Joseph Luster
January 25, 2015 
School would be more or less normal for Rumi Yokoi were it not for one major distraction: Toshinari Seki. Seki sits right next to Yokoi, and his mind is constantly on anything but school. While the teacher blabs on about this or that, Seki occupies himself with increasingly outlandish activities, from an elaborate dominoes setup to an insanely improbable game of chess. Unfortunately for Yokoi, she can’t help but get sucked into Seki’s goof-offs, and that’s where the fun lies in Takuma Morishige’s My Neighbor Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun) manga.
Morishige puts loads of detail and thought into Seki’s seemingly random activities, and the art really shines in the complex micro-scenarios and the character expressions that spring about as a result. Yokoi is both exasperated and intrigued by whatever Seki’s up to; she laps up the saga of a family of earthquake-prepared robot figurines just as eagerly as one would a melodramatic TV show. She often begs and pleads for Seki to stop, firing off a series of hushed reprimands, which tends to result in her coming off as the lazy class clown more than Seki himself.
My Neighbor Seki‘s concept seems like something that could get old really fast, but Morishige pulls it off nicely throughout the first volume. Seki is always up to something ridiculous, and there’s a ton of charm in the way Yokoi reacts to it all. It was also a smart move to make Seki a mostly mute character who remains somewhat of a mystery, while avoiding the temptation to turn him into some unlovable recluse. He still clearly has his own friends and his own life, but we’re stuck inside Yokoi’s bubble, viewing it all with the same cocked head of enamored perplexity.
The series was adapted into an anime—directed by Yuji Mutoh (Corrector Yui, Arcade Gamer Fubuki) at Shin-Ei Animation—that aired from January to May last year. Fans of that should definitely read the source material, but I would recommend My Neighbor Seki to anyone who enjoys absurd but low-key comedy manga.
Story & Art: Takuma Morishige
Publisher: Vertical Comics
© Takuma Morishige 2011
