Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time

duchessliz Jul 3, 2014

8

Yokoi Rumi is your typical high school girl, except, she has a rather large problem ... she finds herself seated next to a male classmate named Seki Toshinari ... and no her problem is not that of a romantic nature. Rumi tries to be a diligent student and pay attention in class but finds herself distracted by Seki who everyday brings something to play with during class ... things like an entire dramatic war being played out with shogi pieces, a golf course using the holes in their desks, paper sumo, a robot family, and even building a driving course for an RC car! No matter how hard she tries to ignore Seki-kun so that she can study, she always finds herself drawn into his game, and frequently ends up in trouble with her teachers. Can she get him to put his toys away and pay attention in class? Can she find the willpower to ignore Seki-kun? Watch to find out! xD Tonari no Seki-kun has episodes that average around 7 minutes long in length ... but don't let the length fool you into disregarding this anime as having no plot. Each episode consists of Seki bringing his newest distraction of the day while Rumi attempts to ignore what's going on next to her, failing every time as she finds herself drawn into what he's doing. The plot for each episode was wonderfully done and immensely entertaining! xD The characters basically consist of Rumi and Seki with the occasional appearance or comment from a classmate ... both of the main characters were wonderfully entertaining. It was a wonder to me how entertaining Seki was even though he never said a single word ... not in any of the 21 episodes! The animation was nice, nothing spectacular, mind you, but nicely done all the same. All in all I very much enjoyed this anime! Every episode brought a huge smile to my face and even the occasional laugh! I very much recommend it!

Rainsoaked Jan 13, 2016

10

There's many shows designed for children.   Nearly as numerous are the shows trying to sell back our memories of what we enjoyed as children.  But very, very, very few shows are created around what it's like to be a child.Tonari no Seki-kun is a special series.  Each of its short episodes take place in a threadbare classroom setting where Rumi (the white-haired girl) is left anxiously watching Seki-kun goof off during class. Even with a mute titular character, Rumi's constant narration and worries over Seki-kun getting caught makes sure there's never dead-space in an episode. The sweetest parts tend to be when she buys into his day-dreams, only to get taken off-guard at the somewhat destructive plot-twists the adolscent boy comes up with.There's no great conflict here, no story, no deeper meaning; it's just a humorous call back to simpler times.  Also, it's OP and ED are some of the best in recent memory and have wonderfully fitting animation to go with them.In the end, it's one of the rare shows that deserve fulll marks simply for executing a simple concept well.

tollie01 Aug 12, 2017

6

Right, it's confession time for me. If you have been reading my reviews than you may have noticed that I tend to rip the anime a new one. There is a reason for this though and it has to do with the fact that I can't turn my brain off when watching anime. I can't ignore the stupid shown in the anime and this is a problem as most anime are very stupid indeed. In this case I'm not talking about a 90 pound girl catching a multi-ton cruise missile and throwing it back. Yes, it is stupid but it is a stupid that I'll allow. It's anime. Things like this are normal here and I'm pretty much fine with it. It annoys me to be sure but I will not rant about it. So, having explained this lets rip into this anime shall we? Just a heads up: There will most probably be spoilers. The more I hate an anime the more spoilers there will be. ART: No complaints really. Since nothing much is going on there isn't much for the art to do. Fortunately there is no need for it either so I'm fine with it. SOUND: Again no complaints from me. The music did what it had to do but nothing stood out for me. Voice acting is good but I expect nothing less from anime. CHARACTERS: Main character is Rumi. She is diligent student who tries her best to study but is constantly distracted by Seki, who sits next to her. Seki is setting next to Rumi in class and spends most of his time goofing off. He keeps playing games and distracts Rumi in her studies. STORY:  There is none. What I said in the character bit really is all there is to it. RANT: There is very little for me to say here as there is no story. What there is .... is fine but don't expect a lot. Episodes are 4-5 minutes long and this is probably the perfect length as the gags don't overstay their welcome. The gags themselves are sort of hit and miss for me. Some of them are based on Japanese board games. Board games that I know very little about. Not that this ultimately matters as he plays with his own rules but as I don't know the actual rules I keep feeling that I'm missing part of the joke.