12-Days of Anime, Day 7: Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Not going to lie, as a completely straight, heterosexual man, I firmly believe that Nozaki is really attractive.

Like, really, REALLY attractive.

Like, really…………………oh my………

What’s up, everyone, my name is Ken, from thebuttonsmashers.com, and today, I present to you Day 7 of the 12-Days of Anime, featuring my immediate two-cents on one of the more popular shojou to ever parody shojou in recent times:  Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun.

Meet Chiyo Sakura, a high-school girl who is just about to admit to her crush that she likes him.  However, as one might expect (or not expect I dunno), she flops her words and the guy she has a crush on, Nozaki Umetarou, mistakens Sakura for a fan of his and gives her his autograph.  After once again flopping her words, Nozaki concluded that what Sakura meant by saying that she wants to “be with him” was that she wanted to be his assistant, and so he asks her over to help with his drawings at home.  It turns out that this dreamy, tall, handsomely dense mofo is a famous shoujo manga artist working under a pseudonym.  And so follows the story of Sakura as she continues working as Nozaki’s assistant in order to get closer to her prince, all while meeting other eccentrics along the way.

Now, right off the bat, the story just rolls on, immediately thrusting you into the setting and the plot right after the opening sequence.  Considering that this show belongs in the slice-of-life genre, this is actually a pretty promising start to the series.  It gives us this nice little situation that the characters are put into, something that isn’t really seen in much of anime, which is great.  Couple that with the irony that Nozaki is a SHOUJO manga artist, and you’ve got the recipe for a complicated and ironic romantic-story-whatchamacallit.  Speaking of “manga”, one of the show’s main cruxes is the fact that it gives you little looksies into the ins-and-outs of manga creation and serialization, though it’s very generalized and not at all Bakuman-level, though I can appreciate the amount that they did put in the show becasue it makes things so much more interesting.

It introduces the characters rather well, giving us a sense of who they are and what their characteristics and quirks are, which is essential in setting up the story from the get-go.  All of said characters introduced so far were very amusing to watch and have their own individual feel to them, making for a nice dynamic between the cast and a more natural flow to the show’s comedy.

Speaking of the comedy:

Comedy was pretty on-point for the most part, part of the reason being the use of clever and dynamic visual effects and audio cues to accompany a certain comedic moment.  On that note, the animation itself has an overall bright and colorful vibe to it, really complementing the overall light-hearted and art-filled tone of the show.

As for sound………well, it’s pretty average/above-average.  Nothing too note-worthy, aside from the fact that it does do the job well.  Except for the opening.  It’s pretty good.  And it looks great too.  It’s also kinda addicting.

Ok, REALLY addicting.

So what recommendation do I give this show?

Go ahead and watch it.  It’s a fun little show with many slice-of-life and romantic elements interspersed between just wave after wave of amusing interactions and comedy between the characters.  Being episodic, it’s nice to see a show like this lean on its comedic value to make the show a bit more interesting, and it succeeds in it.

Aaaaaaand, with that, I bid you all adieu.  This has been Ken for thebuttonsmashers.com Anime Reviews, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow for Day 8!