Barakamon, Blue Spring Ride, Haikyū!!, Oresama Teacher, No Matter How I Look at It - It's Y
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun(Japanese: 月刊少女野崎くん,Hepburn: Gekkan Shōjo Nozaki-kun) is an ongoing Japanese four-panel romantic comedy webcomic written and illustrated by Izumi Tsubaki. Its chapters are serialized in Gangan Online, have been published in both physical and digital releases of Shoujo Romance Girly and tankōbon volumes by Square Enix. An anime television series adaptation by Doga Kobo began airing in July 2014.
High school student Chiyo Sakura has a crush on schoolmate Umetarō 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 shōjomanga artist named Sakiko Yumeno. She then agrees to be his assistant in order to get closer to him. As they work on his mangaLet's Fall in Love(恋しよっ,Koi Shiyo, Let's Have a Romance), they encounter other schoolmates who assist them or serve as inspirations for characters in the stories.
Main characters
Umetarō Nozaki(野崎 梅太郎,Nozaki Umetarō)
Voiced by: Yuichi Nakamura (Japanese); Ty Mahany (English)The title character of the series, high school student Umetarō Nozaki is the object of Sakura's affection. He is secretly a manga artist named Sakiko Yumeno (夢野咲子,Yumeno Sakiko), creator of the shōjo mangaLet's Fall in Love which is published in the magazine Monthly Girls' Romance(月刊少女ロマンス,Gekkan Shōjo Romansu). Despite making a romance-oriented manga, he has no personal experience in love (as such, his story ideas are often ridiculous and farfetched).[ch. 1,2] He appreciates Sakura's drawing ability but is oblivious to her feelings.[ch. 1] He lives on his own, having convinced his father that he can cover expenses with his manga royalties, and that he can cook for himself.[ch. 33] In middle school, he was captain of the school basketball team.[ch. 11] He is now in class 2-B.
Chiyo Sakura(佐倉 千代,Sakura Chiyo)
Voiced by: Ari Ozawa (Japanese); Juliet Simmons (English)The viewpoint character of the series, Sakura is a high school girl with a crush on Nozaki, but when she incorrectly words her confessions, she ends up getting autographs, and when she says she wants to be with him, she ends up becoming Nozaki's inker assistant. She is in class 2-A and a member of the school's art club. She is petite and notably wears two large ribbons that have a polka dot pattern;[ch. 1] the ribbon style is adapted by Nozaki for the lead heroine of his manga.[ch. 26,29] Due to her enthusiasm on telling about Nozaki's activities to her friends, almost all of her classmates know trivial things about Nozaki too.[ch. 50]
Mikoto Mikoshiba(御子柴 実琴,Mikoshiba Mikoto)
Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (Japanese); Scott Gibbs (English)Mikoshiba, nicknamed Mikorin (みこりん), is one of Nozaki's assistants. He is introduced to Sakura as a handsome guy with an aloof attitude. Despite being popular and flirtatious with the girls, he is shy and often hides in embarrassment shortly after making bold statements. Sakura learns that he is the inspiration for Nozaki's heroine character Mamiko (while Mikoshiba himself does not know). His expertise is not in drawing single objects or characters, but in filling backgrounds with flowers to bring out a character's charms. He is in class 2-G.[ch. 3] His hobbies include collecting bishōjo figurines.[ch. 12,19] Three years prior, he could not talk well with real girls so he practiced with girls in dating simulation games.[ch. 8]
Yuzuki Seo(瀬尾 結月,Seo Yuzuki)
Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese); Joanne Bonasso (English)Sakura's popular classmate and friend, Seo is often asked to help on various extracurricular activities. Her brash personality often offends others. Nozaki classifies her as "KY" (空気を読まない,Kūki o yomanai, oblivious, thick-skinned): she cannot read the atmosphere or context. For instance, the basketball team has her practice with them so they can learn how to deal with selfish and difficult players. Despite her rude and tomboyish demeanor, she has an angelic singing voice and is nicknamed "Glee Club's Lorelei" (声楽部のローレライ,Seigaku-bu no Rorerai).[ch. 4] She enjoys pestering Wakamatsu, whom she calls "Waka".[ch. 23,34] Nozaki makes a male character based off her named Oze.[ch. 5]
Yū Kashima(鹿島 遊,Kashima Yū)
Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (Japanese); Monica Rial (English)Mikoshiba's best friend and classmate. She is a tall girl who has a "prince" personality that makes girls fawn over her. Mikoshiba and Kashima considered each other rivals in their first year, although Kashima was clearly better in all aspects. She is dense and often gets wrong ideas regarding Hori,[ch. 16] making her the target for Hori's anger, but she often comically desires his attention. Due to her tendency to ditch, Kashima is often dragged by Hori to their club activities.[ch. 5] Later, it is revealed that she is tone deaf, and that she asks Yuzuki to be her singing coach.[ch. 25]
Masayuki Hori(堀 政行,Hori Masayuki)
Voiced by: Yūki Ono (Japanese); Adam Noble (English)President of the school drama club and Nozaki's assistant for background work, in exchange for Nozaki writing scenarios for him. Despite having incredible acting talent, he is conscious of his own short height and prefers to work on stage props instead of acting on stage. He reacts violently towards Kashima whenever she makes some inappropriate comments or disrupts the club.[ch. 6] But despite all of that, he still favors her and somewhat acts like a doting parent to her.[ch. 20] He is in class 3-C.[ch. 6]
Hirotaka Wakamatsu(若松 博隆,Wakamatsu Hirotaka)
Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese); Cameron Bautsch (English)Wakamatsu is Nozaki's junior from their basketball team in middle school.[ch. 15] He joins Nozaki's staff to do screentones. He has a bad experience when his basketball team had Seo participate. Due to stress caused by Seo's behavior at the club, he suffers from insomnia, however when he hears Lorelei singing, he immediately falls asleep, which makes him fall in love with her despite being unaware of who Lorelei actually is. He is in class 1-D.[ch. 15] Nozaki makes a female character based off him named Waka and he enjoys giving screentones to Oze's hair, still unaware who Oze is based from.
Supporting characters
Ken Miyamae(宮前 剣,Miyamae Ken)
Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese); Luis Galindo (English)Nozaki's current editor. Although Miyamae appears as a grumpy overweight guy who wears glasses and sweats, Nozaki thinks he is very cool because he responds quickly in comparison to his previous editor.[ch. 7] Miyamae is 28 years old (27 in the anime), and although he is the same year as Maeno, he had to retake the college entrance exams and ended up being two years behind Maeno.[ch. 21]
Mitsuya Maeno(前野 蜜也,Maeno Mitsuya)
Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (Japanese); Ned Gayle (English)Nozaki's former editor, Maeno is in charge of Miyako Yukari. He is a narcissist who is fond of cute characters such as tanukis.[ch. 7,9] He and Miyamae have known each other since high school. He regularly posts on Monthly Girls' Romance editor's blog. He is careless in his actions, for example, he casually loses Yukari's manuscript, and spills curry on another one.[ch. 9]
Yukari Miyako(都 ゆかり,Miyako Yukari)
Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Brittany Djie (English)Nozaki's upstairs neighbor. She is a college student who is also a shōjo manga artist going by her real name. Her manga works feature a tanuki, mainly because her editor Maeno suggested it.[ch. 9] By smiling often, she keeps her identity as a manga artist a secret from her schoolmates, who are regularly confused about her relationship status.[ch. 26,53]
Mayu Nozaki(野崎 真由,Nozaki Mayu)
Nozaki's overly lazy younger brother. Because he was bullied when he was young, he rarely talks. He sometimes writes abbreviated phrases on what he wants to say, but will talk if it is quicker.[ch. 33,37] The rare time when he puts in effort is when he captains his school's judo club.[ch. 49]
Ryōsuke Seo(瀬尾 遼介,Seo Ryōsuke)
Yuzuki's older brother is a college student who has a crush on Yukari Miyako, his classmate. He works part-time in a cafe. His efforts to be closer to Yukari usually fail, and ended up mistaking Nozaki as her boyfriend.[ch. 53]
Yumeko Nozaki(野崎 夢子,Nozaki Yumeko)
Nozaki's younger sister. She's bad at drawing, unlike her big brothers. She's the only one in the Nozaki family who doesn't know that Nozaki is a manga artist. She doesn't believe that her big brother is the manga artist of Let's Fall in Love. She loves Suzuki, and her ideal guy is a transfer student.[ch. 72.5]
Let's Fall in Love characters
Mamiko (マミコ)
Voiced by: Marie Miyake (Japanese); Melissa Molano (English)Heroine of Nozaki's ongoing manga. Her personality is modeled after Mikoshiba,[ch. 3] while her appearance is based on Nozaki's first meeting with Chiyo, when she gave one of her white-colored ribbons to him, and walked away with the other one in her hair,[ch. 48] while in the anime Chiyo wears a single white colored ribbon, styled just like Mamiko's.
Saburo Suzuki (鈴木 三郎,Suzuki Saburō)
Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (Japanese); Chris Patton (English)Hero of Nozaki's ongoing manga. He is Mamiko's love interest. Initially, he and his "friend" and "rival" all look the same, so Nozaki has Chiyo scout for other character designs.[ch. 4]
Manga
Izumi Tsubaki began serializing the manga in Square Enix's online magazine Gangan Online on August 25, 2011. As of September 2016, the series has been collected into eight tankōbon volumes. Apart from the comics, an official fanbook and an anthology manga (containing stories by Satsuki Yoshino (Barakamon), Yasunobu Yamauchi (Daily Lives of High School Boys), Tachibana Higuchi (Gakuen Alice), Shigeru Takao, and Dan Ichikawa) have also been published, both on August 22, 2014. North American publisher Yen Press announced their license to the series at Sakura-Con in April 2015.
Drama CD
Frontier Works released a drama CD on June 26, 2013 featuring the casts below which differ from the later produced anime. It reached number 32 on Oricon's CD Album rankings.
Media Factory announced an anime adaptation on March 21, 2014 and the anime's official website posted several videos, revealing key cast and staff members, which differ from the drama CD. The anime is produced by Doga Kobo and directed by Mitsue Yamazaki, who had worked on Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East and Durarara. Series composition is handled by Yoshiko Nakamura. Junichirō Taniguchi, who did the second season of Genshiken and the Puella Magi Madoka Magica film, is in charge of character design. It premiered on July 7, 2014 in TV Tokyo, followed by TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TSC, TV Hokkaido, TVQ, AT-X over the rest of the week. The opening theme, titled "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai" (君じゃなきゃダメみたい,lit. "Seems It Can't Be Anyone Other Than You") is composed and performed by Masayoshi Ōishi, and the ending theme "Uraomote Fortune" (ウラオモテ・フォーチュン) is performed by Ari Ozawa under her character name, Chiyo Sakura.
On July 25, 2014, Sentai Filmworks announced it has licensed the series for home video release. Media Factory will be releasing it on Blu-ray and DVD formats in Japan starting on September 24, 2014 across six volumes. Mini-OVA specials bundled with each Blu-ray/DVD volume.
Reception
The manga's second volume reached number 18 on Oricon's weekly manga chart, its third volume reached number 11, and its fourth volume debuted at number 5 with 117,310 copies. The fifth manga volume debuted at number 4, selling 185,392 copies. The series placed at number 3 on a list of top 15 manga recommended by bookstores in 2013, and ranked number 11 in the list of top 20 manga for female readers of the 2014 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook, which surveys manga industry professionals. It was a nominee for the 8th Manga Taishō.
The official fan book reached number 14, and the anthology book reached number 17 on Oricon's weekly best-sellers chart.
Greg Smith of The Fandom Post found the anime adaptation to be a "both a celebration and a send-up of shoujo manga at the same time". He found it to have a natural flow and enjoyed the emotions and expressions presented by the characters. He gave the series an A, noting it was one of the two consistently funny comedies of the season. He liked that "there was in general a lack of meanness or malice (except towards Maeno, which was quite well deserved)," and that it effectively showcased the absurdity of shojo tropes. Andy Hanley of UK Anime Network gave the series 7 out of 10, highlighting its charming and lovable cast as well as the show’s visuals, although he would not call it a comedy classic. Dee Hogan, in an article for The Mary Sue, found the show to be "simultaneously very funny and sneakily brilliant" and wrote about how the show "manages the rare feat of a triple-reversal, and all three deal with our understanding of gender roles in fiction."
The reviewers at Anime News Network listed the anime as one of the best of the year for 2014, with Amy McNulty and Theron Martin naming it their top pick. Kelly Quinn of Tor.com also listed it among her top 10 best shows of 2014.
Manga volumes
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun manga volumes by Izumi Tsubaki. Published by Square Enix.
