Friday, April 29, 2016

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I finished watching this before I went home for my birthday. My depressed mood made me look for something de-stressing and what a coincidence that Youtube has the full series complete with the English sub. The story and characters stay true to the manga but the effect is quite different. I find the manga very hilarious and can break me into laughter. The anime invoked a less subdued emotion from me although I am not sure if my mood makes me rather biased. I guess the format also plays a role. In the manga, each page feels like a comic strip and this allows the story from one page to the next not necessarily be connected. This becomes a weakness when translated into an anime. The scenes in the anime feel rather jumpy because of the lack of overarching story. 

I am glad that the anime faithfully follows the manga and hence retains whatever that makes the manga enjoyable to read. The mangaka makes the characters believable as each of them has their own quirkiness and sometimes the quirkiness is blown over the top for comic relief purpose. It is actually a good thing that the mangaka does not mind making the characters lame and ridiculous. The voice actors are doing excellent job too as each character gets their own share of serious lines as well as ridiculous lame lines.

With no overarching story, there is really no plot here. It is just telling a story of a group of school friends revolving around Nozaki-kun who happens to be a mangaka. With the manga is still ongoing, I don't expect to have a solid ending with the anime. However, the last 1 minute of the final episode is really a cliff hanger!! Grrah!! I am not usually into love story but I was really rooting for Chiyo in this last minute and I nearly fell over my chair when Nozaki misheard what Chiyo said and while leaning in to whisper he replied "I feel the same. I love fireworks.". Raaage!! Chiyo's laughter after that sounded like she was trying to hide her tears. Sob sob T_T

There are 6 additional short special episodes of about 3 minutes each. They are bundled for the DVD. I can only find episodes 4-6 with English subtitle in Youtube :( But yeah, glad that they still continue with the humour.

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