sZe63m.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sZe63m.jpg)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AiixDs.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AiixDs.png)

What's supposed to be funny about this here?

Is there some cultural reference I'm missing? Is the joke building on anything
to do with the principal's previous jokes?

My intuition tells me that there's actually a meaningful mechanism to the joke
here that I'm just unable to understand as an English viewer without anything
more than shallow knowledge of Japanese culture.

I know that absuridty ("randomness") and non-sequiturs are often used as a
mechanism for humour in Nichijou, but from what I remember, Yuuko's efforts to
make her friends laugh are honest attempts at humour. Absurdity is more Mai's
thing. Yuuko does use non-sequiturs in her poetry, but that's different. Yes,
the joke here falls flat- as if Mai doesn't understand it (the question mark
that appears above her head), but so do most (all?) of Yuuko's attempts at
making her friends laugh through jokes.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-02-10T09:31:22.737
67769
2023-02-10T09:31:22.737
70615
question
nichijou
What's the joke when Yuuko makes two closed hands except for both her index fingers pointing upward, and her right hand holding her left index finger?