Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun – Anime Review

Synopsis

High school student Chiyo Sakura has a crush on schoolmate Umetarou Nozaki, but when she confesses her love to him, he mistakes her for a fan and gives her an autograph. When she says that she always wants to be with him, he invites her to his house and has her help on some drawings. Chiyo discovers that Nozaki is actually a renowned shoujo manga artist named Sakiko Yumeno. She then agrees to be his assistant in order to get closer to him. As they work on his manga, they encounter other schoolmates who assist them or serve as inspirations for characters in the stories.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Story

Sakura Chiyo is a high school student who has a crush on her schoolmate, Nozaki Umetarou. She then decided to confess to Nozaki one day and it ended up with a misunderstanding. Nozaki thought of Sakura as a fan and ended up giving her an autograph. When she said that she wanted to be with him, Nozaki invited Sakura to his house to help him on his drawings. After she’s done with the work, she went home and realized something familiar with the autograph. Nozaki is actually a known shoujo artist named Yumeno Sakiko. So, basically Sakura became the assistant of her favorite manga’s author, Nozaki (Yumeno-sensei). The story is about creating a manga, as both Sakura and Nozaki work on the manga, they encounter more schoolmates who also assist them on making the manga, whether if it’s working with the drawing or serving as the model or inspiration for the characters of the manga.

Characters

The characters here captured my interest. Sakura Chiyo is the typical girl who wants to get noticed by Senpai, well Nozaki did actually notice her but she can’t really say what she really feels for him. Umetaroi Nozaki is actually one of a typical male character who’s dense af. It’s really obvious that Sakura has a feeling for him, but he can’t seem to notice, ever. Some other characters are really interesting because there is a: male tsundere, Mikoto Mikoshiba; a girl that dresses like a boy, Yuu Kashima; another male tsundere, being tsun-tsun to Kashima to be precise, Masayuki Hori; a tomboyish female character and also rather dense, Yuzuki Seo; and a typical kouhai with a little bit of being a tsun-tsun to Seo, Hirotaka Wakamatsu.

Arts and Sound

The art is absolutely amazing. It’s well detailed and the style for the male characters is a bishounen type of character design. So, I guess that’s why the male characters are tall, except for Masayuki Hori lolol. I think what’s also good in the art is the eyes.

I really have nothing much to say for the sound effects but it was also good. The soundtracks fit the shoujo theme of the anime, also for the funny parts or scenes.

Overall

If you want to know on how a traditional manga is created, you might want to try Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun. The genre of this anime is basically comedy, so expect that it has really funny scenes or parts. The only thing that I don’t understand is how the main character is so dense. You can easily notice that Sakura has a feeling for Nozaki, it was even from the start of episode 1 that she wants to confess to Nozaki. But I guess you know, anime cliché, wherein the main male character of the story is really dense. Try watching the anime if you’re into drawing and making sketches, it may help to give you of somewhat an inspiration. I’ll give this anime a rating of 9/10.