Review of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (2014)
Seen in 2015.
A sweet girl falls in love with a guy whose reserved exterior comes from constantly watching his surroundings for material. He’s a girls' comics artist who mostly hangs out with his assistants. The two of them, and friends, try to reconcile the genre and work environment of their comics with a daily life in high school.
Genre-savvy romantic sitcom. The premise makes more sense than it should. Teenage artists are prized because they’re set up to add naturalism to the dominant school settings of Japanese comics. Unfortunately the clash with reality is rarely the main source of comedy here. It’s character-oriented, and well crafted in that regard.