The Plot – Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun

Chiyo is a high school student who has a crush on her classmate Nozaki. When she builds up enough nerve to let him know her feelings she blurts out that she’s his biggest fan. Little does she know that he writes and draws shojo manga, so he gives her his autograph and gets her to help with his manga. From there, we meet a whole cast of high school students who either know and help Nozaki or are clueless to what he is doing.

General Impressions

This is a very heartfelt anime. And for that reason it’s quite clean in what it does. There isn’t really any fan service throughout the show. Which is nice because it doesn’t draw focus away from Chiyo and Nozaki and their relationship, or lack there of.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun is also very much a romance anime without a ton of romance. Chiyo has feelings and very strong ones, for Nozaki, but Nozaki is so obsessed and stressed with his manga that he fails to notice. That is where some of the sweetness and heartfelt nature comes in as well.

What Doesn’t Work?

I have one minor quibble with the show and that is the relationship doesn’t really ever progress with Chiyo and Nozaki. There are a few moments of sweetness between them. But it is all done through the lens of Nozaki trying to figure out real reactions or moments for his manga. I want to see a little bit more progression.

Though this does in some ways stem from how the manga for Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun is written. It is vignettes, so you don’t really see too much into their interactions, it is kept at humorous moments and little bits of story. So my guess is that the manga is slow to progress that romantic element as well.

What Works?

I think that the story itself, even with the slow or stagnant romance, is really fun. It gives you good laughs and I like the behind the scenes into manga and that process. But it is really about the interactions of the characters. Each character does only have one or two strongly defined traits, but the writer uses that to create realistic characters which is impressive.

Which really does lead me into what I like best next, I really like how the characters are developed. Do they all really feel like high school students, not really, but they do as much as basically any anime high school students do. And Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun gives a slice of life look into it versus some big or grand story.

Final Thoughts – Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun is kind of like a warm hug. It feels good to watch and you want what is best for the characters. Do they always get that, no. But things are never horrible for the characters, it is more just a feeling disappointment and that they will try again. And as time goes on that their story and their feelings will progress.

This is only at one season so far. And theoretically there is another on the docket, but it hasn’t been started yet. So I hope that we get it. I want to see more of Chiyo and Nozaki’s story. I want to see if they end up together or how that romance builds out. It is just fun to watch, but if that doesn’t happen, I will read the manga. And that’ll give me that story, just done in a slightly different way with it’s vignettes.

Have you watched or read Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun? Is it one that sounds like fun for you? Let me know in the comments below.

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The Witcher is the story of three different characters, you have Yennefer the witch who can harness chaos to perform amazing acts of magic. You have Ciri the princess who has her own powers. And you have Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher. The show is about how they got to where they are in the present and how their stories intertwine. This is done through vignettes. For Geralt, it is about how he has to take responsibility and how while Witcher’s are monster hunters, he wants to be more than that. For Yennefer, it’s about what she’ll do for power and if it was worth it. And Ciri, it’s about staying alive.

I’m not going to go more into what the plot is, because, firstly, it’s a lot of vignettes that are working around the main points for the main characters and how it brings them all together. I’m also not going to do it, because it’s not a cohesive story. That’s one of my biggest knocks against the show is that for basically every character but Ciri, the vignettes jump all over the place and because of that you don’t get much payoff for the story. And even the vignettes are inconsistent. Some of them are told extremely well with a deft touch, and some of them beat you over the head with foreshadowing very obvious things. And even with the characters, Geralt’s stories are generally pretty good and they do come together with a solid payoff. Geralt is also tied to Ciri, and while her story wanders a little bit, there is more of a point to it. Yennefer, on the other hand, has her story wander a lot, and they try and make her a pretty sympathetic character, but really fail at it in my opinion.

The acting in the show is inconsistent as well. Henry Cavill is very enjoyable as Geralt. And there are other portrayals that work well, I think that Ciri is solid. But again, Yennefer’s acting, Anya Chalotra, is just lacking for me. And I put that more on the story than Anya’s actual skill as an actor, but she is given a story that is extremely unfocused and just ends up not having enough to work with in it. For me, a lot of acting issues can probably come down to the writing, but it was a shame because Cavill really does do a good job as Geralt and he makes the show watchable, otherwise, I don’t think anyone else would have been able to carry it.

The same for the world building in the show, it’s just inconsistent. The world itself is extremely interesting, the monsters who show up and things like that are different and really cool. But, you get bits and pieces of the world and how it works given to you generally not in the right order and not at the right speed. I don’t want an information dump, which they don’t do, but they mainly just pull things out of thin air with little to not explanation in the middle of episodes. It’s something, like the acting and the writing, that I hope they can clean up in season two. It goes too much between trying to have some Game of Thrones feel to it and epic monster hunting and back again without explaining why or how things are working.

And really, the same again for the effects in the show. Some of the things looked really cool. I know that the dragons weren’t the favorite for a lot of people, but I liked the design used there. But the opening scene is horrible. It’s such a bad use of green screen, Geralt feels like he’s on a sound stage maybe with the monster there, but there’s nothing else that he can interact with. The trees in the shot are horrible and static and just look so obviously fake. I think that it does get better and maybe a little more consistent throughout the show, or at least after that first scene, but it’s the first thing people see and it looks so bad.

Overall, this is a show that I generally did enjoy. I thought that once it get going, about episode four, it was interesting, because they created a more cohesive story for Geralt. But then they’d keep through Yennefer’s story in as well and that would mess things up for me. From what I’ve heard, this first season was based off of a series of short stories, and it feels like that, but that’s not a good thing, it doesn’t feel like a good episodic show, it feels, too often, like the worst part of episodic shows. There’s also the timeline piece. They are extremely subtle about it, and that’s something that they needed to be more obvious about, and then there were things that they could have and should have been subtle about because it would have been a good payoff. I’ll watch the next season when it comes out, but I’d say, if it’s just kind of interesting, probably skip it.

Did you enjoy The Witcher? Is it on the list of shows to watch for you if you haven’t seen it? Should I play any of the games/pen and paper RPG?

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