Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun is a twelve episode anime based upon the four-panel comedy manga. It is set in high school, following Sakura Chiyo, who had (supposedly) mustered up the courage to reveal her feelings to her crush, Nozaki Umetarou. However, Nozaki is an extremely stoic and clueless guy, so he misinterprets her confession. Yet this is how Sakura learns that Nozaki is actually a successful manga author, the one behind the currently popular shojo romance manga. Sakura is then unwittingly recruited by Nozaki to be his assistant, helping out with the monthly manga chapters.
Sakura is constantly surprised at how Nozaki gets his inspirations for his manga developments. He trusts her enough to run through several ideas and they will be things that make you wonder how he managed to be so spot on with his manga when he is so dense and oblivious himself. His manga is lauded at being exactly what a teenage girl in romance would like and act, yet he has no romantic experience himself. As a result, Sakura will constantly have a deadbeat look, and it’s also where a lot of the humor comes from.
The first half of the season introduces a new character in nearly every episode. Each of them has an over-the-top exaggerated personality, but only for the purposes of humor. We get a flamboyant guy who’s actually very shy, or a handsome girl that’s popular with the ladies. While they themselves may not be top tier comedy, it’s Sakura’s reactions to the situation that seals the deal and makes it so enjoyable and funny.
It’s no secret that Sakura has a crush on Nozaki but Nozaki is too thick to realize that. This leads to Sakura to over-think a lot of what Nozaki says, leading to several worst case scenarios only to find out that he meant something different. She tends to lean towards that Nozaki may be displaying the first signs of affections for her when he is basically just musing about future plot arcs for his manga, or other mundane things about his life. It’s cute in a way, especially considering that there is something ironic with Sakura fawning over Nozaki, who is supposed to know a girl’s heart given his success as a shojo manga author.
Despite it not being an anime focused on the manga creation aspect, there are some episodes where we learn the mechanics behind it. We see the tools of the trade, such as how the shading and patterns are done, what the assistants help with such as the erasing, and of course, the tight deadlines. It’s an insight, especially for those who had not really thought about it before and it makes sense that not everything is hand drawn from scratch.
It can be a bit meta on how the anime parodies on manga creation and tropes. It likes to put the characters into typical situations you’ll find in romance manga, before having the characters muse on how reality is so much different to what would typically happen in a manga. It’s like it tries to deconstruct… without really deconstructing it. This is not bad, since it leads to some funny scenes, it’s just an interesting take that feels unique as it manages to just shy away from being too serious about it.
Despite the main character being Sakura, the plot has a lot of focus on Nozaki, and then on the supporting characters too. Each supporting character has their own romantic interest, even though the characters themselves may not consider it to be the case. It’s quite funny to see how they interact when it is obvious to an outsider, who can see things as a whole, that they are a pairing while they themselves don’t realize it. Plenty of scenes also rely on others misunderstanding the current situation since they’re viewing it out of context.
The anime was released in physical format in six volumes and each volume had a three to four minute short. They’re designed to be watched straight after another as they cover the same topic and stitched together, they’re at around twenty minutes long. It’s a fun “episode”, giving us more of things that worked. Plus, we get to see more of Nozaki converting his everyday experiences (natural or manufactured) into material for his shojo manga.
Overall, Monthly girls’ Nozaki-kun is a carefree anime that has a penchant for hitting you hard with good humor when you don’t expect it. It has a fun cast of characters, although it leans a bit heavy on tropes for the genre. Nevertheless, the surprising focus on the manga aspect and supporting characters is a highlight, with the anime ending on a fairly sweet note, even though the main pairing doesn’t get to move forward as much as they would want.
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