as a long time fan of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, I am in love with this series
the casting is great - the actors really look the part, and perfectly embody the manga characters' little quirks and even their clothes showcases their indiviual styles
the setting is a bit different - since the original story was set in Japan, at a Japanese high school and the show is localized to China, there are obvious differences. everyone got a Chinese name:
Nozaki is now Lu Yeqi
Mikorin is Chai Ziyu
Sakura is Zuo Qiandai
Mayu is Lu Yezhen
Seo is Zhou Jieyue
Wakamatsu is Jiang Ruosong
Hori is Gu Zhengxing
Kashima is Lu Dao
and ofc the broader supporting cast (Ken-san, Miyako, and even Maeno) makes their appearance as well
due to the localization there are local customs eg. Mayu does some kind of other martial art, not judo. for some reason the high school setting was changed to university as well, which I don't mind as much as I thought I would. everyone's major fits their character well and they characters still hang out and do their usual shenanigans together thanks to their majors/clubs. since they are in uni, most of the time they are out of uniform - except Sakura, which seemed to have turned into a visual gag for each episode
I was kinda scared that with so many changes the humor would be lost as well, but the writers really managed to make the best use of the characters and the script. the first few eps loosely follow the manga's gags but there are plenty of original material in there too and so far it all has been incredibly funny
the biggest change however is that unlike the OG GSNK - where every tiny steps towards a canon ship is followed up by an immediate joke and yet another shoujo trope parody, the show actually seems to try and gives us legit romantic set up. a lot of the things that are adapted are from much later volumes and by the way things are going it seems the show might make the couples canon before the manga ever does. the biggest (and most welcome) surprise was that even Mayu and Mikorin - who get treated as a crack!ship in the manga mostly - got a few, genuinely romantic scenes for them. now I'm not gonna hold out hope that they end up together officially by the end of this show but the fact that the show treats them with the same kind of romantic set up as any of the other couples made my delusional MayuMiko shipper heart incredibly happy
one thing I am torn about is that as much as I am happy about progress between Nozaki and Sakura, Sakura seems a bit too mean at times. as I am not up to date with the manga I am not sure if all of these plotlines are entirely original or if they came from later volumes, but sometimes it gets grating that she avoids Nozaki without giving him a clear explanation. in the manga Sakura is completely aware of the fact that Nozaki CANNOT read social cues for the life of him, so expecting anything romantic from him is hopeless.. but show!Sakura seems a bit less understanding of how Nozaki's mind works. and the fact that show!Nozaki tries so hard to make her happy (and it is implied much heavier here that he does indeed like Sakura) makes it so much harder to watch Sakura act all cold and snappy with him.
the casting is great - the actors really look the part, and perfectly embody the manga characters' little quirks and even their clothes showcases their indiviual styles
the setting is a bit different - since the original story was set in Japan, at a Japanese high school and the show is localized to China, there are obvious differences. everyone got a Chinese name:
Nozaki is now Lu Yeqi
Mikorin is Chai Ziyu
Sakura is Zuo Qiandai
Mayu is Lu Yezhen
Seo is Zhou Jieyue
Wakamatsu is Jiang Ruosong
Hori is Gu Zhengxing
Kashima is Lu Dao
and ofc the broader supporting cast (Ken-san, Miyako, and even Maeno) makes their appearance as well
due to the localization there are local customs eg. Mayu does some kind of other martial art, not judo. for some reason the high school setting was changed to university as well, which I don't mind as much as I thought I would. everyone's major fits their character well and they characters still hang out and do their usual shenanigans together thanks to their majors/clubs. since they are in uni, most of the time they are out of uniform - except Sakura, which seemed to have turned into a visual gag for each episode
I was kinda scared that with so many changes the humor would be lost as well, but the writers really managed to make the best use of the characters and the script. the first few eps loosely follow the manga's gags but there are plenty of original material in there too and so far it all has been incredibly funny
the biggest change however is that unlike the OG GSNK - where every tiny steps towards a canon ship is followed up by an immediate joke and yet another shoujo trope parody, the show actually seems to try and gives us legit romantic set up. a lot of the things that are adapted are from much later volumes and by the way things are going it seems the show might make the couples canon before the manga ever does. the biggest (and most welcome) surprise was that even Mayu and Mikorin - who get treated as a crack!ship in the manga mostly - got a few, genuinely romantic scenes for them. now I'm not gonna hold out hope that they end up together officially by the end of this show but the fact that the show treats them with the same kind of romantic set up as any of the other couples made my delusional MayuMiko shipper heart incredibly happy
one thing I am torn about is that as much as I am happy about progress between Nozaki and Sakura, Sakura seems a bit too mean at times. as I am not up to date with the manga I am not sure if all of these plotlines are entirely original or if they came from later volumes, but sometimes it gets grating that she avoids Nozaki without giving him a clear explanation. in the manga Sakura is completely aware of the fact that Nozaki CANNOT read social cues for the life of him, so expecting anything romantic from him is hopeless.. but show!Sakura seems a bit less understanding of how Nozaki's mind works. and the fact that show!Nozaki tries so hard to make her happy (and it is implied much heavier here that he does indeed like Sakura) makes it so much harder to watch Sakura act all cold and snappy with him.
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