While anime viewers are familiar with common romance tropes, like sharing an umbrella in the rain or watching fireworks at the end of a festival, romantic comedy series Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun provides unexpected spins on these scenarios for comedic effect.
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun centers around a quirky friend group and plays on comedic irony, parodying the typical tropes found in romance anime. As such, its defiant disregard for classic staples and role reversals provide a humorous escape from the traditional romances audiences have come to expect. Among its unconventional relationship dynamics, the 12-episode anime offers several odd couples for audiences to enjoy, each of whom demonstrates its unconventional approach to the romance genre.
Chiyo Sakura and Umetarou Nozaki
Chiyo and Nozaki first meet before the school entrance ceremony, where Nozaki was sleeping on the school gates. Since Chiyo was late and the gates were already closed, Nozaki uses his height advantage to lift her up and over to the other side. While this sounds like a cute meeting, Nozaki just wants to sleep from his exhaustion of being a manga artist and completely forgets the encounter. However, Chiyo falls for him and when she finally confesses her feelings, he misinterprets her confession as an offer to help him with his manga work. Given the absurd miscommunication, she agrees to help him with work after school just to spend more time with him and soon discovers more of his odd quirks.
Whenever Chiyo gets her hopes up for a sudden romantic gesture, Nozaki comically does something unexpected to ruin the mood. When he offers to share his bike, Chiyo anticipates a romantic ride with close contact, but he instead pulls out a tandem bike so she can pedal too. When she finally gets him to share an umbrella, he turns out to be too tall and spills water on her.
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun isn't afraid to play with the audience's emotions up to the very end, where Chiyo and Nozaki watch fireworks together after a festival in typical anime romance fashion, only for Nozaki to slowly lean into Chiyo's ear and tell her he loves fireworks. This blatant and deliberate sabotage of anime's most beloved staples is exactly what gives this couple its unique charm.
Masayuki Hori and Yuu Kashima
In middle school, Yuu Kashima is inspired to join Roman Academy for its drama club after watching a performance given by her senior, Masayuki Hori. While working closely together in the club, Kashima is constantly trying to impress Hori because she wants to become his favorite junior. Despite having good intentions, Kashima's over-the-top efforts ironically backfire, frequently making him angry.
The couple offers a traditional role reversal, where Kashima is called the "Prince of the School" and even plays princely roles in the school plays. She also acts like the typical princely character in other romance anime, where she flirts with and compliments girls to make them happy. Meanwhile, Hori is much shorter than Kashima so she sometimes picks him up and tries to protect him, which damages his ego. Despite their comical miscommunications and frequent arguments, they're the first person the other thinks of in any given situation and are almost always together.
Yuzuki Seo and Hirotaka Wakamatsu
Hirotaka Wakamatsu is a carefree guy who claims to like and get along with everyone, assisting Nozaki and his team with manga work. However, the one person he says he can't stand is Yuzuki Seo, his wild classmate who terrorizes his men's basketball team by interrupting their practices and taking over the court. He finds her rude and aggressive and tries to avoid her as much as possible. Hiro believes there is nothing likable about Yuzuki and becomes dismayed when the two suddenly start spending more time together.
As Hiro struggles with insomnia due to the stress her actions cause, he finally finds a cure after listening to the music of Lorelei, which puts him right to sleep. Falling in love with her angelic voice, he considers Lorelei a goddess and wants to meet her after hearing her voice coming from the school's music room. Except, Lorelei is actually Yuzuki, which makes her both the cause and cure for Hiro's insomnia. After Yuzuki suggests going out with Hiro to shop and watch movies together, they warm up to one another in the comedic and chaotic fashion that defines Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun.
