Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is about a girl named Chiyo who tries to confess to her crush. He misunderstands her confession and decides to take her as his assistant, because, as it turns out, he is a romance manga author, and he seeks inspiration from the people he knows to create his characters.

At first, the show is alright at what it does, it's your average character-driven comedy. For the first few episodes, it introduces the characters and establishes their personality. It's nothing special, but it has potential.

These are the stock characters and their relationships from shoujo manga that are parodied:

1: Chiyo is ... the main girl who falls in love with the serious and mysterious main guy who is Nozaki. The latter is oblivious.

2: Mikoshiba is like the main girl from several shoujo romance manga that frequently stumbles on her own words and embarrasses herself in front of others, causing her to monologue wistfully about being an idiot. The joke is that, despite being a guy, he acts like a girl, therefore Nozaki writes him as a girl in his manga. Do you get it?

3: Hori is like the Tsundere girl who gets pissed at the handsome suave person who Kashima is. Basically, a gender-flipped Misaki and Usui from Maid-sama, minus the stalking and sexual harassment.

4: Wakamatsu is like the sweet, ever-forgiving girl who gets frustrated at the rude person who is Seo. He falls in love with Seo's voice, however, without realizing it's hers. Just like in superhero comics.

The show is meant to be a parody of shoujo romance manga, which is part of what got me interested in watching in the first place. I've read some of those, so I know what their usual flaws are: basic characterization, forced romance, lack of creativity in terms of premise, etc. If you've read one, you've read them all. So when I heard this was a parody of that, I was looking forward to it.

However, comedy anime is unfortunately not very good at remaining consistently funny, and often would rather remain repetitive rather than come up with something new or original. This is sadly the case with this show. It has the same problem as a lot of comedy anime seem to have these days, which I like to call "punchline decay": it sticks to a very rigid formula and gives the characters one or two personality traits, which I have previously mentioned, and bases all of its jokes around them. Nearly every joke that ever gets made in this show boils down to the same punchlines. They're not so much characters as much as they are running gags. But running gags require variations in order to stay fresh, which doesn't happen with the characters in this show. I certainly don't watch comedy shows expecting deep, three-dimensional characterization, but it gets stale quick if the characters have nothing more to them.

This is where my problem with it lies. Most of the parody just boils down to taking romance character stereotypes, changing the gender... and that's it. There isn't anything to the parody beyond that, especially pointless since the same characters or situations had already been gender-reversed or parodied in certain other series to begin with. More often than not, it plays out these situations without much in the way of irony to make a joke work. (I don't consider making a character type who is usually a girl into a boy to be ironic if it goes down that path too often.) Very rarely does the show ever actually do anything of actual substance with the parody aspect, which is a shame, since the show is at its best whenever it does that.

Similar to a harem anime, the only novelty in this comes from introducing new characters that fit into one character archetype, and once you already know what the joke will be with each character and it has already beaten their gimmicks into the ground, the show has nothing to offer. To put the character's lack of dynamism into perspective, half of the characters don't even have any personality of their own, and instead their personality is entirely dictated by their relation to another character. Chiyo's personality is dictated by her love of Nozaki, Wakamatsu's personality is dictated by his dislike of Seo, and Hori's personality is dictated by him beating up Kashima, etc. There isn't anything else to them really. I'm fine with background characters or supporting characters in comedies being one-dimensional, but not the main ones.

In regards to the romance manga parodies, it doesn't do a whole lot with it. It makes a few obvious jokes about that, like having sparkles or rose petals flying around the characters, and what it's like working as a mangaka. One example of such humor is a gag where three of the characters challenge each other to draw three assorted things. Two of them draw well, and the other draws poorly, except for the last one which they all draw poorly. Hilarious. I could never have seen that coming. The rest is your typical school comedy.

One of the points of a comedy is to subvert your expectations. Mikoshiba saying one of his dating sim lines and getting embarrassed afterward surely subverted my expectations the first time I saw it. Unfortunately, it didn't subvert them the fiftieth time nor the hundredth. It only subverted my expectations once for each of its characters, and then never again.

Basically, my criticism is that the show is cliché, in spite of meaning to poke fun at clichés. It's not bad for being conventional, but even if this were my first comedy anime, I still wouldn't like it that much due to its repetition. I'd still be thinking, "alright, I get it, this character has this trait to them. Are we getting to another joke soon?"

Admittedly, there were a couple of moments I thought were hilarious: Nozaki and Mikoshiba playing a dating sim in episode 4, and Nozaki having his characters stand on boxes to avoid misproportions when drawing in episode 8. I enjoyed these jokes because they showed unusual ways to deal with unexpected drawbacks in trying to draw or get inspiration for a story, which I found relatable. However, while these two scenes were funny, I didn't feel like it was worth watching the whole show just to laugh at only two scenes and be bored for the rest. I can't help but feel like even if I had dropped the show, I wouldn't have missed out on anything.

The show has a lot of good ideas, which could have ended up resulting in a genuinely clever show, but in my opinion, it never attempts to actually do anything with said potential nor does it take any risks, merely relying on the same 5 or 6 jokes and ends up a mediocre comedy, just as forgettable as the very same romance manga that it wants to parody. It's cute, but I tend to like shows when they have more substance than that. If there were more characters, there might be more different jokes based on how they interact with each other, but most of the humor revolves around their one personality trait regardless of who's interacting with who.

As much as I've been harping on the subject for the entire review, I don't want to make it sound like I believe that this show is any more repetitive than most other comedy anime, because it isn't. I only wrote this review because I watched this show at a time when I really became annoyed by this trend. If I had seen it at a different time, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. From recollection, most of any given episode takes place either at school or at Nozaki's apartment, and most episodes revolve around him trying to find ideas for his manga. Part of my apathetic opinion on it might be because I think I tend to like comedy anime better when there is a larger variety of situations that the characters find themselves in. I just feel like Nozaki-kun doesn't have enough variety in its humor to hold up for 12 episodes.

If you generally like comedy anime, then I'd recommend watching it and you'll probably enjoy it. This is by no means a terrible anime, even though I don't care for it. Otherwise, if you're like me and think a lot of comedy anime tends to miss the mark on humor, this likely won't do anything to change your mind. If you're looking for something more original in terms of characters and humor, you're better off looking for something else instead. There's certainly worse shows out there in regards to this, but there's also far better ones as well.

*WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, BUT NOT HEAVY SPOILERS*

The idea behind the story is not an entirely bad concept. Of course it has become a generic plot idea to base an anime on creating a manga. I mean c'mon, it seems like every year there is either an anime or a manga where the theme is based on creating a manga. However, the way this show presents the manga creator and the interactions between him and his assistants can be quite warm on the heart.
So, why does the story get a lower score from me? Because of HOW it tells this story and how it ... all goes to shit at a fast paced speed.

The story goes something like this....
The main character is Sakura Chiyo, who happens to be in love with the most painfully aloof guy in the entire fucking world, Nozaki Umetarou. One day Sakura confesses her love to Nozaki while they're at school. Because of the fact that Nozaki is either in complete denial, or possibly stupid, he assumes she's a fan and signs an autograph for her despite her not even asking for one. So, this eventually leads to Nozaki asking Sakura to become his assistant since she's an artist herself. Obviously, like any other generic anime female character would, she doesn't try to explain to him what she really meant and she agrees to becoming his bitc...I mean assistant.

Now the thing about this plot is that it heavily revolves around the interactions the characters have with one another. This is why I say that despite the IDEA of the story not being a bad one, it's told in one of the worst ways possible. Why is it told in one of the worst ways possible? Because majority of the characters you meet throughout the series make you cringe.

Let me just start off by saying which character I like the most, and that would be Mikoto (Mikorin) Mikoshiba. It is surprising that with such poorly written characters that Mikorin managed to stay consistently well written and consistently entertaining. You see, Mikorin is obviously supposed to be the hot guy of the show (and the guy Sakura should have chosen, but that's for another story). Even though Mikorin is considered very good looking, he is a complete otaku dweeb who gets painfully shy around a group of people. Some have considered his character too far-fetched and that if someone was that good looking then they would not behave like such a socially scared nerd, but that is all far from the truth. We cannot simply dismiss a character because he doesn't appear realistic, or just because he doesn't fit other generic anime stereotypes everyone seems to be used to.
Mikorin is definetly one of the better written male characters in a slice of life anime, and he was the main reason I was able to finish this series.

Now you are probably wondering what was so wrong with the rest of the cast if Mikorin was so great. Just keep in mind that this is purely based off of what I consider to be my objective reasoning as well as subjective reasoning (because nobody in this world can be 100% objective all the time).
Let's start with Sakura, who was not terrible nor great...she was who she was. Her entire existance is based on the fact that she loves Nozaki. There is really nothing else about her that makes her standout as an individual character other than the fact that she's the main character (and kind of cute at times).

Nozaki is someone who is mentally unaware of almost everything around him, despite him being this so called amazing manga creator. He comes off as so bland and so unaware of social cues that it begins to infuriate you by the second episode. We all know his character isn't supposed to be this sporadic and overally emotional guy, but his drab demeanor could have benefited from some sort of development of his personality.

Since the two main characters are obviously nothing special, and since the entire plot is based upon Sakura's love for Nozaki, the series was in dire need of some dynamic characters. Although, the series could have possibly been better without the rest of the cast altogether...

You have Yuzuki, who happens to be great at sports and great at singing despite being even more aloof than Nozaki. That's right boys and girls, we couldn't have just one severely obtuse character that already intensifies the frustration factor. Instead, the creators decided to give us two severely obtuse characters, hooray!

There is also Yuu, a girl who hits on all the other girls at the school and makes all the guys jealous of her "swag". I actually thought the idea of her character was quite enticing, but the writers fell flat with keeping you entertained by her.

There is also the worst character of this entire fucking series, Masayuki...we'll get to why he's the worst a little later.

The last person I will name is Hirotaka, the character that nobody gives two damns about. The only reasons why I am mentioning him is because of his interaction with Nozaki and Yuzuki.

I would name everyone else, but the rest of those characters either don't matter and should have never been in the series in the first place, or they were there because they HAD to be in the series but they didn't contribute to making the plot any better.

From watching this series it appears as though the creators wanted to defy typical anime stereotypes that are shown in every other series known to man. There is only one problem, they decided to take these stereotypes and simply switch the genders...which makes them what? Still stereotypes!

Instead of Yuu being a man who gets all the girls, her character is a woman. And despite Masayuki being the opitomy of an abusive tsundere piece of shit (which is a more common stereotype for female characters in anime) his character is a man.
Masayuki always seems to be annoyed with Yuu for absolutely NO reason, and if he has a reason it is never ever justified. Now, I am already uncomfortable with how physical female tsundere characters can be towards other male characters, but when it is the other way around it becomes even more uncomfortable (especially since the ONE thing that seperates men and women is physiology, and unfortunately the general amount of women are not able to physically handle a hit from a man). Masayuki is constantly punching and kicking Yuu around, despite Yuu never really doing anything for it to be deserved. However, the creators are trying to convince that since Yuu seems to be into other women and because she comes off as a male character that we should all be okay with this already fucked up stereotype of beating up people you call your friends (or those they have a crush on). Normally you see in other anime that when a female character hits a male character it is okay because of the fact that it is a woman hitting a man, which is already not okay. However, the stereotype is switched here and we should all simply except it because a female character is considered "barely female" so long as she behaves like a man *rolls eyes*.
You can claim that I may be reading into it, but even if their interactions don't require anyone to read into that deeply it doesn't stop it from being exaspirating to watch.

You also have the interactions between Yuzuki and Hirotaka, whom depending upon who you are, had probably contributed to some of the more pointless scenes of this series. Yuzuki could have been entertaining by herself, but the fact that she was dragged down by Hirotaka's obsession for why he thought Yuzuki would pick on him added to the amount of frustration I already had for this show. More often you see in other anime series that cliche of the male character coming across as if he didn't like another cliche female character, even though he did actually liked her (which I guess we are to assume was the case here). However, I could have excused this cliche so long as there was some sort of development between the two...but there was none.

Speaking of character development, did I mention there is none?...abso...lutely...none.
Now, I was willing to look past that flaw, but the problem is that these characters are so poorly written and their interactions are so cringe worthy that if each one had developed in a fervent way then it could have saved the plot.
The only character that was a well written cliche and wasn't in dreadful need of development was Mikorin and his "otakuness".

This series had the opportunity to defy cliche stereotypes and create a great and unique slice of life anime. Instead the writers not only contributed to these cliche stereotypes, but they made them more profound.

Keep in mind, this is a more popular aime series and is well loved by many fans. So my reasons for not liking it does not reflect the way you as an individual has to feel about this series.
I say give this a shot regardless of how I feel, but no amount of convincing will change my opinion on why I gave this show the rating that I did.

SIDE NOTE: I heard from a friend that they happened to enjoy the manga more than they did the anime. So I suppose that is always worth looking into.

The only guy with a sane mind in this entire series is Ken Miyamae, that being said
let's get to the facts

An over rated series, with unnecessary hype

Nozaki and Sakura:

The anime starts with Sakura, Chiyo falling for Nozaki, Umetarou sadly Nozaki turns out to be a famous manga artist, who is in love with the characters in his manga than anything else in the world. Through out the series he thinks nothing, but manga. Sakura plays alongs and helps him out with a hope that she would convey her feeling one day and he would understand it.

Hori and Kashima:
...
They both are in to drama and love each other, but don't convey their feelings, just some misunderstandings that add up to the comedy.

Wakamatsu, Seo:

It all starts with Wakamatsu being bullied by Seo, while playing basketball. Seo, who is oblivious and retarded to some extent has a beautiful voice. Wakamatsu loves her beautiful voice but doesn't know the fact that its her. because of these misunderstandings, the more wakamatsu tries to separate from seo the more he becomes near to her.

Mikoshiba, Mikoto:

Mikoshiba easily gets flattered and gets in to trouble.

Maeno, Mitsuya:

i still don't understand, why the publishing company doesn't fire this guy



Nozaki, Umetarou gets inspiration from these lunatics for his manga.

That's it
there is nothing more to it.

The series seems good till the characters are introduced everything after that is just non-sense.

Honestly, it surprises me that this show is rated so high. Reading through some reviews, I noticed some people saying that you can't go into it looking for cute romance. This is definitely true. But with any anime, there should be some sort of plot, and this show just didn't have it. The first few episodes were pretty okay, they made me laugh and I was ready for things to progress. But they don't. Ever. The humor gets old fast, since this show is basically 12 episodes of them relying on the same humor, with no actual plot line to progress anything. With the exception ... of one or two characters, I found the characters very bland. I know some characters personality are supposed to be very oblivious, and serious, but in my opinion they just came off as boring. I am guessing this is either a 'hate or love' show, and unfortunately I didn't love it. If you plan to watch this, don't expect a progressing or complex story.

i was so excited for this one, the trailer was very good. for the first few episodes, i was hooked, it had a habit of poking fun at cringe romance anime. the art is pleasing and it has pretty cinematic value. apart from this, i was pretty disappointed. if a filler episode was made into an entire season this would be it. sakura and nozaki never got anywhere, it was just a girl running after a clueless manga writer who could not have been more oblivious. i mean, after you watched the first episode, you could watch the rest of the season in any order ... you like and it would make sense. there was no romantic, platonic or even general progress through the 12 episodes. the only thing i got from this anime is manga knowledge :)

Alright, my first mediocre review! A couple spoilers btw

This show has an interesting concept but is ultimately held down. The entire length of the show is spent introducing characters that save the show from utter annihilation as all of the "side main" characters are very interesting and fun, and each are related and represented as a personality from a manga. What holds this show down is that the entirety is introduction, there's absolutely zero progression throughout the entirety of it making you feel inevitably bored. On top of that the two main characters Nozaki and Chiyo are so boring my brain felt like it fell ... off whenever they were the focus of an interaction.

Spoilers Ahead!

Chiyo is the most bland girl ever who has a crush Nozaki, a manga artist, who's entire character is being oblivious to not only Chiyo, but everything else too since he sees everything through the eyes of a stereotypical manga. Nothing happens at any point between the two for the entire show, and the first bit character development that occurs at any point in the show is on the last episode where they finally explain why Chiyo has a crush on an idiot like Nozaki in the first place (the reason is also pretty bland and stupid too). She finally confesses her love in a way Nozaki might not misunderstand it, but in the after credit scene it turns out he's a moron again and thinks she's saying she loves fireworks instead of him. The most character progression in the entire show is the last episode with a short and bland flashback the audience should have been shown from the beginning, and then the show ends, never to return, at her confession being misunderstood for no reason by an idiot who understood "I love you" as "I love the fireworks" somehow. No closure, no progression, and no return of the show for a second season.

Spoilers End!

Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely love a second season to amend the problems of the first season, give the characters some back story, have some character progression and story progression, both of which this show lacked. Make at the very least Chiyo have a personality and not just be a boring generic girl who's only unique traits are being reasonable when all the other characters are too wacky or quirky to be reasonable, and having a crush on Nozaki. This show's only saving grace is the "Side Main" characters who have very fun personalities and quirks, and their translation to manga characters is pretty fun as well. Every single person is show starts the show the same way they end the show, nothing happens that molds them in any way to be something new or something different, nothing has any consequence, and that's boring. It feels like the creator(s) of the story were too cowardly to change the formula in the least, perhaps hoping for a renewal of a second season? They try to have some sort of progression at the end, and make it seem like something finally happened, but the after credit scene is just a giant "Oops! We might have been too out there with this one guys, quick, do something to make the entire final scene have no meaning! We don't want to have some accidental character progression, that would break the cycle we've built up, and I'm sure character progression would scare off the viewers!" The final double take isn't even funny, it's just a giant c--- block that takes away the slight satisfaction you finally get from the final scene, and makes it feel like the entire time spent watching the show was a waste. The only reason I continued watching the show after the first couple episodes was because all the other characters were at least interesting even if they didn't change at all throughout the show, and the only reason I finished the show is because it was short.

I understand that the focal point of the show is its comedy, but the jokes get old fast, and for me a must in watching a show is an overarching story, this is one of those shows that seems like it wanted to have an overarching story, but ended up being too scared to do so, so each episode ends up being a culmination of relatively short skit stories that have no lasting baring on any of the characters. I just can't enjoy a show if I feel like nothing's happened to any of the characters from the moment of their introduction to the last moment of the last episode. By the after credit scene you can't tell if the writers were cowards or making fun of a schmuck who was dumb enough to watch the whole thing.

Likes:

The side character couples were much more interesting than Nozaki and Chiyo. Seo and Wakamatsu had this confusing relationship, with Seo being the beloved Lorelei. And Hori and Kashima were so cute. They had this love hate relationship, but I loved it so much. They kept pushing each other down and yelling, but they really did care for each other. I wanted these couples to get together more than Chiyo and Nozaki. Chiyo and Nozaki was so boring. There were episodes when they disappeared entirely.
Dislikes:


There was a lack of plot. The story didn't seem to follow any sort of path. There weren't dates or attempts ... to confess. It was a lot of boring nothing. You could pick up the story at any episode and still get the gist. I was tired by the lack of anything.
The main couple is boring. As I said, I didn't particularly care if they got together. They didn't have chemistry. And, at times, you could forget that's Chiyo like Nozaki. They barely talked. And most of it was research for the manga. While I liked their work relationship, nothing came out of it. Just boring gaga stuff.
There isn't an ending per se. The couples I wanted together weren't together. I needed more. Some closure really. I wanted people to kiss and hug and just be adorable fluffy couples. That's what I watched this show for. And I have nothing to show for it? Boring.

To call this a romance is an insult to the genre. The only "romance" is between human and drawing which is pathetic as there were multiple relationships in this show that could've been built upon but they were all literally a joke the problem was no ones laughing.

The comedy aspect of the show was mediocre at the best of times as it generally relied on over the top ridiculousness, inflicting pain. outright stupidity or general ignorance.

If you go into this show only as a comedy you may enjoy some or most of it. Though if even for a second you think of this show ... as a romance you will be sorely disappointed as this anime has no romantic or even any real character development. This show can only be described as a filler anime. An anime to watch if there is literally nothing else on your to watch list!

Starting off, i thought i would enjoy this anime mainly because i love an anime that has a good balance of both romance and comedy, but that.. was not the case. In short, Monthly girls Nozaki kun is about a high school girl (Chiyo) who runs into Nozaki, who is a manga artist ,confessing her love to him, but only to get confused to be a fan of his works.


Starting off, i want to talk about the so called "comedy" for this series. in short, it was just bad. Personally, 2 people sharing one umbrella and the water spilling onto the others head (saying as ... that did happen in the show) didn't seem funny to me. it was pretty bland. its basically like your basic "comedy" in almost every shojo anime. personally me, getting a laugh in from anime is not what i mainly look for,or rate a series on, but since comedy and romance were the 2 staples for this show, they could of put some more effort into it.


Next, the characters. There were about 5 characters who were the main few that were on screen for majority of the time, and about a few other supporting characters. I'm mostly gonna speak on the few main characters. First off, i felt as if most of the characters were pretty bland or were left with no personality besides being an airhead, clueless or just being hot. The poor writing for the characters just really left me bored.

SPOILERS




Chiyo Sakura was the main character who was mostly known for her crush on nozaki. her love for him just never seemed to come across to him. majority of her screen time was just her thinking of ways she could make nozaki return the same feelings, and it all really ended badly with her just failing. It was just an ongoing cycle that was just boring and got old. Dont even get me started on nozaki. Nozakis character was extremly bland and very poorly done. He was very clueless and had absolutely no personality and little of it was only for writing manga. Although chiyo hadn't really did a good job of getting her love across, there were a few points were you would think he would get the hint. but no. he took the little things she had done as a way for him to improve his manga. that's it. He only really thought of her as a friend, and a person who helped him with manga Ilistrations .Next is Mikoto. Mikoto is one of your everyday "charming" anime character that has girls all over him. That was mainly all you ever saw when he was on screen. his only personality as being hot along with the other character but this time a female kashima. She was the popular girl with short hair who had all the girls swooning over her. Just like every other popular high school girl in anime.

My point is with the characters is that they were all just plain and boring. They were just basic with very few cool or interesting characteristics. if your looking for an anime with cool unique characters i wouldn't say this is a good pick.


Lastly we have the romance. I guess you could say there were a few small "romantic scenes" but there wasn't really much to it. Any time Something was made to be romantic, it would just end in a misunderstanding or nothing would happen at all. i just didn't understand where the romance was. it was like searching for something that really isn't there. Majority of the romance scenes were between the 2 characters who weren't really important to the show. There wasn't really and development either and the end it was just a big slap in the face. like really?



SPOILER

chiyo- "i-i love you"
nozaki- "smiles" i love the fireworks too"
that was the ending.

The art was okay. nothing much. wasn't bad. Some visuals were actually pretty nice. that was really about it. nothing special about the sound either. pretty mediocre.

Overall, i wasnt really happy with this series but some people may enjoy it, some not.