Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (Japanese: ????????, Hepburn: Gekkan Sh?jo 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 tank?bon volumes by Square Enix. An anime television series adaptation by Doga Kobo began airing in July 2014.
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Plot
High school student Chiyo Sakura has a crush on schoolmate Umetar? 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 sh?jo manga artist working under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno. She then agrees to be his assistant in order to get closer to him. As they work on his manga Let's Fall in Love (????, Koi Shiyo, Let's Have a Romance), they encounter other schoolmates who assist them or serve as inspirations for characters in the stories.
Monthly Sock Club Video
Characters
Main characters
Supporting characters
Let's Fall in Love characters
Media
Manga
Izumi Tsubaki began serializing the manga in Square Enix's online magazine Gangan Online on August 25, 2011. As of August 2017, the series has been collected into nine tank?bon 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.
Volume list
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.
- Chiyo Sakura : Asuka Nishi
- Umetar? Nozaki : Hiroki Yasumoto
- Mikoto Mikoshiba : KENN
- Yuzuki Seo : Miyuki Sawashiro
- Y? Kashima : Chie Matsuura
- Masayuki Hori : Junji Majima
- Hirotaka Wakamatsu : Daisuke Namikawa
- Mamiko : Yukari Tamura
- Sabur? Suzuki : Daisuke Namikawa
- Tomoda : Takahiro Mizushima
Anime
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. Junichir? 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" (???????????, lit. "Seems It Can't Be Anyone Other Than You") is composed and performed by Masayoshi ?ishi, and the ending theme "Uraomote Fortune" (????????????) 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.
Episode list
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 Taish?.
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.
Works cited
Manga volumes
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun manga volumes by Izumi Tsubaki. Published by Square Enix.
Anime episodes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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