Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun is an anime…that is flat out hilarious.
The story stars Chiyo, a girl that attempts to confess her love to her classmate Nozaki…and ends up helping her serious, tall, forbidding looking classmate write fluffy romantic shojou manga.
Most of the story focuses on the ridiculous situations that Nozaki, Chiyo, and the rest of the cast with all their weird quirks end up getting themselves involved in. Due to that, the characters are what drive a lot of the story and the humour.
While my favorite character is Waka, because he’s somewhat innocent nice guy routine is the sort of thing I really enjoy, all the characters are really well done, and quite a few of them are plays on anime cliches.
For instance, the school Prince, who’s a top student, flirts with all the girls, good looking, athletic, and the star of the drama club…is a girl herself, and is frequently bad at reading people, and has her main motivator for doing things be getting attention and affection from the drama club president Hori, who is one of the few sensible characters in the show, and often plays straight man to the gags.
And even if some of the gags are not my style (usually the school Prince actually being a girl is not the sort of thing that amuses me) they are usually so well executed, I enjoy them anyway. I also thinks that it helps that I am a writer and an artist, so a lot of the jokes based around drawing or creating story plots are extra amusing to me since I can relate, but they are also in such a form that those who can’t relate, can still enjoy.
On a note about the comedy aspect, I was watching one reviewer who said that it was a lot funnier if you were watching a dub, because the dub does better comedic timing. I do agree, but since the sub is what I found up on Crunchyroll, I’ve been watching that and it’s still good, just not as good. The English voice actors did a great job on this one. The characters are well portrayed, the voices are not annoying, and there is even a bit more nuance added to a few of the characters by the acting that is really best understood in one’s fluent language.
A fair warning though, this is a romantic comedy, and there are multiple couples in it, the romances do not actually get canonized, and for the most part, just don’t go anywhere.
Now, I’ve read ahead and the manga, and in the manga, the couple’s do start progressing…just kind of slowly. Since the shows main appeal is the gags, the actual romance tends to often take second place to the gags, they tend to progress very slowly, and the anime doesn’t really get far enough to get to any of the progression.
Despite this, I actually do prefer the anime to the manga. While I tend to prefer manage, because generally I think they have better story lines, in this particularly case the gags are the important thing. The manga is written in the four panel gag comic format, and I find that that format does not really give the jokes the proper comedic timing that the anime does so well. Not only that, but the music, sound effects and animation were all done to maximize the effects of the joke, and they do a great job of it. While I would not consider the animation and soundtrack to be amazing by their own merit, they fit the show perfectly, which in my opinion is much more important.
The advantage of this show really is how silly and light hearted it is. It’s great light watching when you are tired or upset and just need something to laugh at, and it’s great for watching with close friends and family, assuming that said close friends are already into anime. Since a lot of the gags are about anime and the cliches from anime, it’s not a great introduction show to the medium. Also, you may want to watch at least a bit of it beforehand because it will only appeal to certain types of people, and the best way to determine which of your friends will like it is to watch it.
Anime Summary:
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Series Length: 12 episodes
Style and Feel: Silly, and light-hearted
Suggested Audience: People who are already fans of anime