With a new school year looming overhead, many students are wondering how the year will go. After all, the 2019-2020 school year ended so strangely. And with COVID threats still looming, who knows what the future of education is going to look like for the next year or so. Instead of focusing on negative aspects, however, I wanted to present you with a series of quirky school anime series. The new school year will be unlike anything we’ve seen before, but at least you can bet that it won’t be as crazy as these school situations!
Tonari no Seki-kun is a hilarious and very short anime series. Since each episode is only 7 minutes long, you can easily finish this series over a weekend. These bite-sized bits of hijinks are great for when you’re looking for a break while writing that term paper, or just want to veg for a little while after a long night of homework. Yokoi just wants to get through the school day. But, she’s constantly thwarted by Seki, the boy who sits next to her in class, and just cannot focus. Whether he’s playing with action figures or performing magic tricks, Seki is the worst distraction ever! And worst of all, his projects keep getting Yokoi in trouble!
It’s a classic story. Guy likes girl. Girl likes another guy. That second guy likes curry. Wait…what? School Rumble is one of my favorite school-themed anime. Juvenile delinquent Harima has fallen in love with the air-headed Tenma. Tenma has no idea of his feelings. She’s too busy chasing Karasuma–a fellow student who happens to be both insanely odd and incredibly boring at the same time. What follows is a hilarious comedy of errors as Harima and Tenma both struggle to make their feelings known to their very oblivious crushes. That’s just scratching the surface. The entire series is populated with hilarious and quirky characters, from cryptic Akira to girl-crazy Imadori.
Despite how obviously he stands out (with his pink hair, green glasses, and the strange knobs on the top of his head), Saiki is just your average high school student. Oh, wait…he’s actually a psychic who is so powerful that he can change the fabric of the universe. But, at its heart, this series is about an introvert who just wants to be left alone, and can’t help attracting more and more friends to his side. From the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks Nendo (the only person whose mind Saiki cannot read) to “perfect girl” Teruhashi and wannabe superhero Kaidou, super-powered Saiki is just trying to survive his newfound popularity (and keep from destroying the world in the process). Like Tonari no Seki-Kun, The Disatrous Life of Saiki-K is made up of a bunch of shorter episodes (each episode about 5 minutes long), meaning its great when you want to watch something, but don’t have a lot of time.
Nichijou translates to My Ordinary Life, and this series follows a group of girls whose lives are anything but ordinary! Following the day-to-day misadventures of three friends, slacker Yukko, artist Mio, and quiet oddball, Mai, their new friend Nano (who is actually a robot created by a child professor), and their classmates, each episode is packed with strange situations treated as everyday, and everyday situations elevated to something completely ridiculous!
Sakamoto is perfect. He’s completely shakeable. What follows is a hilarious series about the perfect student, his classmates, teachers, and friends. Whether they’re trying to date him or humiliate him, each attempt by his peers is thwarted in increasingly clever ways. Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is one of those series that is so hard to describe without making it sound stupid or boring, but this series had me in stitches! The characters are great, Sakamoto’s tactics are borderline insane, but surprisingly effective. Whether he’s avoiding an unwanted romance, fighting high school thugs, or singing karaoke, Sakamoto is always the coolest guy in the room!
