Pachi's Anime Review - Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

You guys feeling in a funny mood tonight? Then get your giggle boxes ready - for my final anime review of the year I will covering my favorite anime comedy this round: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun. And hey, if you're in a bad mood, skip the review and go watch it right now (on Crunchyroll). I guarantee it'll make you feel better. ^_^

As we hit the end of the year, that means once again it's time for my End of Year Retrospective mega review where I touch on some series I skipped in monthly reviews and that I feel played a big part in my consumption of this particular anime calender year. Currently I'm a LITTLE better prepared for the event than I was last year - it won't be delayed all the way to the end of January, I'll tell you that right now. I've got five series (two of which you can likely already guess if you've paid any attention to what anime came out this year and/or my Twitter) lined up this year, and likely I will release each review one every other day or so for a 1-2 week long event. But will it happen in December?Mmmmmmmmhopefully! I've given myself more work than my procrastinating mind is programmed to handle, as usual, so I can't make any promises. I'll do my best not to take forever!

But you're not here tonight for that, you're here to learn more about Nozaki-kun. Then by all means, read on, and enjoy! :D

A struggle I often face in doing these review art pieces is answering the all-important thematic question: "How do I incorporate Penguin into this?" For Nozaki-kun, it was never a debate. The moment I saw Sakura striking her paintbrush over the tanuki in the opening theme, I knew it was meant to be. All too late I realized Mikorin's direction of sight could be misconstrued for looking up Sakura's skirt. He's totally not supposed to be doing that, I swear! Dx This could also be a coded message via the Nozaki-kun cast challenging me to stop putting penguins in all my art. Hm.

Sakura Chiyo finally musters up the nerve to confess her love to her classmate Nozaki Umetarou. But when she almost botches her delivery, Nozaki mistakes her confession for a fan's adoration and signs her an autograph. Turns out Nozaki is secretly renowned shoujo manga artist Sakiko Yumeno. In order to get closer to him, Sakura begins working as his assistant after school, meeting more of Nozaki-kun's circle of acquaintances and inspirations along the way. It seems Sakura's love is turning into a shoujo manga!

Ah, 4koma manga - the Japanese equivalent to the daily comics page in your local newspaper. By necessity, such series are usually comedies following very strict routine play style: opener, elaboration, delivery, punchline. Many full length manga include bonus 4koma gag panels when they are released in volume format. Some 4koma just tell situational jokes, while others connect each individual joke panel into a coherent story. It is these "4koma novels" that are most likely to ever see anime adaptations. Some of the most famous cases include Azumanga Daioh, K-On!, and Lucky Star.

Adapting a 4koma series into an anime is a tricky process by nature, and the track record of these adaptations is all over the place. Sometimes the transition is flawless and hides the 4koma borders effortlessly, like in K-On!. And sometimes the seams where one set ends and the next begins are paper thin, like in Yuyushiki. Some adaptations don't even try to hide their nature and adapt various gags into mini-episodes, like in Hetalia: Axis Powers. But one facet is almost universally constant - these series' are comedic slice-of-life, usually involving a medium-sized group of characters getting into WACKY situations and never really going anywhere substantial. They exist on a straight line of 'goofy shit be happening' and don't veer from the path.

Appropriately I usually avoid such series for that volatile substance to their adaptations, on top of my taste in anime comedy already being rather particular. My favorite kind of anime comedy can be found in Ouran High School Host Club: moderately quick, clever, and based in reality. So many comedies think that the only way to be funny is to make characters perform actions and say words so unrealistic you'd think they were aliens - it takes me right out. Well, today I'm going over a 4koma-adapted romantic comedy that is in fact aesthetically similar to Ouran and possibly my favorite gag series of the year: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun. This is the daily life of a shoujo manga artist and his exceptionally strange friends.

A 4koma story is entirely about the daily interactions between the main characters, so the first thing you need to get right is likable characters because you're going to be seeing them a LOT; which Nozaki-kun succeeds at. Lead "straight-man" Sakura is painfully adorable every time she's on-screen. She's a timid, excitable mouse that worms her way into the audience's hearts. I put straight-man in quotations because she's really a straight-man playing off a slightly different straight-man, Nozaki. In contrast, he is quiet, mysterious, but kind of cool. He's an introverted talker without being a comedic buzzkill, confident yet flawed, passionate and devoted to his work; his positive traits are manifold, and you can see why Sakura loves him. He may not be the love interest in your mainstream shoujo manga, but I know for a fact a real world Nozaki would have many admirers. He is intimately connected with his feminine side, albeit deceptively so.

The conjoining thread for Nozaki-kun is the namesake's shoujo manga, titled "Let's Fall In Love" (ironic as the actual Nozaki is oblivious to the concept despite depicting it in his art with grace). Like any good artist, Nozaki derides inspiration for characters and storylines from his surroundings. Frequently he will use his friends as test subjects for romantic situations whether they know they're actively participating or not. The true comedic brilliance of Nozaki-kun comes across via the lines crossing through Nozaki Umetarou's world and Sakiko Yumeno's world. In a sense, this meta manga series crafts excellent meta humor both mocking and celebrating popular shoujo manga tropes, and even if you're not a fan of shoujo manga, it's hard not to appreciate the level of progressive thought put into it. I shall elaborate below.

Sakura soon meets the direct inspiration for Let's Fall In Love's heroine, Mamiko, in fellow classmate and another of Nozaki's assistants, Mikoshiba Mikoto - a guy. How can the heroine be based on a male, Sakura asks. Mikoshiba (goes by the nickname Mikorin with most everyone) is a playboy, but a very peculiar one at that as he becomes embarrassed by his own daring statements. From then on Mikorin is painted as a subtly unusual person. He's like an anti-tsundere - rather than feign disinterest at receiving attention, he coyly seeks attention and praise even when he is not deserving of it or able to handle what comes with it. He boldly desires to be wanted but instantly retracts into his shell at the first sign of impotence. The best way to describe him would be an extremely needy puppy dog, simultaneously reliant on and terrified of affection. Nozaki used these traits to create Mamiko - a fragile, needy young girl who is just as easily frightened by commitment as she is desperate for it.

This is where Nozaki-kun shines above its 'let's do random shit in high school' peers. The shoujo manga Let's Fall In Love, Sakiko Yumeno's world, is the classic, rote romance manga we'd expect to see for sale at the hobby shop down the street. The boys are daring and callous, the girls are delicate flowers pining for love - it's traditional characterization. The world outside of the pages, Nozaki Umetarou's world, is the bizarro version of shoujo manga land where the girls are daring and callous and the boys are delicate flowers pining for love. Several of the main cast outside of Nozaki and Sakura are subtly (and occasionally overtly) depicted possessing stereotypical traits of the opposite sex. Mikorin is an easily embarrassed psuedo-tsundere, Yuzuki Seo thinks she's a great person but is unconsciously a flippant jerk and a bother to everyone around her, and Kashima Yu (girl) is the gallant bishounen prince type. Rounding out the cast are underclassman Wakamatsu Hirotaka and drama club president Hori Masayuki, who act as role reversal love interests for Yuzuki and Kashima respectively. Nozaki represents his friends and acquaintances in his manga as their opposite sex, their true form we the viewer would see under usual circumstances. This makes for clever and progressive characterization that pulls double duty subverting classic shoujo manga tropes to create a fun-loving dust cloud of in-on-the-joke comedy. It's kinda like watching TV Tropes the Anime if TVT possessed a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at its pick-and-choose methodology of ingesting media. Also the characters' comedic complexity bars any way of labeling them with simple-minded one-word definitions.

Like most 4koma series, there isn't one single story thread driving the show along but rather several revolving around particular relationships. One such immensely clever thread lies in the chemistry between Yuzuki and Wakamatsu. Wakamatsu is a gullible, nervous wreck suffering from sleep insomnia because Yuzuki passive-aggressively beans him in the head at basketball practice (the reason for this is because Yuzuki actually likes him - think Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold). But then Wakamatsu discovers the beautiful singing voice of the Music Club's Lorelei, whose soothing dulcet tones put him at ease and help him sleep. And who is this mysterious, lovely Lorelei? Yuzuki. She's both the cause and cure of his stress. I won't divulge any more as to their interactions, but needless to say it's fiendishly hilarious and smart. And that's the thing about Nozaki-kun. It's so hard to find humor that is both funny AND intelligently written; this show makes it appear effortless.

As for the lead romance, it goes on a fairly standard path. Sakura wants to be with Nozaki, Nozaki seems oblivious, routine stuff. But they both have their quirks and never make for a dull moment even when not surrounded by their admittedly more amusing co-stars. Nozaki and Sakura are pretty much the cute couple in the middle of all the chaos you're rooting for. I for one don't really care about the other relationships on a level of shipping; I simply love the trope humor begat from them. It's important for Sakura and Nozaki's relationship to be more grounded because it helps remind the viewer what started all this and to not get too far off track - keep your eyes on the prize. If they ever get there......well, that remains to be seen, because the anime, at least, did not provide a definitive answer. Not that it NEEDS to be seen; after all, this type of anime/manga thrives on the ability to stretch content for as long as possible without accomplishing anything of merit so they can do it all again next week. If that means more hilarious meta humor......then by all means, please, stretch your heart out, Nozaki-kun, you charming little bed of gender-defying love bugs, you.

You can currently find all subbed episodes of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun streaming online at Crunchyroll. The series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and has plans to be released on home video sometime in the future.