WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Volume 10 of the Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun manga by Izumi Tsubaki, available now in English via Yen Press.
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a romantic comedy anime and manga starring Sakura Chiyo and her crush, Nozaki Umetarou, who is a shojo manga artist. When Sakura confesses her love, Nozaki thinks she's saying she's a fan of his manga and recruits her to be his assistant.
From there, the series focuses on the pair and their friends' antics, with the latter having complicated romantic situations of their own. Nozaki-kun is a long-running story with the manga up to 13 volumes and still ongoing, but it mainly focuses on comedy over developing its relationships, leaving fans with one big question: are Sakura and Nozaki ever actually going to end up together?
In the Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun anime, it's safe to assume the answer is no. Throughout the story, Nozaki remains completely oblivious to Sakura's feelings, and she doesn't have the courage to properly confess to him again. She does try in the anime's final episode, but Nozaki misunderstands her, thinking she just loved the fireworks they were watching. That's where the anime ends, and since it aired in 2014, a second season is highly unlikely at this point.
However, the show only covered five volumes of the manga, and there have been eight more since. So what's the current status of Sakura and Nozaki's relationship in the manga? Well, they're still not together and Nozaki remains oblivious to Sakura's feelings, but they have made a bit of progress.
Volume 10 finds Sakura and Nozaki on a class trip with their friends Seo Yuzuki, Mikoshiba "Mikorin" Mikoto, and Kashima Yuu. At one point during the trip, Sakura and Nozaki are out taking pictures together but end up getting separated, and Nozaki cannot contact her because she forgot to bring her phone. He becomes extremely worried about her, to the point that Mikorin notes that he's finally showing emotion toward Sakura.
When Nozaki finally finds Sakura, he asks to hold her hand so they won't become separated again. Sakura tells him to just keep an eye on her, but he becomes so focused on her that he keeps running into things, so they end up holding hands anyway. Later, Nozaki asks Kashima what kind of feeling would make him worry about someone when they're not around, want to stare at them, and want to hold their hand -- and the clueless Kashima responds that it's "maternal instinct". Nozaki, not the most aware himself, accepts this and is therefore prevented from realizing he might have feelings for Sakura. That said, the seeds have still been planted for future manga stories.
In addition, although the Nozaki-kun anime does include Volume 5's flashback to Nozaki and Sakura's first meeting, it leaves out one important detail. The design of the lead character in Nozaki's manga was actually inspired by Sakura and her trademark hair ribbons -- but Nozaki was so sleep-deprived at the time of their meeting that he doesn't remember where the idea came from.
Still, it's clear that she left just as strong of a first impression on him as he did on her. Nozaki may not realize it yet, but it seems like he does return Sakura's feelings, so it's a good bet that the two of them will end up together after all -- but knowing them, it may take a while.
