Minutes into the first episode of this anime, I knew that this anime was going to be a blast. This anime had the potential to be amazing and, don't get me wrong, this is still a great anime, but it fell a little short of being amazing.
The plot of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun is about a girl named Sakura who tries to confess her love for Nozaki. But Nozaki misinterprets her attempted confession and mistakes her for a fan and recruits her as an assistant for his work as a shoujo manga artist. While working as his assistant, Sakura meets other assistants of Nozaki as well as other friends of Nozaki at school. Misunderstandings and comedic tropes await as Sakura is still unable to get Nozaki to understand her feelings.
The story is inheriently funny and it made me laugh a lot of times especially at the ways Nozaki drew inspiration and collected information for his shoujo manga. The story, however, becomes a little frustrating at times as almost everything, yes almost everything, that Nozaki does in this anime is for his manga. This leaves little room for character development, as Nozaki is so focused on his manga that he sometimes oblivious to the feelings of others, especially Sakura. Their romance develops very little as a result. Not only that, but I was also slightly disappointed by the ending also, but I won't give any details as to avoid spoilers.
The animation in this anime is excellent. It even takes its time to bring out very small details that made the scenes in the anime feel more real and more compelling. The small details also help make the main characters even more unique and different from each other. The music is the typical, catchy openings and endings that you would expect to see from a comedy anime. Nothing was too special with the music, but it does fit perfectly.
By far, the best part of this anime is its characters. There are seven main characters in this anime that can each be described simply. We have Nozaki, the emotionless and oblivious shoujo manga artist. Sakura, a "normal" girl with a crush on Nozaki. Mikoshiba, the playboy with a tsundere like attitude and is Nozaki's friend. Seo, a violent and aggressive girl with a beautiful singing voice who is Sakura's friend. Kashima, a girl who is tomboyish and attracts all the girls in the school. Hori, the president of the drama club who goes after Kashima due to her skipping practice. And Wakamatsu, a basketball player who is an old friend of Nozaki's.
Just by the descriptions of the characters, you can already tell that this is a very unique set of characters. This anime isn't afraid to play with and swap the gender role norms that you would normally see in another school anime. Though the focus of the anime is obviously on Sakura and Nozaki, much time is given to flesh out the other five characters as well. It does a great job by showing how seven extremely different characters are joined together to work on or provide inspiration for Nozaki's manga. These seven main characters provides a great amount of entertainment and laughter. Even some of the side characters, like Ken, Yukari and Mitsuya still have some role in the story and also contribute to some funny scenes.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun is a funny and entertaining anime with plenty to offer. It is a solid anime that I thoroughly enjoyed and will look forward to another season.
"Enough you idiot! Shorten it to 20 words or less!" -Saitama (One Punch Man)
(tl;dr) GSNK is an entertaining anime with unique characters, great animation and music. But falls a little short on plot.
