(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a shoujo 4-panel web-manga lampooning the romantic shoujo clichés.
Characters
Chiyo, our point-of-view character. She’s madly in love with this tall, good-looking dude in her class. And she’s about to make her confession. Except she bungles it, and ends up as his assistant.
You see, Nozaki-kun, under the nom-de-plume “Sakiko Yumeno” (which sounds like a young woman, and certainly not a dude being voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura in full deadpan mode), is a popular shoujo manga artist published in the “Monthly Girls” magazine. It’s not like he’s particularly passionate about it (the man seems to have no romance whatsoever in his life), it’s just that he’s very good at it. Cue cynical examination of various tropes of the shoujo romance genre ; the “let’s ride together on a bicycle” staple gets a particularly thorough beating this episode.
The OP sequence hints that there will be more supporting cast added up shortly ; one of them shows up just after the ED credits.
Production Values
Bouncy and colourful ; it’s got good comedic timing, and that’s what matters.
Overall Impression
This is mostly quite funny indeed. I say “mostly”, because Chiyo’s romantic moments don’t quite work until the show starts undercutting them swiftly. And, well, not all jokes land ; that’s par for the course for this kind of series. But it’s rapid-fire enough that you never get bored of it.
If you think shoujo romance is a genre that can get stale, then this is the perfect antidote. (It may make you incapable of ever reading any other such show with a straight face, but that’s the sign of a job well done.)
