Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!

From the get-go, Ganbare Nakamura Kun tells you exactly what it is- a wildly hilarious depiction of the awkwardness of being a teenager with a crush on his classmate in exaggerated proportions. More than anything, Nakamura wants to become closer to Hirose and encounters many mishaps along the way that make you laugh out loud, never knowing what to expect next. Ganbare is a perfect blend of lightheartedness, comedy, and originality. A lot of series make main characters aspirational almost to the point of unbelievability for someone going through the messiness of adolescence. Ganbare highlights how larger than life and awkward this time in life feels, and infuses it with so much fun and goofiness that you never know what's going to happen next, you're just locked in for the ride, going 100 miles per hour. It's a breath of fresh air to see an anime with high school kids who are actually depicted as kids and act like it. Sometimes self conscious, self centered, silly, hopeful, emotional, imperfect and painfully relatable. I cannot emphasize how appreciated it is that we have come to the point where we can get series like this that depict stories with queer characters growing up that don't fetishize and over-sexualize them. Throughout the series they reference Nakamura's love of a BL series. It means a lot to him, I can imagine especially as a closeted gay guy. They show how much this representation can mean and how it resonates with people, but also pokes fun at the unrealistic nature and sometimes ridiculousness of it. In contrast to some BL that show gay relationships in a voyeuristic way with aspects that would be red flags in real life, Ganbare gives us the relatable representation of being a queer kid growing up that we need, with the light heartedness and silliness that we need as well. This show delivers something that nothing else has done before in my opinion. Comparing it with other series that have blown me away with their own originality , zany humor and loveably awkward characters, Ganbare Nakamura Kun is up there with Dandadan and Princess Jellyfish. This is a project that has so much heart, humor and liveliness. For what it is, it delivers flawlessly. This is 10s across the board from me.

Another day, another new generation anime that we'd just finished. I know I am behind on some of them as I had started a few of the new season of anime that were released for Spring due to IRL and other shows that I've been binging for the sake of reviews for the future. Of course, I have specific shows scheduled for future posting. Oh, well. C'est la vie. So, I am not familiar with the manga nor the anime in general. Just the usual stupid "controversy" on social media that I will talk about later in the review. In the meantime, I am always down to check out queer coded shows such as this one. Fitting that I'd finished this on Pride Month, too. Happy Pride Month, by the way, from your local cis male who is openly aromantic. If we were to simply put on the synopsis of the anime, it's about this young high school kid named Okuto Nakamura, voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi (Japanese) and Nasim Benelkour (English), who harbors a crush on his fellow classmate Aiki Hirose, voiced by Yuki Sakakihara (Japanese) and Patrick Pedraza (English). And yes, Nakamura is a closeted person who has never spoken to Hirose. Nakamura is strongly introverted who would often fantasize about speaking to Hirose, though. Often attempting to integrate himself into scenarips that would allow Nakamura and Hirose to interact except the majority of the time ends in a comedic failure. To make matters complicated, Hirose doesn't even know that Nakamura has a crush on him. So, Nakamura does encourage himself to become friends until later on, they might get closer. Nakamura would often get advice from his homeroom teacher, Sou Otogiri, voiced by Takuya Eguchi (Japanese) and Peyton Howard (English), who was a former delinquent. And fellow classmate Hifumi Kawamura, voiced by Fairouz Ai (Japanese) and Gillian Lange (English), who is a talented artist and a fujoshi with her group of friends. Not to mention, Kawamura would make a manga of Nakamura and Hirose as he requested upon discovering her artistic talent. But there are also several other characters that get involved with whatever Nakamura and/or Hirose get involved with. Kota Takeuchi, voiced by Yukihiro Nozuyama (Japanese) and Dalton Tindall (English), and Tsukasa Oomori, voiced by Tsubasa Sasa (Japanese) and Nate Grizzly (English), are part of Hirose's friend group. One of them has a crush on one of Kawamura's friends in her group while the other is a member of the drama/AV club where Arandou Tamura, voiced by Shoya Chiba (Japanese) and Kyle Igneczi (English), is the president of the club. There is Reiko Aokiyama, voiced by Yo Taichi (Japanese) and Morgan Laure Garrett (English), who is the president of the occult research club and persists Nakamura to join that she nearly deceived him in joining a different club before he wised up. Then you have Kosei Matsumura, voiced by Kensho Ono (Japanese) and Joshua Waters (English), who is a middle school friend of Hirose's that is also infatuated by him, making him a rival of Nakamura. Nakamura also has a little sister who is a mean little troll, and Hirose has an older sister who looks so alike when Hirose had to play a role in a stage play during the school's festival. The story is pretty basic as it is a story of Nakamura being both socially awkward as well as trying to talk to his first crush. Accepting himself for who he is as he builds his friendship with Hirose at first until we get to the very end that twists into this cold-hearted turn until it melted down into a pretty bright ending. Sorry, there won't be many spoilers in this review as this is a romantic comedy as awkward moments can rear their heads up if conversation goes south. Well, not every comedy goes on a sour note since I've had my fair share of laughs from this. Plus, this show does go through three semesters, and I couldn't help but point out that the third semester felt pretty rushed. Still, the first two semesters were well-written. This was a fun romantic comedy for how Nakamura can be friends with Hirose and later on confess his love. I really love his conversations with other characters such as Nakamura with Kawamura, who would often have some fantasies of her own while her and her friends talk about who they ship the boys in their classroom with whom. I enjoy times when the homeroom teacher would have a moment of his own with some of the other teachers such as this strict gym teacher and this sweetheart of a biology teacher. What's more important is self-acceptance and how wholesome Nakamura can have the more he hangs out with Hirose. That, and you would probably shout for them to hug and kiss already. What? This is technically a queer coded anime, and I've been through my share of these themes. As far as the characters go, they are all likable. I love Nakamura as I've been a socially awkward kid myself yet had friends to hang out with. I still am at times unless I'm on duty with my current jobs. Yes, I have cheered for Nakamura to hook up with Hirose, yet how the show ended, it's still wholesome for how Nakamura can accept himself as well as be with Hirose. Again, I haven't read the manga, but I might as well go grab it and give it a read since there are only two volumes out right now, if I had to look up if there are English copies in existence. Hirose is a delight for being a part of Nakamura's life. His friends are a good laugh. Kawamura is a sweetheart as well as entertaining with and without her friend group. Otogiri is also fun as he kinda reminds me of Great Teacher Onizuka. You know, that's how it is with the anime's art style. Don't worry. We will get to that in a bit. The little sister is as you'd expect from a bratty little sister. Tamura and Aokiyama are fun on their own despite being persuasive in their own rights. Yet the events that involve them, like sneaking into school at night and the school festival, are what highlights them as a whole. The voice cast included for both sides of the spectrum are pretty good. Sure, you would get tired of how hyperactive they can be, but they are kids after all. Most of us were like when we were their age, if y'all ask me. Plus, I love the time when we get some octopi on screen, especially Nakamura's own pet octopus named Icchan. The animation is honestly the most unique because it's a love letter to how the animation from the 80s/90s was like. I couldn't help except see this like an 80s/90s anime but in a more updated version to fit with the modern era of anime. Yes, I am familiar with people on social media who would always say old is gold. However, I would counter the argument to ask, "Weren't some of y'all also begging for new IPs?" Because I will be fair with what I mean. I love to go back to the anime I grew up with since I was a kid in the 90s and through the 2000s. I confess that I dropped out when I was out of high school and in my early twenties. I picked anime back up in my mid-20s because I just enjoy anime as a whole. Yes, that's cheesy. Where I'm going with here is that you can enjoy old shows and appreciate what the newer ones delivered. You can love the new shows and appreciate what the past has delivered so others can run what they'd run from. You are allowed to enjoy both the classics and the modern released shows as long as you vibe with what catches your eye. Of course, one of the main issues I have with current anime now is that there are way too many things that come out and as I am getting older, it's not easy to catch up with every single piece of media unless I pace myself without experiencing burnout. That, and capitalism. Sorry for being off-topic for a minute. The animation team behind this anime, Drive, did a pretty good job on making the animation as well as the music. I am familiar with their works with KonoSuba as I've seen a couple of the seasons - might have to pick back up if I come around them - and their recent involvement with later seasons of To Your Eternity. What's also unique about this anime is that every ending credit of ea…

A platonic romance with its ups and downs. Nakamura-kun is a romance where nothing much really happens. From the first episode, you get the sense that we'll never move beyond the platonic nature of their love. In fact, at the beginning, it seems practically impossible for the protagonists to ever be close in any way. Nakamura even seems closer to other characters, like Hifumi or the president of the occult club. It makes you wonder, "Why is he after Hirose if he gets along better with this other person?" Well, that's how teenage love is. When we were in front of the person we liked, we were overcome with embarrassment, we stuttered, and we had nothing to talk about. Things that didn't happen when we were with our friends. In that respect, the anime is quite accurate in portraying that innocent and awkward school environment. The first half of the anime is the most tedious to watch. Not because it's a bad story, but because it suffers from repetition. It's all the same. Nakamura tries to talk to Hirose, but he can't. He withdraws and gets jealous of the people who can talk to him. You reach the middle of the season with the episode featuring Hirose and the teacher, which might make you feel uncomfortable due to their strange relationship. If you manage to survive all of this, you'll find a highly entertaining anime in the second half. Here, they focus more on comedy than romance, something they should have done from the beginning. They make better use of the secondary characters and give us episodes where they interact with each other. Nakamura shines as a comedic character because he fits in naturally with everyone and can be daring and sarcastic when he wants to be. The secondary characters bring a lot of life to the story, preventing it from feeling repetitive. Another strength is that, despite being a Boys' Love anime, there are girls in this universe. Having girls in your secondary cast opens up certain storylines and perspectives that you can't have in a completely male environment. Ideas like bisexuality or how to handle a girl who's in love with a gay boy. The simple fact that it features women gives the story more elements to play with within the narrative. The art design is very good. It manages to evoke a 90s nostalgia despite being a story born in 2014. The animation never falters; it maintains a good level throughout its 13 episodes. It's clear that the production team put a lot of care into this work. The downside is that the series lacks clear continuity, resulting in inadequate follow-up of the storylines. Simple things like a haircut, which seems important, are ignored in subsequent episodes. Its best episode (which is episode 12) is also its weakest link. It's an episode that suggests they could have done more serious things, but didn't want to or couldn't. And even that episode suffers from the lack of continuity. They don't even let you savor the emotions generated because in the final episode they make decisions that completely undermine the previous episode. Everything seems almost random, instead of a series of events leading us to that very point we reached thanks to divine intervention. Nakamura is a fun anime, plain and simple. If you're coming for the romance, you might even be frustrated by the lack of plot development. If you just want an anime for a weekend, then I think it's an option to consider.

There are few things quite as embarrassing as a high school crush. In an effort to get close to the object of your affections, you may end up doing things that you'll think back on years later and cringe at your younger self; plus, you'll feel all sorts of messy emotions, which get worse with puberty in the mix. I'm sure that straight people and members of the LGBTQ+ community alike will attest to that; at the very least, I know of one particular gay anime character who is very likely to agree with me. Said anime character stars in a series that is adapted from a manga that started being released in 2014; my curiosity about this manga was what led to me watching its anime adaptation. Ultimately, I'm glad that I did, as "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!" is a very charming series that would have been a contender for Anime of the Season if not for some issues it has. Ganbare Nakamura-kun, known in English as "Go For It, Nakamura-kun!!", focuses on the titular Okuto Nakamura, a shy and gay high school student. On the first day of school, he experiences love at first sight when he sees one of his new classmates, Aiki Hirose. From then on, Nakamura has one goal: become friends with Hirose. Too bad Nakamura's a complete nervous wreck around Hirose! As he tries to close the distance between him and the boy of his dreams, Nakamura gets into all sorts of wacky shenanigans, alongside a cast of supporting characters who may remind you of characters from manga that were being released in the 1980's! (Personality- and design-wise, I mean, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.) The story of Ganbare Nakamura-kun isn't a bad one, per se. It's a pretty typical slice-of-life comedy, but there is significant progress made in Nakamura and Hirose's relationship as it goes on. Not as much progress as a fujoshi watching this might want, but they are a lot closer by the last episode compared to the first, at least. It doesn't end on a very satisfying note, and yet, it does, if that makes any sense. Ultimately, though, Ganbare Nakamura-kun is more of a character-driven anime than a story-driven one, so if you don't like the characters - especially not Nakamura - you aren't going to like the story. Luckily, the cast of Ganbare Nakamura-kun is charming enough. Nakamura himself is a very fun protagonist to follow; his awkwardness is both adorable and relatable, it's fun to see him get excited about things he likes, and while he does have some questionable moments surrounding his crush on Hirose, he does genuinely care about him, which is sweet. Hirose himself doesn't start off as the most interesting character, but he turns out to have a fun personality and a surprising amount of depth to his character; this allowed me to more genuinely root for Nakamura in his attempts to get closer to him. Most of the supporting cast, while not always important to the overall narrative, can also be fun to watch; a couple of stand-outs are Hifumi Kawamura, an artistic fujoshi who absolutely deserves the world, and Reiko Aokiyama, the Occult Horror Research Club president who I think would fit right in with the kooky characters of a Rumiko Takahashi manga or something similar to that. The one character I'd say I have a major problem with is Kousei Matsumura; his debut episode is easily the worst in the series, and it's because of his creepy behavior regarding Hirose and how he sort of brought out Nakamura's worst side in the process. He does show a pretty kind side later on, so there's that, I guess. Syundei, the creator of the original manga, has a style that seems to be reminiscent of older manga like Urusei Yatsura, and character designer(/director/scriptwriter) Aoi Umeki faithfully replicates it for the anime. That, combined with colorful and fluid animation from Drive, makes for a unique and appealing visual style. The oldies influence continues with a fantastic selection of 12 different ending themes that can most likely be found in a 1980's Japanese city-pop playlist; heck, I recognized episode 5's ending theme, Yasuha's "Fly-day Chinatown", from such a playlist! Of course, the opening theme - "Shunpatsu-teki ni Koishiyou" by Yasuyuki Okamura and Kento Nakajima - is also a great song; it's just so bouncy and catchy! Even the voice acting is top-notch; Chiaki Kobayashi, in particular, breathes so much life into Nakamura and makes already-funny scenes even funnier with his line deliveries! Overall, I really liked Ganbare Nakamura-kun, even if Matsumura and some other things kept me from really loving it. Still, I highly recommend it if you want a BL anime that you can likely watch within the remaining days of Pride Month this year. It may even get you to say, "Go for it, Nakamura-kun!"

tl;dr: + Has some good jokes + Good-looking artstyle + Solid cast - Can rush certain plot developments - It's not, like, THAT funny or THAT strong a cast, just a "good" sense of comedy or a "solid" cast Go for it, Nakamura is a decent comedy anime that does what it needs to, establishing a solid relationship between Nakamura and Hirose you can root for as well as providing enough side cast members for you to attach on (including a couple surprisingly good female cast members for a BL) and a few jokes along the way. However, it never manages to break past That Point where it becomes a truly great romcom, only managing to settle for "solid". --- When I first saw the trailer for Nakamura, I was excited. (Not that they're remotely in the same genre other than being BL but) The Summer Hikaru Died was my favorite anime of last year and it looked really good from a visual perspective, hell, it even had some nice waifus, what could possibly go wrong? This is where I normally set up the joke for how shit an anime is but Nakamura actually turned out to be decent. The first couple episodes kinda had me uneasy but they do eventually develop a solid dynamic between the titular Nakamura and his love interest, Hirose. They give you enough red meat to see the vision between them and why Hirose would be fucking with Nakamura and cute moments to squee at. I could see why someone wouldn't like Nakamura, I don't think he's for everyone, but I didn't mind his antics. It's just a touch of, like, cringe comedy, I suppose. I thought a couple of the plot developments were a little rushed. Something Big happens and it seems like a cataclysmic shift in the story (at least as much as it can be given the relatively low stakes of the show) but it's easily rectified and dealt with the next episode and like...? Why did you bother introducing it only to deal with it so flippantly? The side cast is great too. Two of my favorites are Hirose's fanboy and my favorite character of the show, the occult girl. One of my biggest regrets with this show is that we didn't get more of certain characters, I would've loved to see more of the occult girl, the drama director, the fujoshi meganekko mangaka, I get there were only 13 episodes but if there's a S2, I hope we get to see more of the overall school. It's definitely got a target aesthetic it's looking at what with the retro designs and using old songs for EDs and, like, it still looks (arguably unfortunately) like a modern anime (I'd say it kinda reminds me of the remakes of Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2 in that regard where despite knowing those were retro manga with retro designs, they looked modern) but I see the vision. It would've been cool if they could've made it look more like an 80s anime but I suppose that's too labor-intensive for the modern age... Yeah Is it as funny as something like Urusei Yatsura? No. Is it as well-written as something like KareKano? No. But it's not bad. There's not really an aspect that I thought was done poorly, it's just that there's also not really an aspect I thought Nakamura-kun exceeded at. If you like BL, it's a decent watch.