Nobuta wo Produce, ep. 01-05 (no spoilers)

Kiritani Shuuji's a fairly popular guy in his class who can't stand class clown/just plain weird guy Kusano Akira. Then one day, a new student, Kotani Nobuko, comes to school. Nobuta -- she picks this as a nickname because she likes the pig Shuuji stitched on her tie ("buta" is "pig") -- is pathologically shy, goes through life not looking up from her feet, and she's bullied horribly by several of the girls at school.

Akira and Shuuji end up forming an alliance to "produce" Nobuta, the goal being to make her popular enough so that she's not bullied. "You can't change the world, so you should change yourself," they tell her.

I know, I know. It sounds like a premise that would make me want to throw the book against a wall if it were a book. But so far, halfway through the show, this is one of the best deconstructions of the Pygmalion storyline that I've seen. And from the way the show's going, I don't think it's going to stop deconstructing.

The first episode mostly just weirded me out -- Akira begins as just plain annoying and grating, and while I liked the kooky vice principal (middle-aged woman! yay!), I was completely uninterested in watching Nobuta being bullied.

But gradually, the characterization deepens, and oh, right now, I love Nobuta and Akira so much. Nobuta reminds me a bit of Sunako in The Wallflower and Amane of Her Majesty's Dog. The three girls' personalities are nothing alike, save their silences, but I like how all three sources let them stay prickly or solemn or odd in their own ways and don't shove them into the cute shoujo heroine formula. I particularly love watching Nobuta, and I suspect the show is going go against shoujo trope by making the beginning about Shuuji and the ending about Nobuta. Shuuji's still the POV character, but so far, it's really Nobuta carrying the story, and I am hoping there will be even more revelations about her, who she is and why she is.

Given the premise, I was expecting slapstick comedy, but while there are moments of "WTF? This show is on crack!" (the vice principal!), a lot of the moments are quiet character moments, and the show's taken a remarkable amount of care sketching out the relationships between Nobuta and Shuuji, Shuuji and Akira, Akira and Nobuta, and the three of them together.

It also goes a little into Shuuji's family life and the lives of their classmates. Though I was definitely put off by the standard "catty girl bully" trope, and while I wish there were more women, the show's doing something interesting with some of the girls in the class, particularly Shuuji's perfect girlfriend Uehara Mariko, and possibly with Bando the bully.

I really like this so far. It's small and quiet and very touching, and it reminds me of my favorite slice-of-life shoujo manga.

Links:
- meganbmoore's write up

Nobuta wo Produce, ep. 01-05 (spoilers)

( Spoilers )