Fandom #41: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

I've been fascinated by Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun (or, as often translated, "Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun") since I first saw a clip from the fourth episode of the anime about a year ago. This series is about a girl, Chiyo, who's been crushing on Nozaki for months without getting closer to him; once she tries to confess, he mistakes it for an offer to assist with his girly manga. You see, Nozaki is a teenage male manga-ka who uses his friends as plot-fodder and unpaid labor, and once Chiyo gets dragged in there's no end to the ridiculousness of the situations the ensemble cast end up in. The core highlights for me are the subversions of gender tropes (essentially, if it's a stereotypical male behavior, it will be done by a female, and vice-versa).

I started with the anime, and have recently been acquiring the manga in its Yen Press translations. The anime has only had one season as of 2017, and it was several years ago; thus many of the manga storylines were never adapted. In the recs below, I will try to mark any that rely on manga-only spoilers.

( You love fireworks? Me too! )