First Impressions / Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

「バイオレンスVSプリンス」 (Baiorensu VS Purinsu)
“Violence vs. the Prince”

The baka female prince and her angry but reliable sempai join Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun’s colorful cast of characters.

Twists On Common Character Subversions

Take a standard trope. Let’s say the pretty boy. Now subvert it. It turns into the pretty boy who is actually a girl. But if you subvert that trope often enough, it becomes a new in and of itself trope. So how do you keep it fresh?

You tweak it slightly again, and that’s what Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is good at doing. We saw it last week with Mikorin (sensitive pretty boy…in a girly way) and Seo (sporty girl who’s oblivious but also a great singer), and here we see it again with Kashima Yuu (Nakahara Mai), the rare female prince who isn’t doing anything to hide the fact that she’s a girl. No pants for this prince! It’s not that she’s acting like a guy, it’s that everyone else treats her like a guy, even the boys. She also avoids the trap of being “perfect”; yes, she can throw out embarrassing lines better than anyone – take note, Mikorin – but her common sense is at near-Yuzuki levels. Where other shows are content to start with cliches, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun differentiates its characters in interesting ways immediately.

Hilarious Violence

Let’s see how much trouble I can get into here. You know how most of the time with slapstick comedy it’s the guys who are taking the damage? Especially in anime, where it’s almost always girls metting it out after some (usually accidental) perverted act? I like seeing the shoe on the other foot. Not because I like seeing girls kicked in places untoward, but because it’s another example of how Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun does things – slightly tweaking the standard formula to produce laughs. And it works! Yuu is exactly the kind of character who needs to be belted upside the head once in a while, and Hori Masayuki (Ono Yuuki) is perfect for the job. Gender equality means everyone gets to be on the receiving end of comedic violence once in a while.

Rich Characters

What I’m perhaps enjoying more than anything else is how rich Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun’s characters are. Comedies can risk making their characters two-dimensional when everything is played for laughs, but Nozaki-kun doesn’t fall for that trap. Yuu may be a baka prince, but she’s a great actor, and while Hori-sempai’s height was the butt of jokes, the truth is that he’s decided to watch and nurture Yuu’s acting abilities rather than take the spotlight himself. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun respects its characters, making them more than just an assembly of interesting personality traits that can be harvested for jokes, until they feel like, well, people. And that’s a lot more interesting because, as outlandish as they can, I feel like I know them.

Looking Ahead – Usamimi Nozaki-kun?

I’m not sure what to think about the preview, save for the notable dearth of Chiyo. Is it going to be a Nozaki & Mikorin episode? No Chiyo or Yuzuki? Am I okay with that? Yeah, I’m okay with that. Viva la Mikorin! (And Nozaki-kun, I guess.)

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – The baka female prince & her angry sempai join the cast. I would never let Yuu meet any of my girlfriends either #nozakikun 03

Random thoughts:

  • Yup, Nozaki-kun’s manga is definitely ruined for Chiyo. She’s getting Mamiko and Mikorin completely confused with each other. That cheater!
  • I was waiting to see what Yuu would have until she forgot that one girl’s name and glossed over it by calling her Hime. It’s the little things that help us relate to her.
  • Mikorin ended up as the heroine again. Mikorin is Nozaki-kun’s eternal heroine. Oh noes!

Check out my blog about storytelling and the novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: Fast, easy, guaranteed, Starting off with a bang, & why you shouldn’t, Writer, author, full-time author, and Disorganized ≠ creative.

I’m looking for an artist for commission work. If you’re a talented illustrator, email me at stiltsoutloud(at)gmail(dot)com with samples. If I like what I see, I’ll tell you about the job. If you’ve already contacted me, please give me some time to respond. And yes, this is a paying gig.

Full-length images: 30.

 

Preview

40 Comments

  5. Next episode is going to make me cry from laughter, I can feel it. Two of my favorite chapters!

    Anyway, I wasn’t expecting the post-credits scene. It felt incredibly… sincere. I like the depth they added to Kashima and Hori’s relationship. Under all of the jokes and violence, there’s an implicit, indefatigable sense of trust and loyalty.

    I dunno, I guess I’m weak towards that kind of thing.

    igriega
    Reply

  6. I hope I can continue saying this…I just love this show. The characters are all very funny and quirky, yet never feel like cardboard cut outs. I’m just loving the Com with a dash of Rom.All we need now is an emulator! Very bad jokes aside. To me, that tip in the scale is also what’s great about the show to me, we laugh allot with the great comedic aspect of this show and we then look forward to and appreciate the “romantic” moments (blushing and what have you) that much more since they aren’t prominently abused and displayed every moment of every episode. (Yes, they could give us one or two more moments like that but hey, nothing’s perfect)

    Catsrofl
    Reply

  8. Kashima is pretty. May need correction on this one but usually in these kind of shows, the prince type character is usually an unapproachable snob to the main character, or would be sometimes hostile. It was nice to see Kashima get along with Chiyo that Kashima could casually approach her for help, or a shoulder to cry on. Hori saying Nozaki is cuter than Kashima came outta nowhere. Also, I pictured Kobayashi Yuu or Romi Park to voice Kashima but Mai Nakahara pulled it off well.

    Zhinvu
    Reply

    1. Nakahara Mai actually isn’t my favorite choice here, but she did fine. Here voice is spot-on for the role, she just wasn’t selling it as much as Sawashiro Miyuki was last episode.

      Stilts
      Reply

      1. Sawashiro-san as Yuzuki really did leave an impression last episode didn’t she? Though Nakahara-san’s debut wasn’t as strong, it left a bit of impression on me because it felt different from her past roles. Clannad’s Nagisa and Ladies vs. Butlers’s Selnia Iori Flameheart were the ones I remembered. I’m not sure if Nakahara-san had similar roles before where she used the same voice and style as Kashima. She’s pretty versatile.

        Zhinvu
        Reply

      2. She’s very versatile. I always remember Nanami of Katanagatari and Musashi of Kyoukaisen as well. Oh, and Teru from Saki. Actually there are a bunch of them. I like her a lot :3

        Stilts
        Reply

  9. Next episode will adapt one of the best chapters of the manga by far.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Also, I’ve noticed that both in the opening video and in the first episode there’s a clever little spoiler hidden in plain sight! That’s a great touch, I wonder how many people noticed that there’s something slightly different than the usual…

    Jubei
    Reply

  10. I thought I found comedy of the season with Barakamon, but this, this, takes the cake.
    It’s like I’m laughing every two minutes of this show.
    Barakamon still has its charm of imparting moral lessons in each episode though.

    Techim
    Reply

    1. Barakamon and Gekkan Shoujo are both indeed fantastic comedies that really avoid countless pitfalls of modern anime comedy, it’s a great season for comedy really .. even Sabagebu (a hilarious show that a lot of people might overlook) is a very good comedy, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea as it is too random and breaks the 4th wall all the time (not to mention has numerous cultural references) but it’s hilarious and zany and the main character’s unpredictability makes me crack a laugh every time she does something so outrageous and hilarious (it’s more like Excel Sage or Lucky Star)… 3 great comedies in one season is more than i could have ever asked for.

      Hunter-Wolf
      Reply

      1. If there is one problem i have with Barakamon it is that it gets somewhat repetitive. Usually starts with our protagonist having a problem and gets cheered up by the nice folks around him. It’s consistently heart warming and humorous but i feel the formula does get a bit stale after a while. Gekkan manages to keep the things fresh with it’s original character tropes and unpredictable humor. While i would like more development on the romantic front I’m content with what I’ve gotten so far =)

        leatherhead333
        Reply

    1. Agree that I love the OP (I usually skip them after the first episode but this one I watch every time) and I also love the way they play against tropes with the tropes themselves. Nice to occasionally find a diamond in the rough.

      NaweG
      Reply

  13. I thought this show would just be seasonal filler but so far it’s quite a gem. The comedy violence in this ep took me by surprise and cracked me up. Kashima’s obliviousness to the world (and especially to Hori) is great and I like how she just bounces back after every wallop, even believing Hori hits her because he thinks she’s his adorable junior.

    Occulon
    Reply

  16. I’m only watching 3 shows this season, Tokyo Ghoul, SAO 2, and this one. I have to say this is the show I’m looking forward the most every single week.

    The Story You Don't Know
    Reply

    1. Manga spoilers, be warned.

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Malchus
      Reply

  19. I can’t dispel the image Kashima = Crossdressing Prince. The skirt looks so unnatural on her /coverface

    And I wonder if I’m the only one who thought the only time she looked more or less like a highschool girl was when she was lying face-down after Hori-chan’s kick in the ass ^^;;;;

    Random Comment
    Reply

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