Review_01: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

This is review_01, the first review I will be discussing in this noveau~ blog. I thought it would be very fun to write, since the anime itself is fun! Ahem... *drumroll* 

 (ﾉ*ФωФ)ﾉ Gekkan Shoujo... Nozaki-kun!!

If you are looking for a nice, shoujo anime that can absolutely tickle your funny bone, then Tsubaki Izumi's Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, also known as Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun in English, should be on your list! The anime consists of one season: twelve episodes plus 6 short side-episodes. It also has a manga series with currently six volumes.

The story is about Sakura Chiyo, a second year high school girl who has a crush on a fellow student, Nozaki Umetarou. At the beginning of the first episode, Sakura builds up all her courage to confess her love for him. However, everything turns into a giant ball of misunderstanding when Nozaki mistakes the girl as a fan of his and ends up giving her an autograph, with the name Yumeno Sakiko. Soon, Sakura finds out that Umetarou Nozaki is Yumeno Sakiko, the manga artist who created the popular shoujo manga, Let's Fall in Love. As the story progresses, she becomes closer and closer to Nozaki through fulfilling her job as his assistant. Sakura also encounters other schoolmates along the way that are involved in the creation of stories in the manga.

At the first few minutes, the show may seem like a typical romantic shoujo anime, but in fact, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is mainly on romantic comedy. Every episode made me smile and laugh so much that I had to struggle from refraining myself to burst out laughing like a mad woman. The settings can range from fangirl-crowded school hallways to a television-lighted bedroom at 3AM. Each character is depicted with their own special personality and appearance. A good example is the lovable Mikoshiba Mikoto. To those who have watched the anime, I know that you're all nodding your heads right now. He is shown to be a confident and attractive person, but in truth, he is a shy, easily-embarrassed tsundere, and has a side of himself being an otaku. Yup! You guessed it! That guy in the picture whose face is almost as red as his hair is Mikoto.

Adding off from the main cast, there is Kashima Yuu, a prince-like female student who can easily let all of the girls fall for her, Seo Yuzuki, Sakura's friend who brutally participates in a lot of extra-curricular activities, Hori Masayuki, president of the school's drama club and holds a violent relationship (not the lovey-dovey one) with Kashima, and Wakamatsu Hirotaka, who is later shown in the series, a freshman student from the basketball club who has hateful feelings towards Seo due to her continuous rampaging in their basketball matches, but also has hidden feelings of love that he does not realize.

These characters play important roles in the development of Nozaki's manga. For assembling, Sakura works as the assistant of embellishing the art, Hori takes charge of drawing the backgrounds, Wakamatsu works on the screentones, and Mikoto does all the pretty flower-enhancing.

Besides that, the cast also serves as inspirations for the manga characters. Mikoto, for instance, is represented after the female protagonist of the manga. Seo, on the other hand, represented a male character from the manga. How interested are you so far?

Oh, and speaking of otaku, the anime had a touch of jocular otakuness. One of my favorite parts in the series is episode 4. In the first segment, Nozaki and Mikoto whole-heartedly play and pour out all their feelings to a dating-simulator game, dedicating their time to it by staying up past midnight just to complete a single route and unfold its emotional epilogue. The shocking-but-hilarious moment is when the two boys witness the the last words of Tomoda, the player's best friend, in the ending. They find him too nice, giving up "three years of his life for a protagonist" without "enjoying his youth", resulting for them to grieve and spend the rest of the night by drawing a Tomoda x protagonist story just for the character's happiness... *sniffs* Tomodaaaaa!

Unlike most animes of this type, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun does not just center Sakura and Nozaki. It allows a sufficient amount of scenes for each character, enough for the viewers to recognize their own personalities. The story progresses while the episodes build after the other in a way that they also introduce someone or something new. They maintain it and its wackiness up until the last episode of the show.

The last episode had a good choice of a setting: a summer festival. All of the main cast gathered together and enjoyed their pants off eating delicious Japanese food and catching fish with little paper nets. The ending was, I guess you could say, happy, at least for Sakura and the rest. But for me, it made my heart sink. 

To conclude, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is one of the best comical animes as of 2014. It absolutely grabs your interest and makes you roll on the floor laughing from the start to the end.

I just really wish they had more time for Tomoda...

Additional Comments (´ฅω•ฅ｀)

+ Positive:
→Very, very hilarious
→Awesome and hysterical characters
→Greatly depicted every comedic scene with fabulous effects
- Negative:
→(A minor thing but,) did not resolve any romantic relationships

Opening Song?: One, funky and catchy song with a colorful video to go along with it
Ending Song?: One, cutesy song with a beautiful half-picture slideshow and half-animation clip
Should there be another season?: DEFINITELY!! >ω<
Would I recommend?: YES!!
To which type of audience?: For me, this show is not targeted just for girls. If you're a guy and it seems enjoying to watch for you, then go for it!
Overall Rating: 9/10 (*✧ω✧*)