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

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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Feb 15, 2021

girltokyo

Recommended

i first off want to say that i really enjoy Ai Yazawa's work so thats the main reason i started to pick this show up and the fact that I've seen NANA and Paradise Kiss already. The story i enjoyed because it's pretty realistic which makes what happens in the show relatable, and with that it makes it even more moving and emotional to watch and experience. It was fun and interesting to see the story progress and see Mikako going through her struggles whether that was with her designs, her relationships, or family problems it was nice to see her progress as the show ... went on.
I also enjoyed the other story with Yuusuke, Mariko, and Ayumi (who is introduced later in the show) and seeing how they all progress and what each of them are going through.

The only character i would say i had a problem with is Mariko because of her bratty attitude, it's a little frustrating watching her character progress because she's so stubborn. i was up and down with her, some episodes i liked her and understood her and then there was some episodes where i couldn't stand her and why she was acting the way she was, and the way she talked was a little annoying as well but not that big of a deal.

Now with the art it's to be expected that it's not going to be the best because the show is dated, i like the style of Ai Yazawa's work so i did enjoy that and i loved the designs for the clothing on each character (especially Risa since i have a similar style i really took a liking to her, *sigh i wish the show gave her more attention because i really enjoyed that one episode surrounding her). But anyway back to art, the only big thing i would say i had a problem with is the lipstick i didnt like how that looked on the characters who wore it but over time i did get used to it but still not the best.

Now onto the sound, i really enjoyed the ost i think it really fit with the atmosphere of the show and really helped set the mood for scenes. I enjoyed the op i thought it was really cute and for the endings i only listened to both one time but i remember them both being good.

One problem that got on my nerves a bit was they dragged out scenes for too long and they showed the same scene like which felt like 6 or so more times, i know this is just to show the character thinking about it and for the viewer to be reminded of it but it got annoying that the same scene sometimes got shown more times then i think it should have. Now with scenes being dragged out for too long i also get that they were probably going for setting up the mood and making it more emotional or something like that but for my liking it went on for a bit too long imo. I'm not saying this show is slow paced because i quite enjoy those shows it's just you'll see some scenes being dragged out a bit too long which i think can be a little annoying.

Overall i really did enjoy the show, it was a nice romance drama with more realistic elements! If you enjoyed NANA or Paradise Kiss or Ai Yazawa's work in general then i think that this is a enjoyable watch!

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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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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