Tonari No Kasibutsu-Kun Character Analysis

There are three types of people in the world; those who are street smart, those who are book smart, and those who are a strange but effective combination of the two. Gerald Graff explains in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism,” that “…schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work” (Graff). Graff is correct. In his argument, the combination of street smart and book smart can yield a better academic understanding. In Tonari No Kasibutsu-Kun, also known as The Monster Next to Me by Robiko, Robiko is able to support Graff’s claim on how “street smart [can] channel them into good academic work,” through the characters Mizutani Shizuku and Yoshida Haru (Graff).

Shizuku is the type of person Graff would consider book smart, as her character is portrayed as being academically successful with little to no effort. When faced with a challenging situation about the world around them, however, the book smart individual might not be able to handle the situation properly nor efficiently. Mizutani Shizuku primarily resides in the book smart spectrum of the argument between book smart and street smart. Her character embodies the image of a competitive person/character. “…school contained plenty of competition, which became more invidious as one moved up the ladder (and has become even more so today with the advent of high-stakes testing)” (Graff). With the realization that the top spot in the academic ground can be taken from her, Shizuku acts in illogical and possibly hurtful ways, and does what she must to remain at the top. It was drilled into students’ minds that maintaining exceptional grades would yield success in their lives, but grades do not measure a student’s aptitude or potential success; they measure how well students are able to reiterate information that was fed to them by books and