Shorts are things I don’t typically watch. There have been a few exceptions for some that were really good, like Wakako-zake. So when The OASG overlords gave me Tonari no Seki-kun to watch, I wasn’t sure what to think, and so I’d thought that I’d give it a go. I mean, what harm would a school comedy do, especially during these difficult times? Heck, these difficult times should typically give us otaku nerds some sort of excuse to binge on shows, no? So a show consisting of 21 short episodes would take next to no time, right? Well I was proven wrong, as watching Tonari no Seki-kun was quite the trial indeed.
Also known as My Neighbor Seki or with the sub-title The Master of Killing Time, this short show centers around the girl and boy duo of Rumi Yokoi and Toshinari Seki. She is your average high school girl, and he is a rather atypical high school boy, just a bored one…a very bored one. As classes go on, Seki ends up so bored he puts together any small items he can find, from erasers to pencils, from protractors to jars. Right from the very first episode, we see what we are getting ourselves into, as we watch Seki bring out over a hundred erasers from his school bag, along with a mixture of crayons, pencils, and even a small firework, plus much more. And so with all of this, he puts together a long domino run, which ends up distracting Yokoi and getting her into trouble.
After that one opening episode, I had hoped that some kind of story would come here. Yes, I knew that this was a short episode show, but even despite this, some other shows of the same kind I’ve enjoyed, like Wakako-zake, Turning Girls and Yama no Susume, have all had stories that we can follow. As I watched more episodes, I found nothing like that, which left me extremely disappointed.
Now, I’m not sure if this will end up becoming more of an opinionated review or not. I mean, when I was in high school, I was someone who followed rules. I wasn’t the jock who strode around making sure everyone in school knew they were the jock, or the goth who moped around school making sure…well…you get the idea. Here in Tonari no Seki-kun, our male protagonist has no label, and is just someone who is extremely bored in class. Each of these 21 episodes consists of us watching him put together a wild, crazy, elaborate, and extremely detailed set piece or model that ends up catching the eye of our female protagonist and girl sitting next to him. As the straight arrow that I was in school, I just can’t see how either of these two were able to get good grades, what with him making these models, and her just constantly watching him make them.
So, as I said, I don’t want this review of Tonari no Seki-kun to end up becoming some great op-ed; with this attitude, I’ll end up making out that this show is far deeper than it actually is. The reality is that neither Yokoi or Seki are anything to write home about. Even with all of these great models that he makes, Seki is a bit of a dull person to watch. Yes, I do feel some level of pity towards Yokoi, as she’s the one who sits next to this guy and is effectively forced to watch him do all of this when he should, in fact, be following class. Aside from all that, however, Yokoi is a bit of a dull person to watch as well.
Shin-Ei Animation are the ones responsible for this show. This is the very same studio that’s brought us some long-standing shows like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan, both of which are still going to this day. Both of these shows are rather iconic, and the characters featured in them have become a part of modern-day Japanese culture now. Now I wasn’t expecting Tonari no Seki-kun to be anything on that level whatsoever, but even still, I would have thought that the folks at Shin-Ei Animation would still take some level of care in making a short episode show that hooks the viewers in. Instead all we get are some models made in class, and two characters getting involved in the making of them.
Which brings me back to why I didn’t really want to make this an opinionated review so much. Perhaps there genuinely is something that I’m missing here, and that this model-making really is something that hooks the viewers in. Maybe someone else who has watched this show as well can help me out on that, because I just can’t seem to find it.
These have been difficult times us folk are going through in real life, and so some distraction in anime is meant to do us the world of good, I suppose. Tonari no Seki-kun is a short show that isn’t exactly for everyone, despite its initial outlook of being so. After 21 episodes, I ended up getting just as bored as Seki does in class, and asked myself a lot of questions. If a long-standing and respected studio like Shin-Ei Animation can make some excellent family-friendly shows that can easily entertain many of us, then why can’t they repeat that in a short show like this? Why does Yokoi end up becoming the one who ends up in trouble, when it really should be this guy, who should be studying like everyone else? And lastly (and probably most importantly), how on earth is this boy able to fit all of the items he makes to put these models together in his school bag?