Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun Anime Reviw

“So Chiyo, have you received anything from the guy you like?”

“Yup, his autographs”

“…”

I started watching this series thinking it would be just another generic slice of life high school romance thing that get produced, boy was I in for a treat. After watching the anime, I immediately bought all the manga and this series became one of my favorites of all time.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun aka Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-Kun is made by studio called Doga Kobo and is based on a manga series of the name name written by Tsubaki Izumi. It was released from July to September of 2014.

 

-Characters-

Sakura Chiyo is the protagonist of the story. She is extremely bright high school girl with a ton of insecurities and overflowing love for Nozaki, the boy of her dreams. She is artistically gifted and is very social.

 

Noozaki Umetaro is the titular character and apple of Sakura’s eyes. He is oblivious to her advances. He is working as a shoujo mangaka and Sakura helps him with his work. He is really dense and has no filter, he says whatever comes to his mind so a lot of people has strange opinions about him, like he’s an asshole.

 

Mikoshiba Mikoto friend to Nozaki and Sakura. He is very handsome and puts on act of a pkayboy, alas he is stupidly shy and regrets his every word frequently. He is an otaku and is shy about his hobbies. Despite his looks and air he puts on, he is anti-social and usually relies on Nozaki or Sakura to guide him through social situations, or keeps up his playboy act and is dragged into activities he had no plan on doing.

 

 

Kashima Yuu and Hori Masayuki are members of the Drama Club. Hori is the president of the club as well as the background artist for Nozaki. He is very diligent and mature about most thingsm the only exception is when it comes to Kashima. Kashima is know as the “Prince” of the Drama Club despite her being a her. She believes she is Hori’s number 1 gal despite her skipping practices and her constant teasings.

 

Seo Yuzuki and Wakamatsu Hirotaka are the final couple in the series. Seo is belligerent destructive force of nature. She thinks she is awesome and sensitive to other but actually does more harm than good. Wakamatsu thinks himself the biggest victim to Seo but I think she is usually taking him out on dates…

 

-Story-

How this series starts off is absolutely brillaint. It starts off with Sakura confessing her feelings to Nozaki, already breaking the tradition of rom-com animes. Nozaki, being a mangaka, misinterprets this and gives her an autograph, BRILLIANT!

Wanting to know him better and actually get him to know how she feels about him, Sakura starts helping Nozaki with his manga and things get more and more hilarious. Unfortunately for Sakura, I think she landed right in the friend zone and is desparate to dig herself out from there.

As Slice-of-Life series go, there is not too much to the plot.

 

-the Bad-

Honestly, there is very little I can say bad about this show. If I had to say, it might be the subtitles and translation. When I was telling my brother about this show for the first time, he thought it was going to be about girls and their periods as English translation is Monthly Girl’s Nozaki…. And some of the jokes sometimes don’t translate to English well, and this seems to be more cultural than lingual. Like why is it called “Glee Club”? The more appropriate translation would be “Choir Club”.

 

Some of the transitions from scene to scene is really awkward. They have this tendency to insert a still image with random noise that is vaguely related to the previous scene, only to have it abruptly end by the start of the next scene. This was not a deal breaker but I think the show would have benefitted from omitting it.

Apart from the fun Opening Music, most of the music is rather forgettable or generic. Please note that I have no grasp of music and don’t comment on it very often.

 

-the Good-

Where do I even start?

What I love about this series is that it focuses more on comedy rather than romance. There are many romcom that try to be romance with comedy and ends up being meh romance with dull comedy, like Nisekoi or Oremonogatari. But this show always puts comedy over romance and is great at it.

The best part of this series is the uniqueness of all the couples:

Wakamatsu and Seo has very strange relationship. Wakamatsu has this … immature defense against Seo as her actions stress him to a point of having insomnia. But Wakamatsu has a huge crush on “the Lorelei of the Choir Club” whose song is so beautiful and relaxing it cures him of his insomnia. Little does he know the Lorelei is actually Seo, she is literally the bane or his existence and the guardian of his sanity at the same time. From listening to Wakamatsu’s stories, it seems like Seo take him out on dates quite frequently, although he some how sees this as her teasing him. But Wakamatsu does seem to like her as he does not flat out reject her.

 

Then there is the Drama Club couple: Hori and Kashima. Hori is the president of the Drama Club and draws background art for Nozaki, thus he has shouko manga as reference. Kashima aka the Prince is the lead actress in the club and wants to be Hori-senpai number 1 person. Kashima accidentally discovers Hori’s shoujo manga and with series of strange events concludes that Hori wants to be a princess. Kashima, being his number 1 gal, is hellbent on making his dreams come true… and Hori sees this as Kashimi coming up with new ways to bother him.

 

Then we return to the main couple of the series, Sakura and Nozaki. While Sakura is hellbent on having Nozaki notice her feelings towards her, Nozaki just seems to go on with his life. He is a mangaka, but doesn’t take it too seriously, I mean he does his job but isn’t going to risk everything like the characters from Bakuman. Nozaki likes Sakura but seems more like a friend, although there has been hints of growth towards something more. Sakura on the otherhand is much more passionate about things in general than Nozaki. She is idealistic, but not stupid. She will straight up tell Nozaki that some of the stuff he does is stupid. They need each other to survive.

 

Then there is Mikoshiba. I feel bad for him as everyone has a partner except him… although he doesn’t seem to mind. Mikoshiba is closet otaku in every way except in looks. He is handsome but loves video games, specifically dating sims. He collects pervy figures and schedules his life around game releases. Did I mention he is hardcore tsundere? He is shy and puts up a front and regrets it almost instantly. He is a treasure and I just want him to be happy.

I find myself yelling “just get married already!” at the screen a lot while watching this show, and I think that is really good for a romcom. I like every character in this series, sans the tanuki fetishist of course, and I think that is a great thing.

 

-Verdict-

• Will I watch it again? I don’t usually rewatch animes, but this one, I watched the whole series 3 times already and is on my 4th run. I bought the manga and read it from the beginning rather regularly. And I also have this on Blu-Ray and it is fantastic!
• Do I recommend it? Absolutely. If you are tired of teenage drama and want to laugh with a hint to love in the air, this is the series for you.

 

-Concluding Thoughts-

This show has made me laugh on so many occasions. This is one of my favorite slice-of-life animes, and you guys might know I watch a lot of those, and might be one of my favorites in general. When I watch romance, especially romantic comedies, this is the series I compare to since it does so many things well.

I plan on making a separate post for the OVAs, and when the manga comes to a clos (I will cry when that day comes) I will write a review there as well.

Have you seen this series? Let me what you think!!

Gihoon