Summer has come for the un-aging cast of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and that means it’s time for finals study sessions, planning for school trips, and new initiatives in the manga magazines!
What’s that? You think that these don’t sound like very interesting events? Well that’s only because you haven’t seen these idiots try to do them!
Since creator Izumi Tsubaki has absolutely no qualms about making her characters act like idiots (it’s almost out of character when they aren’t honestly) there’s a seemingly-endless number of situations that she can milk for the humor and get near constant giggles out of me every time. This volume not only provides probably the best panel so far to date, Chiyo yelling that she likes Nozaki “BECAUSE HE’S THICK” (which is also a great summary of Chiyo and Nozaki’s relationship), it also had a number of good moments for all of the couples. Strangely enough, this volume may have had a teeny bit of development in Seo and Waka’s relationship after the school trip, although perhaps it’s more accurate to say that with Seo being gone that the true nature of many of the characters left behind at school (especially the basketball team) was revealed and Waka’s own princely qualities were able to shine. When Waka has had enough sleep and peace of mind that he can stand up to Seo’s worst bullying behaviors I can see how this ship would really work, as Seo throws Waka off his game enough to keep the humor up and Waka only barely takes Seo seriously unlike everyone else at school. They will probably never be my favorite couple but in the right doses they are a very fun ship.
Continuing to talk about romance, and in an more surprising turn (for a series that rests upon comical misunderstandings between its ships anyway), Kashima and Hori also seem to come closer to actually understanding each other in this volume. The secret of Kashima’s terrible singing voice gets out and Kashima gets a bit of the genuine personal time with Hori she’s been craving so much. It’s still not very much, and poor Kashima is keenly aware of every moment when Hori isn’t being 110% sincere just from their time together in the drama club which makes it even harder for the two of them to have any romantic time together, but it’s some progress and hope for the silliest couple in this series.
As usual, each chapter of Nozaki-kun is themed around a larger event with gags occurring in each of the four-panel pages and while good, none of these were of the stand-out, I-need-everyone-to-see-this-right-now variety (for example, the “the boys play an otome game” chapter a few volumes back). Nevertheless, it’s still a funny volume and it is very very hard to resist taking photos of every other page to share with friends who haven’t read it yet. It’s a perfect summer read and every new volume, as infrequent as they are, is well worth the wait.