Typical rom-com manga plotline. Girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, girl attempts to confess to boy, boy completely misunderstands what she’s actually trying to say and instead of accepting or rejecting her love, hands her an autograph made out from a famous and popular girls’ manga artist, who actually happens to be him.
Wait, what?
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun follows the misadventures of the eponymous Nozaki-kun, a popular shoujo mangaka, and the poor unfortunate assistants he recruits to work for him. True to its placement in the romantic comedy genre, this means adding a plethora of other characters and their romantic misadventures, too.
In this volume, Chiyo and Mikoshiba help Nozaki research couples’ conversations in cafes, the boys and girls hold separate sleepovers, a few halves of various couples reach interesting conclusions, and Chiyo wrestles with the decision to tell Wakamatsu that his beloved Lorelai of the Glee Club is actually his most feared Seo-senpai.
Though each of the basic plots in Volume 9 are a lot of fun, the two competing sleepovers might be the most fun of all. The boys are staying at Nozaki’s place and play dating sims together; the girls, meanwhile, are staying at Seo’s–and since Kashima’s never had a sleepover or a girls’ night, Seo and Chiyo are determined to make it memorable. Which they do… though maybe not the way that shojo manga-obsessed Nozaki probably expected.
For fans reading for the various couples–if you can call people who like each other while also existing in a comedy of errors “couples”–Volume 9 doesn’t disapoint. While I’ve admitted before that Hori and Kashima are my favorite pair, both Volume 8 and Volume 7 focused more on the Seo/Wakamatsu pair. Volume 9, however, delivers on several shipping fronts, from more Lorelai shenanigans to Hori’s revelation towards the end of the volume. Naturally, Chiyo’s going nowhere with Nozaki, but that’s totally fine.
Volume 9 includes special material to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun. The most substantial of the special material is a special side story about Chiyo’s younger brother, Towa, marking his first appearance in the series. (The mangaka chose a central side story character based on a poll that took place in Japan featuring the siblings of several different characters: Chiyo’s younger brother, Hori’s younger brother, Kashima’s younger sister, and Wakamatsu’s two younger siblings.)
Though Nozaki is generally a series I’d recommend to manga-lovers at any time, Volume 9 stands out based on the anniversary bonus material as well as the shipping payoff fans finally get to see after reading nine volumes. This manga’s definitely worth continuing, and based on some of the answers in the poll material included, it looks like we’ll have more volumes to look forward to in the future.
Story: 4.5 out of 5
Art: 4 out of 5
Overall: 4.5 out of 5
Goodreads | Indiebound | RightStuf
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