Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun anime series cover art
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Overview

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun / 月刊少女野崎くん) is a romantic comedy series which falls into the shoujo category. And since I know most of my readers are into the shounen category, shoujo just means “young girl” while shounen means “young boy” — these are the target demographics, not genres.

But while Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun is a shoujo anime, it’s also a shoujo anime satire at the same time. It makes fun of the shoujo romance tropes, while also utilizing all of those tropes itself unironically. I guess it’s like how KonoSuba is to isekai, to use a series most people are familiar with as an example.

The premise of this series is fairly simple. We have a high school girl who’s in love with a high school guy, and so she confesses to him. Or, at least that’s what she attempts to do, but she actually says she’s his fan. This then leads to the discovery that the guy is actually a famous shoujo mangaka.

And that’s basically it. The rest of the series follows our protagonist as she helps the man of her dreams create his manga based on the interactions he has with other students around school.

Nozaki, Yuzuki, and Chiyo from the anime series Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun
Nozaki, Yuzuki, and Chiyo

However, Chiyo quickly learns that when Nozaki is involved, nothing turns out as it’s depicted in shoujo manga. Nozaki’s male characters are based on females, his female characters are based on males, and he’s completely oblivious to Chiyo’s romantic advances.

For me, most of the comedy in this series came from Nozaki’s obliviousness and straightforward attitude. For example, in one of the earlier episodes Chiyo mentions how riding on a bike with someone is romantic. So in order to test that out, Nozaki acquires a tandem bike because two people on one normal bike is illegal.

Male Characters

Let’s start out with the male characters for the ladies since this is a shoujo anime. Umetarou Nozaki is the titular, male lead of the series and professional shoujo mangaka. He lives in an apartment alone, has a self-proclaimed great relationship with his editor, Ken-san, and looks to be about seven feet tall.

When I first saw his height, I was sure Nozaki was going to be a member of the basketball team, but no. He’s not a member of any club. He just creates shoujo manga at home.

Hirotaka Wakamatsu is on the basketball team, unlike Nozaki. His primary role when helping Nozaki with his manga is to erase lines — not the most prestigious job, but an important one nonetheless. He’s also a first year student and two of the side characters in Nozaki’s manga are based on his rocky relationship with Yuzuki Seo.

Mikoto Mikoshiba is a second year student like Nozaki and is also not a member of any clubs at school. Although he’s extremely popular with girls, he’s actually the inspiration for Mamiko, the female lead of Nozaki’s manga. Mikoshiba is also extremely talented at drawing flowers and effects.

Mikoshiba reminded me a lot of Kyou Souma from Fruits Basket. However, instead of getting angry at himself and everyone else, he just gets extremely embarrassed when he says cheesy lines to girls.

The final male character of any significance is Masayuki Hori, the president of the theater club. Hori is a third year student who helps Nozaki by drawing backgrounds for his manga. This is a fact he attempts to hide at all costs from one of his underclassmen, Yuu Kashima.

Female Characters

And now for the important characters — the female ones. Chiyo Sakura is the second year student who serves as the protagonist for this series. She’s a member of the art club, and because of this Nozaki has had his eye on her for some time (not in a romantic way, of course).

I really liked Chiyo as the protagonist. Even if most of that enjoyment came from seeing her dreams get crushed when things didn’t turn out just like they do in shoujo manga. Chiyo is also the cutest of the female characters, so that’s a plus.

Chiyo Sakura from the anime series Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun
Chiyo Sakura

Yuzuki Seo is Chiyo’s best friend even though they have literally nothing in common. While Chiyo focuses on the fact that Yuzuki is an exceptional singer and member of the choir club, everyone else in the school sees her in a different light. She says whatever she thinks, which is usually rude, she’s a bully, and she’s overly aggressive.

Yuu Kashima is a first year student and considered the “prince” of the school despite the fact that she’s a girl. All the other girls in the school (aside from Chiyo and Yuzuki) are obsessed with her, and she refers to them all as her princesses because she can’t remember their names.

Kashima is also a member of the theater club along with Hori, where she typically plays the male lead roles. Aside from acting, she’s not exactly good at anything else.

And just to have a an even number of male and female characters listed, the final female character is Yukari Miyako. She’s a college student who lives in the same apartment building as Nozaki. Miyako is also a mangaka and is obsessed with tanuki.

Conclusion

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun is a 7/10 from me, which is surprisingly lower than its overall rating on MAL. I didn’t expect this anime to be rated as high as it was, but at the same time I’m glad a series like this wasn’t rated low simply because it’s not a shounen.

As for the OP and ED, they’re both pretty good, but I’d have to say that I prefer the ED. I prefer both the song and visuals of the ED.

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One Reply to “Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun”

  1. In general I don’t like the shoujo, everyone I watched are bored or just don’t interest me. However this anime became one of my favorites, the comedy was really good and enjoyable.

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