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manga/anime: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Jan. 21st, 2015 08:39 pmWhen I saw Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun on the list of upcoming anime around the middle of last year, I wasn't sure whether to expect something awful, or something wonderfully hilarious. Sakura Chiyo has a crush on her classmate, Nozaki. When she confesses her crush, she words it as being his fan, so he gives her a signature for another name altogether. Later, he asks her back to his apartment and has her work on backgrounds for manga pages. When she gets home, she realizes that the signature he gave her is that of a popular mangaka, and she soon becomes one of his many assistants, while still trying to figure out how to get across that she has a crush on him. (Her second attempt at confessing goes about the same as the first.)
The series COULD be about Sakura endlessly pining over a guy who doesn't notice her, and there is some of that (at one point, Nozaki asks Sakura to describe the guy she likes and she does, explaining that he seems to find her useful and convenient more than anything else. The clueless Nozaki is EXTREMELY unimpressed with her description, and clearly thinks she could do much better) but it's mostly about making a manga and what Nozaki gets his inspirations from, the peskiness of having reality intrude when it comes to manga tropes (darn bicycle laws ruined such important ones...), and Sakura befriending Nozaki's other assistants, who become many of the characters in Nozaki's manga.
The rest of the cast are:
Mikoto Mikoshiba, nicknamed Mikorin, who is another of Nozaki's assistants. Mikorin used to be very, very shy around girls, so he decided to get over it by playing far, far too many dating sims. Now, he makes dramatic, flowery comments and then almost literally dies of embarrassment, and so has even worse problems when it comes to communicating with girls, even though he can technically talk to them now. When he isn't doing this, he's putting on his very best Tsundere face. Mikorin ships Sakura/Nozaki. A lot. Possibly more than Sakura, and he is very invested in finding out whether or not Nozaki reciprocates her feelings, but has been thwarted so far. Mikorin is also the inspiration for most of Nozaki's heroines, which gets rather interesting at times, given the inspiration for some of his other characters. Sakura is one of only two girls he can mostly communicate with normally, and the one he goes to for help when his antics get him trapped in various embarrassing-to-him situations.
Kashima Yu is the other girl Mikorin can talk to. Kashima is a tall, androgynous young woman with a shoujo "prince" personality. Kashima and Mikorin are BFF4evah and considered themselves rivals during their first year of high school, even though Kashima was clearly far superior in all things academic. She's also rather dense when it comes to anything not academic. She's a member of the drama club and is always cast and the male lead, much to the delight of all the drama club's female fans. She's also head over heals in love with Hori, the president of the drama club, though she has yet to identify her feelings as romantic at all. She has no idea about Nozaki's secret identity, or that some of her friends are his assistants, which leads to some...interesting incidents.
Hori Masayuki is the president of the drama club, and another of Nozaki's assistants. In exchange for his manga work, he has Nozaki writes plays for him. The plays always have Kashima in mind as the main protagonist, who is always a prince character. Kashima is entirely unaware that Hori has plays written JUST FOR HER (and he wants to keep it that way forever). Hori used to want to be an actor, but stopped trying out for roles because he's too short to get the roles he wants. He generally seems to prefer being behind the scenes, though. He is frequently EXTREMELY put out over Kashima's antics (which tend to include things like distracting all the girls who are supposed to be working on props with her princely charm, or thinking he wants to be treated like a princess when she finds Nozaki's manga in his schoolbag) but probably returns her interest.
Wakamatsu Hirotaka, nicknamed "Waka", is a first year student, and the last of Nozaki's assistants. He is very sweet and naive and constantly tormented by that antics of Seo, a rude and brash upperclassman who he (obliviously) has a crush on and loses sleep over. He can only sleep to the music of "Lorelei," a member of the Glee club. Waka has never met Lorelei, but claims to be in love with her, and believes she is sweet and kind and calm and perfect.
Seo Yuzuki is one of Sakura's best friends, and the bane of both Nozaki and Waka's lives. She's rude and brash and oblivious to social clues, and is frequently asked to help out various clubs. Unknown to Seo, she isn't asked to help out because of her talents (which she does have), but so that the players can learn how to deal with selfish and unreasonable players. She is also Lorelei of the Glee club, and finds Waka's tendency to compare her to the Lorelei in his head hilarious, Unlike Waka, she's at least somewhat aware that they're interested in each other, and gets extreme pleasure from toying with him. Nozaki adds a genderswapped version of Seo and Waka to his manga, and is OUTRAGED when his readers start wanting him to have them get together, because he very, very strongly anti-ships his characters' prototypes.
There's also Miyako, Nozaki's upstairs neighbor who is a college student and a more popular mangaka than Nozaki. They and Sakura sometimes meeting in cafes and have conversations that confuse Miyako's eavesdropping classmates, who think Miyako is dating Nozaki, who is dumping her for Sakura, and they're all cheerful about it. Miyako's editor is Maeno, a narcissist who is obsessed with himself, tanuki (which he forces Miyako to include in her manga as much as possible) and his personal blog. Maeno used to be Nozaki's editor, but Nozaki is now under a new editor named Ken. Nozaki thinks Ken is an amazing and cool adult and tends to fanboy him. Ken thinks Nozaki is dense, utterly oblivious about the subject matter that he chooses for his manga, and somewhat annoying. He also appears to think Nozaki's manga is terrible despite his popularity. Ken is right on pretty much all accounts.
I've watched all the anime and read the first 5 volumes of the manga, and love it. It's very much an "it is what it is" series, but it does what it does well. Between the anime and the manga, I prefer the anime, but that's more because pure comedy and antics works better for me in anime form than in manga form, as opposed to one being better than the other.
The series COULD be about Sakura endlessly pining over a guy who doesn't notice her, and there is some of that (at one point, Nozaki asks Sakura to describe the guy she likes and she does, explaining that he seems to find her useful and convenient more than anything else. The clueless Nozaki is EXTREMELY unimpressed with her description, and clearly thinks she could do much better) but it's mostly about making a manga and what Nozaki gets his inspirations from, the peskiness of having reality intrude when it comes to manga tropes (darn bicycle laws ruined such important ones...), and Sakura befriending Nozaki's other assistants, who become many of the characters in Nozaki's manga.
The rest of the cast are:
Mikoto Mikoshiba, nicknamed Mikorin, who is another of Nozaki's assistants. Mikorin used to be very, very shy around girls, so he decided to get over it by playing far, far too many dating sims. Now, he makes dramatic, flowery comments and then almost literally dies of embarrassment, and so has even worse problems when it comes to communicating with girls, even though he can technically talk to them now. When he isn't doing this, he's putting on his very best Tsundere face. Mikorin ships Sakura/Nozaki. A lot. Possibly more than Sakura, and he is very invested in finding out whether or not Nozaki reciprocates her feelings, but has been thwarted so far. Mikorin is also the inspiration for most of Nozaki's heroines, which gets rather interesting at times, given the inspiration for some of his other characters. Sakura is one of only two girls he can mostly communicate with normally, and the one he goes to for help when his antics get him trapped in various embarrassing-to-him situations.
Kashima Yu is the other girl Mikorin can talk to. Kashima is a tall, androgynous young woman with a shoujo "prince" personality. Kashima and Mikorin are BFF4evah and considered themselves rivals during their first year of high school, even though Kashima was clearly far superior in all things academic. She's also rather dense when it comes to anything not academic. She's a member of the drama club and is always cast and the male lead, much to the delight of all the drama club's female fans. She's also head over heals in love with Hori, the president of the drama club, though she has yet to identify her feelings as romantic at all. She has no idea about Nozaki's secret identity, or that some of her friends are his assistants, which leads to some...interesting incidents.
Hori Masayuki is the president of the drama club, and another of Nozaki's assistants. In exchange for his manga work, he has Nozaki writes plays for him. The plays always have Kashima in mind as the main protagonist, who is always a prince character. Kashima is entirely unaware that Hori has plays written JUST FOR HER (and he wants to keep it that way forever). Hori used to want to be an actor, but stopped trying out for roles because he's too short to get the roles he wants. He generally seems to prefer being behind the scenes, though. He is frequently EXTREMELY put out over Kashima's antics (which tend to include things like distracting all the girls who are supposed to be working on props with her princely charm, or thinking he wants to be treated like a princess when she finds Nozaki's manga in his schoolbag) but probably returns her interest.
Wakamatsu Hirotaka, nicknamed "Waka", is a first year student, and the last of Nozaki's assistants. He is very sweet and naive and constantly tormented by that antics of Seo, a rude and brash upperclassman who he (obliviously) has a crush on and loses sleep over. He can only sleep to the music of "Lorelei," a member of the Glee club. Waka has never met Lorelei, but claims to be in love with her, and believes she is sweet and kind and calm and perfect.
Seo Yuzuki is one of Sakura's best friends, and the bane of both Nozaki and Waka's lives. She's rude and brash and oblivious to social clues, and is frequently asked to help out various clubs. Unknown to Seo, she isn't asked to help out because of her talents (which she does have), but so that the players can learn how to deal with selfish and unreasonable players. She is also Lorelei of the Glee club, and finds Waka's tendency to compare her to the Lorelei in his head hilarious, Unlike Waka, she's at least somewhat aware that they're interested in each other, and gets extreme pleasure from toying with him. Nozaki adds a genderswapped version of Seo and Waka to his manga, and is OUTRAGED when his readers start wanting him to have them get together, because he very, very strongly anti-ships his characters' prototypes.
There's also Miyako, Nozaki's upstairs neighbor who is a college student and a more popular mangaka than Nozaki. They and Sakura sometimes meeting in cafes and have conversations that confuse Miyako's eavesdropping classmates, who think Miyako is dating Nozaki, who is dumping her for Sakura, and they're all cheerful about it. Miyako's editor is Maeno, a narcissist who is obsessed with himself, tanuki (which he forces Miyako to include in her manga as much as possible) and his personal blog. Maeno used to be Nozaki's editor, but Nozaki is now under a new editor named Ken. Nozaki thinks Ken is an amazing and cool adult and tends to fanboy him. Ken thinks Nozaki is dense, utterly oblivious about the subject matter that he chooses for his manga, and somewhat annoying. He also appears to think Nozaki's manga is terrible despite his popularity. Ken is right on pretty much all accounts.
I've watched all the anime and read the first 5 volumes of the manga, and love it. It's very much an "it is what it is" series, but it does what it does well. Between the anime and the manga, I prefer the anime, but that's more because pure comedy and antics works better for me in anime form than in manga form, as opposed to one being better than the other.