Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, Complete Collection

In a flustered attempt to declare her crush to fellow high school student Nozaki Umetaro, Sakura Chiyo instead blurts that she is his fan. In return, Nozaki signs an autograph and then asks to follow Sakura home. Before long, Sakura is sitting in Nozaki's apartment, inking the unfinished manga sheets of Nozaki's alter ego, girls' manga creator Yumeno Sakiko. Sakura has joined a small club of Nozaki's assistants, the team responsible for the popular monthly Let's Fall in Love. That group includes fellow assistant Mikoshiba, a boy who blusters confidently to his admirers only to blush privately in embarrassment moments later (and this boy is who Nozaki bases his manga's heroine on), and Seo, a girl with a golden voice, who fills the typical brash and clueless loudmouth role commonly carried by a rakish boy (of course, Nozaki bases a male character on her). As Sakura continues to fall even harder for Nozaki, she learns that the tall, dreamy, and deep-voiced object of her affection is actually rather clueless, although supremely serious about his chosen profession and genre. Each character is great fun separately, but it's their interactions that create the real narrative magic here, and fans of shojo manga will find no shortage of knowing winks and outright laughs sprinkled throughout the episodes, which are full of lovingly rendered everyday circumstances. Presenting all 12 episodes from 2014 in separate dual-language DVD and Blu-ray editions, rated TV-14, extras include bonus shorts. Highly recommended. Aud: P. (L. Martincik)