Gokinjo Monogatari

Mikako Kouda is a 16-year-old girl whose sole ambition is to establish her own clothing brand. To this end, she attends the renowned Yazawa Art School alongside her childhood friend Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Although the people around them interpret their closeness and constant bickering as signs of budding love, both Mikako and Tsutomu deny it, as they cannot see each other as anything but friends.

However, everything changes when Tsutomu starts to resemble Ken Nakagawa—the vocalist of the popular group Manbou—and gains popularity among girls. Suddenly, the childhood friends find themselves wondering about the meaning of love, friendship, and the true nature of their relationship.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kouda, Mikako Main

Shishido, Rumi Japanese

Yamaguchi, Tsutomu Main

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Kanzaki, Risa Supporting

Niiyama, Shiho Japanese

Nakasu, Mariko Supporting

Touma, Yumi Japanese

Tashiro, Yuusuke Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Saejima, Midori Supporting

Oota, Mai Supporting

Yamazaki, Wakana Japanese

Oikawa, Ayumi Supporting

Minaguchi, Yuko Japanese

Sudou, Akira Supporting

Nishino, Jiro Supporting

Tsukui, Kyousei Japanese

Shimizu, Junji Director

Umezawa, Atsutoshi Director, Episode Director

Yabe, Akinori Episode Director

Oka, Yoshihiro Episode Director

Reviews

Jan 3, 2025

LuxuriousHeart

Recommended

My Neighborhood Story has a very whimsical art style, and I like it. It feels like the sketchbook of a fashion designer, which might have been the point of this art style. Ai Yazawa has always been a great artist. Unfortunately, the soundtrack was bad. Some of the music, particularly the opening and ending songs, were ear grating.

Then you had the annoying characters. The main character, Mikako, was just plain ole mean at times. She could be unpleasant and lash out at others. She can't just say what she truly means. A tsundere. Several ... other characters were unlikable at points of the story, with a few exceptions. And even then, you feel bad for those few exceptions because they have to go out of their way to work, in order to fix the problems of those around them. Some of them are spineless and lack a backbone. It's frustrating to watch! Except, not really. Flawed characters or not, they're realistic characters. That's what makes the show beautiful. It feels like a snapshot into your childhood. I found my eyes watering a lot with this anime, because it took me back to those vulnerable and uncertain years. As annoying as the characters can be, they're realistic high school students. They're awkward, selfish, too giving, spineless, abrasive, all of that. They care about how others view them, even to the point of self sabotage and hurting others. They care too much about their ego, their pride. "Well I don't want to say it first, they have to" or "I don't want to apologize first, that'll mean I'm wrong, and I can't be wrong!" Even when getting in a relationship. "My friends will mock me if I get with them", "I can't put myself out there! What if they reject me!", and stuff like that. It's realistic, and painfully so.

That is to say, I don't like all the ships. And not because they're bad. There are some ships that even if I know they're trash, I can admit they're realistic. My issue is that this anime has the "pair the spares" issue that a lot of shows have. I'm writing a fanfiction story, not based on this series btw, and even I have to tell myself that not everyone needs to end up in a relationship. Person G doesn't need to end up with Person K. Sometimes, both of them can just be single and that's it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 25, 2022

Automemory_Doll

Recommended

This anime does everything right, it can be translated as "How difficult are interpersonal relationships", "Why can't I be able to correctly show the way I feel to my family and friends?" "Why do I have to be the way I am?" "What I choose in life now will haunt me all my life?", "The things I do, is it for me or for others to see me?" and many other questions.

I understand that many who are used to the modern style of anime art may not find the artistic approach offered by Gokinjo Monogatari appealing, however, if you give it a chance I am ... sure, you will not only get used to it, but embrace the artistic style. And this story has to be told through the catalog of expressions that this style of drawing achieves for its characters. It is wonderful how slight movements in the faces of the characters denote so much of their personality and the emotions they are feeling.

As for the music, Gokinjo Monogatari has such a characteristic OST, it's one of those OSTs that don't go unnoticed and stay engraved in your memory. Its opening song may be puzzling to many, but it completely describes the vibes of its protagonist and if you like the series, you will be infected by its vibes and therefore share the feelings of the protagonist in its opening.

And without a doubt, what makes this series stand out the most is its story. In my opinion, this is the best Slice of life about teenage life I have ever seen. It deals with emotions in a forceful and at the same time subtle and realistic way, as I said before, it helps a lot with the tools provided by its artistic style to make it clear what each character feels with slight changes in their faces. This anime touches too many teenage themes in such a funny way but at the same time so easy to identify with them. More than anything portrays how complicated interpersonal relationships are, many of the problems between characters are only due to poor communication, so we see how they deal with jealousy, feelings of inferiority, vocation problems and the feeling of being derailed in life, unrequited love, contempt for oneself, feelings of misunderstanding, loneliness and many personal fears that I could not explain in words, because it is not an explanatory anime, but rather demonstrative.

And that is, if you were ever a teenager, this anime will remind you of that time and the immensity of emotions, worries, desires and aspirations that we feel in our youth.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 27, 2020

CataOrShane

Mixed Feelings

I've watched Paradise Kiss back in 2010 and I enjoyed it a lot.
Ten years later I decided to watch the prequel (back in 2010, it was considered a parent story so I was in no rush to watch it).

The story presents itself as a couple of teenagers in love with each other but they don't know how to deal with it, on top of discovering their dreams and chasing them. I was into it and the characters are lovable, for the most part.

The name of this anime is Gokinjo Monogatari but "Flashback Monogatari" would be much more fitting. There are so many ... flashbacks throughout every single episode that it's insane. I kept skipping them because they're so common and repetitive that their job to create drama and emotion isn't possible to be fulfilled.

I also disliked the overall pacing of the story. After 10 episodes in, it felt that the anime was just dragging itself off while nothng major was happening to the characters, with a couple of exceptions after.

On episode 34, there's a spelling error on the english word "Paradise". This is funny considering that the sequel that would be released 10 years later would have that word in the name.

Everything from now on will be SPOILERS that affected my overall enjoyment of this anime:
1) Body-ko's character development was a mess. Everytime Body-ko was shown to have a solid personality, the next 10 episodes were presented like she was still the 1-dimensional character that she was introduced as.
2) The amusement park scenes when Body-ko realized that Tsutomu wasn't in love with her, including the whole conversation they had about their childhoods and life expectations was a joke. That sequence was interrumpted by dumb, unfunny "comedy" and it didn't have the dramatical impact it should've had.
3) When the old man danced with Risa and began imagining her as his ex-girlfriend, I couldn't help but get all these creepy vibes.
4) It makes no sense whatsoever that a 16/17 year old would still miss and adore her father like Mikako does, considering that she has no proof that her father has tried to stay in touch with her: no phone calls, no visits and no letters. In reality, it was Mikako's mother that hid the letters. It would be so much better for Mikako to be extremely bitter against her father and chase him for answers, only for her to learn the truth about her mother's attitude.
5) Yuushiro slapping the face out of Body-ko was extremely uncalled for. If he stepped up with a talk or even a yell it would still be meaningfull and without physical violence. This was a sweet romantic show about young people and their first experiences with love and suddenly it actually showed an example of domestic violence and presented it as being acceptable if someone's jealous or acting "crazy". It was such a let down and on top of that, not a single character supported Body-ko, quite on the contrary. I don't care how "crazy" someone is, violence is not the way to go.
6) It's extremely weird how Mikako's mother decided to visit her ex-husband's exhibition a 2nd time and also decided to check the visitors' record. There wasn't any hint or plausible reason that would make her think of checking the names.
7) Having Mikako's father propose and try to be with his ex-wife again was so stupid. They broke up because they were both too focused on their own jobs. In the 4 years they were apart, nothing changed in that regard but yet the first things out of that man's mouth in a hospital room is "let's try again". I understand it's a romance anime but a little bit of common sense and realism only helps.
8) Yuushiro's and Body-lo's relationship didn't evolve at all from the "tsundere-tsundere" couple. This was a wasted opportunity for some really good episodes.



I've watched other Yazawa Ai's works: Paradise Kiss and Nana and I loved them. I'm happy that over the years she got better at story telling, building drama and creating characters. Overall this anime is a 6/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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	Poll: Gokinjo Monogatari Episode 24 Discussion Amorii - Oct 22, 2012	10 replies	by LunaLov »» Feb 3, 8:55 PM
	Poll: Gokinjo Monogatari Episode 5 Discussion SpookyWasabi - Dec 10, 2012	6 replies	by KawaiiNeko94 »» Jan 11, 2:45 PM
	Poll: Gokinjo Monogatari Episode 50 Discussion SpookyWasabi - Mar 1, 2013	9 replies	by LuxuriousHeart »» Jan 3, 11:05 AM
	Poll: Gokinjo Monogatari Episode 49 Discussion SpookyWasabi - Mar 1, 2013	7 replies	by LuxuriousHeart »» Jan 3, 10:40 AM
	Poll: Gokinjo Monogatari Episode 48 Discussion SpookyWasabi - Mar 1, 2013	5 replies	by LuxuriousHeart »» Jan 3, 10:13 AM

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