Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

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This is probably one of the funniest 4-komas I've read in a LONG LONG LONG while, especially since a lot of popular gag 4-komas and manga are echii.

But THIS is an absolutely hilarious read.

Story: (7): There is a plot. It does exist. But it's not really something that needs expanding upon. Initially, the plot is that Chiyo has a crush on Nozaki-kun, and wants to be closer to him. But in the end, she ends up being his mangaka assistant. She keeps trying, but always returns to square one due to a mutual obliviousness. Don't expect too much romance development, as this manga's main ... purpose is to produce laughs. So don't expect sudden plot twists regarding romance. But, all the same, it's fun to see how everything develops, so this still gets a decent score.

Art: (9): I love the art in this, the emphasis on tones, inking, and using different styles in order to convey the different mangaka's styles inside of the manga universe. It's good.

Characters: (10): The highlight of the entire series. Each and every single character is enjoyable, relatable, and hilarious in their own unique way. I have not encountered a single character I would not want to see more of. Even the side characters are amazing. As more and more characters are introduced, the story continues to improve.

Enjoyment: (10): I re-read this whenever I'm a bit down. I then leave my laptop giggling like a maniac. Nuff' said.

Overall: (9): A good read if you're interested in comedy, some romance, and 4-komas. If you're serious about romance, then I'd be a bit vary about this one, because the romance seems to get nowhere. At. All. But it's still an absolutely fabulous read, and I'd recommend to it to everyone who's just itching to get a good laugh.

What is this? Are you in need of a good time? Does it requires comedy? Do you want it in 1 minute or less? My oh my, do I have the right thing for you!

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is the thing for you.

Each person out there has different kind of comedy they like, but even so! Try reading this a bit will ya?

Story: (9/10)

If I have to describe Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun's story, I would say that rather than a story it has an outline. Izumi Tsubaki, the mangaka, knows that this manga setting is in school between this set of characters. Nozaki, a mangaka, misunderstood our ... heroine, Sakura, feelings and then that's it. There is no specific goal like One Piece where the goal there is obtain one piece, but that's what makes this manga amazing because anything can happen. There is not a lot of restrictions.

What the makes the story gold is the comedy itself obviously. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun uses the traditional Japanese comedy style, the manzai. It involves two people, one the straight man and the other being the funny man and it involves mutual misunderstandings, double-talk, puns and other verbal gags. But what makes this comedy gold are obviously the....

dun dun DUN

Characters!! (10/10)

This is a big one so hold on tight!

Every comedy out there includes the so normal characters (the straight man) and the weird characters (the funny man) and when they meet, ta-dah! comedy happen!

What makes Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun so good are probably because you don't know who's going to be the normal one and who's gong to be the weird one.

Each character are very much normal, that's why they could live in school so peacefully but they are added a little bit of a hidden personality that only comes out when the characters we are given talk to each other. If it's anyone else, they will be most likely conceive as normal.

We have our main heroine, Sakura Chiyo! Who confesses to our other main character, Nozaki, but uses the wrong phrase and founds out her crush secret. That is, him being a shoujo mangaka! That itself is a gag, a big burly man writing a girly love story when he, himself, has yet know love. Sakura is most of the time the normal one, the straight man, the one that calls out on the weirdness that the other characters are doing. But she too can be the funny man, for her crush on Nozaki can't really be called a crush but an obsession.

Our other main character, Nozaki Umetarou, a shoujo mangaka, who misunderstood Sakura's confession and somehow got her to be his assistant. Oblivious to Sakura's feeling, he lives his days trying to make his manga better and trying to get more materials for it.

Our other recurring characters too are what you can call reverses. Think of many tropes that our manga/anime are using right now and I can assure you that our recurring characters are the opposite of it. I don't want to give any spoilers so go read it right now!

ART: (8/10)

I am an artist myself so art it a big thing for me. The art itself is nothing big and fancy, nothing like the art of Yusuke Murata, but it is the right art for this story. The faces and reactions and how our mangaka presents the jokes are what makes this manga comes alive.

Enjoyment: (10/10)

Big thumb up! No no! TWO big thumbs out! With people clapping and fireworks in the air.

Overall: (10/10)

Once again, comedy are different for each person but Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun will most likely appeal to many. It's easy and fast to read and the the variety of the characters also helps.

If you ever feeling down or sad, try to read Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun. Believe me, this manga will make you laughed the hell out of it.

Story : It has a pretty nice start. A girl confessed to a boy she likes. Turns out, the boy mistook her as one of his 'fans' and ended up giving his autograph. Well, who knows. The boy was a professional shoujo-mangaka. As the story progress, you can see that Chiyo had to struggle to caught Nozaki's attention but Nozaki is not seemingly aware with Chiyo's feeling towards him. The manga consisted with 90% comedy and 10% romance, so you ... can't expect any significant romance development between Nozaki and Chiyo in here. It's an 8/10.

Art : The art was great itself. It was well drawn! The mangaka pointed some of the tools they usually used when making manga and it was a new information for me. Also, the manga uses a different art style for every manga they drew in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, so it won't confused you. It's a 9/10.

Character : The character were superb. You have the dense shoujo mangaka, his assistants (which consist with : the one who he mistook as a fan that's in charge of inking, the playboy yet shy who's in charge of effects, the tired reliable senpai who's in charge of background and the first year athlete who's in charge of screen tone), the school prince and the 'wild' Lorelei, the editors etc. The characters were all unique to begin with, and sometimes their interactions were just pure hilarious. It was a 9/10 from me.

Enjoyment : As I said, whenever I feel down or sad or maybe just bored, I immediately read this manga from chapter 1 again. I could never got bored with the story because every page was just pure hilarious and has it own greatness. It was a perfect score from me for the enjoyment.

Overall : A great 9/10. You're looking for a hilarious 4-koma manga? Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is your answer. Each page will make you laugh and you'll want to read some more. You won't regret reading this.

Caution: the romance tag is a sham. If you're attracted to deep, provocative and intimate romance manga, this is not for you. However, considering that those said attractions end up being repetitive or disappointing (not that I have read even at least five titles to say that), why not give this one your precious time? After all, it might be just the one to ease your stress from all those never-ending, chock-full tropes in a story.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (I'll refer to it as GSNK onward) is a 4-koma manga that features our tragic (?) heroine Chiyo Sakura on a struggle to let her true feelings ... be known to our resident normal student/secret mangaka Umetarou Nozaki, only to be mistaken as one of his fans and ultimately made as one of his assistants in his currently running shoujo manga series (which is downright awful, in my opinion). Can Sakura get out of this predicament?

Honestly, there is no way out.

In its truest form, GSNK is an episodic parody series that mainly references many shoujo manga archetypes and somehow turns it around to create funny situations by blending in many of the series' running gags. Like I said, romance is almost non-existent and it's mostly laughs and giggles you'll get. The plot develops in an odd way, but worry not because the manga never presses on that matter so much. Have the right mindset in approaching this and surely you won’t be disappointed.

If you've come to known the series' running gags, sometimes you can see the punch line miles away. That is not to say it ends up dull and corny, but rather emphasizes its consistency with the jokes it has for the characters, since most running gags are some of the characters' stupidity. Honestly, the sheer amount of entertainment you get from this series is vast it makes up for that minor problem.

Being a 4-koma, the art comes out very limited and simple. Rarely do we get to see well-drawn scenery and instead only characters talking about random things. Then again, it's not very dialogue heavy unlike what you would normally expect from something with a comedy tag. Each page provides a very light reading experience as their jokes come off usually straight to the point. And you have to thank our wonderful cast for providing hilarious exchanges that just can't help but to tickle our sides.

Every character here is an oddball and a dense, dumb idiot, literally. In other series those are enough reasons to hate them, but in GSNK you need to be like those to be the most appealing. Not to say they're the most original, but they follow archetypes you commonly see in shoujo manga (with a twist) that enhance and highlight the hilarity it tries to achieve. If you've come to know them, just seeing their faces are enough to know that they're up to something not good again. Oh, and the mangaka likes to ship tease its characters a lot.

I think the benefit of being a comedy series, when done correctly, is that it can become timeless; while GSNK does not try to be one, it unconsciously develops into one. What I'm trying to say is there is nothing that this manga is trying to prove. It's not thematic, sensational or intelligent/witty. If anything, it sticks to the idea of what reading should be first: entertaining. Thankful I am that there is a manga that's just chilling the heck out and still providing us a great time to spend. I don't mind if this publication goes on forever; actually I'll be so glad if it ever does.

Now, if you're looking for some light, innocent comedy series kindly check this one out. I won't guarantee it will hook you in an instant, but give the series your time and a proper approach and surely this will be a worthwhile sidetrack reading.

Thank you for reading this review. Now hurry up, lock yourself in a room, read the manga and let it fix that frown on your face.

Writing a review for an ongoing manga might be too early to declare any concrete opinions about it, but I'm really enjoying what I've been reading so far, so I think the Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun still deserves some recognition and appreciation.

I was first introduced to the anime and I instantly fell in love with it, charming me with its hilarious gags, that seem to go on after every scene, and its loveable characters. But it only has one season (well, aside from the special episodes, which by the way is just a good as the actual anime), so how else could I cope from this? ... Just like any sensible weeb out there who has nothing else to do: by reading the manga.

When I first picked it up, I was surprised and slightly disappointed because I wasn't aware that the format of the manga was in 4-koma (also known as four cell manga). I didn't have a good experience reading 4-koma when I was younger, but boy, was I so wrong about that. This kind of format is perfect for Gekkan Shoujo, and I just realized, no wonder the anime had non-stop funny scenes, it's all because of that. So thanks to this, it changed my impression of 4-koma and I might check out other good ones known in this genre.

Basically, the gist of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is a high-schooler named Chiyo Sakura who just confessed to her crush, Umetarou Nozaki, by telling him that's she's a fan of his and wants to be with him all time. Nozaki reacts by giving her an autograph and inviting her to his place...to make her help in doing betas for his shoujo manga, misinterpreting her confession as an application for a mangaka assistant. And that simple joke would be the core of endless gags throughout the entire series, expanding into other characters, and evolving and breeding more ridiculous situations. It had tackled otaku culture, love confessions, mangaka lifestyle, artist struggles, school clubs and activities, character stereotypes, friendships, families, rivals, work relations, and even mundane everyday tasks, and I think the list can go on forever, especially when these topics intersect with each other and give birth to new ones.

But what I probably love the most about this manga is the characters. The colorful cast is made up of eccentric people with unique personalities. Sure they fit into typical anime tropes (like the clueless idiot, the tsundere, the "prince" of the school) but they don't stay boxed up in their labels forever. The clueless idiot turns out to value their work more than anything else, that's why things like romance involving themselves don't cross their mind, and the tsundere is actually struggling in interacting with the opposite sex so they try to improve by using manga and dating sim games as reference, and other silly stuff like that.

I think it also helps that the author is a woman because of the breaking of gender roles, toxic masculinity from the guys, and unnecessary fan service from the girls. Some male characters are even shown as motherly (one guy is great in cooking and doing chores, and dotes on another character as if they're his child) and some female characters are shown as rowdy and brash. The girls have no idea what a girls' night out is, so they ended up talking about boys' underwear, while the guys spent their night playing dating sim games and talking about the romantic parts of the story. And these punchlines are executed in a way not to mock anyone as the butt of the joke, in fact, it's endearing when they turn out to be like that, instead of some stereotype.

And of course, what is a story about a shoujo manga without it having its own shoujo manga elements? I gotta say, this is one of the few mangas where I genuinely root for hetero couples to end up with each other. There's always a thrill on the romantic pairings in this manga, always teasing us with the "would they or won't they" trope, and suddenly surprising us with a genuine act of love they're not even aware of. And since none of them has had an actual love experience before, it's very amusing to watch them go through trial-and-error to try and understand what it feels like to be in love (so, you know, Nozaki would have new content for his manga).

This manga has been going on for almost a decade now, and no one really knows if Nozaki and the gang are gonna graduate from high school soon, yet Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is still going strong with its shenanigans. New characters have just been introduced and a lot more is yet to happen on how things have progressed with this wacky bunch. I see a bright future in this manga and I really hope more people get to witness that.

Is this worth reading? Definitely. It's an easy read, being a 4-koma manga, that will make you laugh every time you turn the page, thanks to the loveable cast and quirky humor. You don't need to be a fan of "girls manga" to like this, because this is certainly more than just a "shoujo manga about shoujo manga".

If you want to laugh your a** off this is the manga for you :)

I don't read a lot of manga but I collect the volumes of this one because I love it so much.
Since the story revolves (loosely) around the creation of a shoujo manga and includes a lot of jokes about the shoujo genre, if you read shoujo I think you will enjoy that part of the series more. But there's a lot more to be enjoyed about this series than just that.

I think the best part of gekkan shoujo is the characters, even though character development is slow (like. painfully ... slow lol) each character is so special and adds to the comedy in their own way. The author is a master at using the traits of the characters to create long-running gags and jokes that occur again and again but make you laugh every time.

You will definitely find out what your favorite ship is within the first 10-20 chapters. The only warning I would give about this series is that you're signing up for a ride on the struggle bus with the rest of us when it comes to romantic development. Those of us who have been reading the series for a long time have gone through the worst of it, but if you pick it up now and binge it (you will binge it) you'll find that the author has finally started to advance the romantic relationships a little bit! We're finally being fed after so many years lol

Basically, if you're thinking about reading this, do it! You will not regret it, I laugh until I cry reading this

Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun is one of my favorite anime, and I finally decided to give the manga a shot. Because we are never getting a season 2... which still is sad. As of writing this I am in volume 5 so my perspective may change as I get fully caught up. I do enjoy the manga, but what surprises me the most is how much the anime added that was not in the source content. Also what they decided to cut out. Nozaki's brother is not even in the anime, and I actually agree with the decision to leave him out. For the 13 episodes ... randomly dropping him towards the end of the season would feel weird. Especially when he does not even have a romantic interest. He is just a different out of the main story comedy character. I don't dislike him, but he does not really do much of note either.

However one thing the anime does that I really agree with is to cut out Nozaki's former editor to barely even being present. If I remember correctly he is only present in flash backs for the anime, but in the manga he gets a pretty focused chapter every volume at least. Honestly I do hate his character since his gimmick is simply that he is annoying. He just drags down any chapter that he is in. For some reason the author seems to find him amusing though. I pretty much skip any chapter he is heavily featured in now. The anime's decision to give him very little presence was the right call. Outside of him everyone else is pretty good.

This series is carried by it's very eclectic cast of characters. Nozaki's job as a shojo Mangaka is constantly used well to set up different situations for our characters to get into. Nozaki's research into how high school romance works by observing and occasionally testing things out on his friends is pretty amusing. However this is a series where the romance is not at the fore front but instead comedy. Chiyo who often feels like the main character instead of Nozaki in the anime does not seem like she will ever make any real progress. We have a few different odd couples to root for, but I am not sure if the author has any real plan on how to get any of our couples together. I hope I am wrong, but I am not fully caught up yet. If you are looking for a romance series with a definite conclusion this may not be it. However Nozaki-kun is a very enjoyable 4 panel series that can bring a lot of enjoyment to the reader. I only hope that we get a satisfying ending. Also a season 2 of the anime of course

i'm not even going to pretend i can write a non-biased review for this manga. i love it to bits.

okay let's start from the top:

1. if you're looking for a serious romance driven manga, woops you're looking in the wrong place.

2. the art is gorgeous, it was what first drew me to it, i saw it on my dash and my antena immediatly perked and i needed to know from which manga it was from.

3. story wise: i can't say that i've seen any kind of plot underneath it all, it's a regular slice of life manga.

4. i love every and single one of ... the characters and holy fuck, everyone's interactions are superb. kashima can be read somewhat as nb, and if you don't wanna scretch it that fair at least you get a masc bi girl and you can't find that in every manga for sure.

5. whenever i feel down this is the manga to go it gets my mood up in and instant i recommend this manga to everyone and i cant talk during hours abou it! def worth a read!

Not a Spoiler, just Honest review

To be honest, this manga absolutely entertaining, the story, the character is easy to understand. when i read this for the first time, i thought this series is for girl cause the character is "IKEMEN"
But i keep read and read and read, the comedy on the series is good, when the real mangaka make a manga about daily life of mangaka and combine it with comedy, romance, and other.
Actually i can't believe that i can be too enthusias to read such a manga like this. ...
In the end, u guys must read this manga, when u get down, or bad mood, try to read this to forget everything in real life and join the daily life of nozaki here, trust me, u gonna laugh hard to read this.
Hope the story can continue and hope that can read more from Izumi Tsubaki manga.

I'm not a fan of 4-koma (I heard that this is also a 4-koma, cmiiw)
but this so far is the best one I've read! I really love it. Usually, I drop 4-komas after 2 chapters but I enjoyed this series for at least 76 chapters now.
(sorry, terrible at making reviews)

The story isn't heavy and it isn't boring too.
The art is pretty much to my liking, it looks great.
Although I keep forgetting which character is Wakamatsu, but every character has quite a distinctive feature.

Overall, this manga is really fun to read, I couldn't let go even though I keep missing sleep XD and I ... keep laughing at 3 am that I'm worried I might be heard.

A love story that is frustrating and isn't going anywhere at all? That is the most realistic and relatable thing I ever heard! Hahaha...that made me sad.
This series is littered with trope aversions and outrageous misunderstandings done so hilariously well that jokingly pokes at romantic cliches in shoujo mangas.

Story (8): The series mainly focuses on the comedy rather than the romance so there is no drama or that rivalry cliches we have seen before which is very entertaining and refreshing. However, due to this lack of drama and the fact that the plot is not particularly story-driven, there is nothing much to ... lure the viewers back in again. Once you pause, it's difficult to find the urge to resume immediately.

Art (9): Since the manga is done in a four-panel style, the art is mainly neat with no outrageous arrangements so it's very easy for beginner manga readers to start with. Fitting to the main topic of the series, the style of the manga is that of most shoujo mangas, with sweet, shining background effects and a cute, attractive drawing-style.

Characters (9): The characters are obviously the best thing about the series since each one of them are unique, distinctive and expressive in their own way which makes for terrific characters dynamics between them. The characters play off each other so well that it makes every interaction entertaining and hysterical. However, I am not one to give a solid 10 so easily but these set of characters are pretty close to perfect for this light-hearted romantic comedy.

Enjoyment (7): I enjoyed every chapter and I was by no means disappointed but as I mentioned before, with a lack of any story-driven plot I can easily forget and move on to something else. I have come back to reread once or twice and it is enjoyable but with not a lot of enthusiasm as I have with other series.

Overall (8): I recommend this as good light-reading and for those who definitely want to laugh at old romantic cliches and tropes they have seen many times. I can recommend this to beginner manga readers but it is better if you have a good knowledge on rom coms and shoujo mangas to get the jokes in the series. Also a good way for inspiring writers and artists to get a small glimpse on what it's like to be published manga artist.