Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun — 06 | Always Sometimes Never

Episode 6: Sixth Issue: I’ll Cast a Spell on You

Perhaps you shouldn’t have read the shoujo manga.

This episode, we complete the cast by meeting our last main character: Wakamatsu. He’s the only first-year student of the bunch and he was Nozaki’s underclassman in the Basketball Club in middle school, before he became a mangaka. While Waka’s an earnest person and I definitely would use the words “nice kid” to describe him, he adds a new dimension of hilarity to the story, especially where Yuzuki is concerned.

The episode starts by revisiting Yuzuki’s identity as the “Lorelei,” the amazing singer of the Glee Club. Sakura recently gave Nozaki a recording of Yuzuki’s singing to listen to, but the fact that it’s Yuzuki totally ruins the beautiful music for him. Later, Nozaki encounters Wakamatsu and the boy’s basketball team being vicitmized by Yuzuki.

We learn that Nozaki no longer plays basketball because he’s afraid of hurting his hand and that Wakamatsu’s new source of stress is Yuzuki. She scares everyone on the boy’s team so much that it basically becomes a game of dodgeball for them. Because of this, Wakamatsu’s insomnia has gotten worse. Under the guise of being helpful, Nozaki invites Wakamatsu over only to ask him to help with the manga by erasing. But when Nozaki accidentally plays the recording of Yuzuki’s singing, Wakamatsu falls asleep instantly.

Wakamatsu basically falls in love with the singing and how it helps him sleep. Nozaki questions the morality of not telling Wakamatsu who the singer is, but he doesn’t since Wakamatsu offers to help with the manga in exchange for the recording. This is how Yuzuki became both the source and the relief of Wakamatsu’s stress. Of course Nozaki has already turned them into side characters in his manga (Yuzuki was already there) and although Sakura thinks the manga relationship is cute, Nozaki is more negative about it.

Distraught about being constantly attacked by Yuzuki, Wakamatsu tries to be mad at her but only comes off as a clingy. He then borrows Nozaki’s collection of manga for advice. The mistake is that it’s all shoujo manga… He challenges Yuzuki but the note looks like a love letter. She then misunderstands the meeting and gives him the nickname “Waka.” When he tries to complain about all her offenses, he ends up mentioning even the good things she does only for him. When he compares Yuzuki to another girl (because that was hurtful in a shoujo manga), Waka uses Lorelei as the counterexample, which is excruciating for Nozaki and makes Yuzuki happy. In the end, Waka tries to throw gloves at Yuzuki as a challenge, but instead just hands them to her nicely, like a present. It was a very beautifully-crafted failure!

The second half of the episode is simpler but is still hilarious. Nozaki is sick in bed and asks Sakura, Hori, and Waka for help. Unfortunately, they all assume he means help with the manga and all bring bottles of ink instead of medicine. While at his place, the three try to finish Nozaki’s manuscript for him so he can rest. Unfortunately, the only thing left to do was screentones, which nobody had tried before. Waka turns out to be the only one good at applying the screentones, but all three of them suck at figuring out which ones are appropriate for which scenes. Sakura and Waka keep putting scary and ominous screentones for Mamiko since the only “some girl who’s around us” for them is Yuzuki. Mamiko also gets really obnoxious lines because of this. Hori then gives all of Suzuki’s scenes, regardless of mood, sparkly screentones since Kashima is his only model for a “popular, good-looking guy.” The results are that once Nozaki sees the manuscript the next day, he decides to ask for an extension.

Now that we’ve met the last of the characters, it gives the anime the freedom to give us more interactions between all of the characters instead of just with Nozaki or Sakura, as is the usual for introductory episodes. And believe me, we will get to experience bigger group hilarity in the future!

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