The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt

Tōgo Sakuradaimon is a member of the discipline committee who checks the students' appearance in front of the school gates every morning. Poemu Kohinata is a high school girl whose skirt is deemed too short and who is stopped every morning during the checks. The two, who seem like oil and water, suddenly bump into each other one day during extra lessons. Sakuradaimon, whom everyone thought was serious and strict, is actually a useless member of the disciplinary committee who can't study at all. Although they are complete opposites, as they get to know each other, the distance between them gradually closes.

The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt is based on the Ponkotsu Fūkiin to Skirt Take ga Futekisetsu na JK no Hanashi manga series by Takuma Yokota. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

In the interest of full transparency, I have docked this episode half a star for Sakuradaimon's initial comments to Kohinata. Yes, he's the class monitor, tasked with making sure that everyone is in compliance with school dress codes. Yes, Kohinata's hair is bleached and her skirt is quite short. Does that give him the right to slut-shame her? Absolutely not. To say that I was put off by him blaming her for his own attraction to her is putting it mildly. That's not him being “klutzy,” it's him being an absolute pig.

Things do get better from there, fortunately, but it's a hell of a way to start a series. The thinking behind it seems to be that neither Sakuradaimon nor Kohinata are exactly who their appearances would make them seem to be – he's not all that bright and she's very smart. They're both basically nice people. They have to learn to see past his overenthusiasm for rules and her sartorial choices in order to become friends or to fall for each other, whichever way this series is going to play that.

When the humor doesn't rely on Sakuradaimon being at his worst, it does have some entertaining moments. The reveal that they live fifty yards apart and somehow never realized it is good, and Izubuchi, the former delinquent turned health (and dignity) representative works much better as a funny character than Sakuradaimon does, with his delinquent long jacket (embroidered on the back, of course) and his penchant for doing whatever it takes to keep people healthy. The scene where he interrupts the principal's droning speech (which is appropriately inane, as I remember all principal speeches being) in order to pass out fever patches to the fainting student body is great. It captures the absurdity of both the high school experience and the characters, which is what I suspect the entire episode is attempting to do.

I like the bold look of the show, with its thick outlines, bright colors, and simple character designs. It doesn't do much that's beyond serviceable with its animation, but that works for it, because this is really all about the dialogue. I do think it could've been a short instead of three shorts mashed together into a full-length episode, but I wasn't checking the counter every three minutes, so it works well enough. It really doesn't put its best foot forward, though, and in a premiere, that's a major problem.

Oh, Poem. You poor, poor child. I don't think I can properly state how embarrassing her name is in the Japanese context. So-called “kira kira” names where the kanji should be read one way and have a non-normal pronunciation—especially an English one—are both popular among parents and hated among kids. It's like the names hippies gave their children in the 70s or how numerous Game of Thrones fans gave their children the name of a genocidal dictator in the 10s. Worse still, you have to remember that Japan is a country that lives by the idiom “the nail that stands up gets hammered down.” Getting shit for having a name like “Poem” is basically guaranteed.

I mention this because I think her name is the reason Poem is who she is and acts how she acts. If she's going to be treated as a weirdo anyway, she might as well go for the gold and go full juvenile delinquent with dyed hair, an ultra-short skirt, and a coat over her uniform even in class. However, just because she's trying to own her identity doesn't mean that there isn't some serious insecurity at her core. This is where Tougo comes in.

Tougo is a 100% straight forward person. He doesn't do snide comments or passive aggressive digs. He confronts things head on. You can trust what he is saying is the complete truth as he sees it. This is what draws Poem to him. When he says he likes her name or calls her a nice girl, he means it.

The issue is that she's so used to having a defensive wall up that she doesn't know what to do when confronted with pure, unadulterated kindness. This is why she lashes out at him. However, it's important to note that, even in this first episode, she's trying to grow. She apologizes when she feels she's gone too far and wants him, likely the first guy who is uninfluenced by her name, to see her for her.

All this, plus an art style that really calls back to its manga roots with the way it handles shading, comes together to make an enjoyable little rom-com.

I can't deny that The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt, shortened in the episode to The Klutz and the Skirt, has style. Rather than trying to ground this mundane little romcom in a realistic art style, the backgrounds are filled with splashes of color and comic book ink-dot effects. The coffee shop where Poem hangs out with her friends after school is decorated with blobs of blue, red, and yellow paint, but even the flowers and trees on the way to and from school burst with intense hues. Smart storyboarding and simple character designs keep the visual interest flowing, even when Poem and Togo are engaged in the most mundane of mundane topics: where they went to middle school.

And yet, I could not fall in love with these characters, because the script commits an unforgivable sin in the opening sketch. Togo argues that Poem should wear a longer skirt and less “erotic” underwear because he finds it sexy and accuses her of being an exhibitionist. It's not cutely rigid or socially awkward. It's not a charming early sign of him being attracted to her. It's sexual harassment and shaming her for her own wardrobe choices. Likewise, he later insists on walking her home because she's so pretty that if men see her lacy panties or thong or whatever, their passions will be so inflamed that who knows what they might do! Which kind of comes across as him saying that if anything were to happen, it would be because of her choices and not the choices of the people who commit assault. Eugh.

Even if things improved from there, even if I have a soft-spot for odd couple romance, this negative first impression made it impossible for them to endear themselves to me. And that is a shame, because it is in all other ways above average. More characters get added to the mix, including Poem's friends as active pot-stirrers and an ex-delinquent health officer. Chances are, you're not as sensitive to Togo's early misstep as I was, and you'll be fully able to enjoy the silly high school shenanigans and minor rebellions such as running in the halls.

The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt is following in a rom-com mold that is similar to Kaguya-sama: Love is War or Teasing Master Takagi-san, wherein two very strong personalities must navigate their feeling for each other by way of incredibly wacky shenanigans that have been informed by their roles within the school's social strata. In Kaguya-sama, the whole gimmick was how Miyuki and Kaguya had to “win” the dating game by besting each other in a series of increasingly absurd psychological battles. In Takagi-san, Nishikata and Takagi's relationship is defined by the games and pranks they devise for one another. The difference in Klutzy Class Monitor, of course, is that Poem and Tougo are placed on opposite sides of the line that divides punk rebellion and rigid obedience to the letter of the law. Think of them as the rom-com equivalent to Zenigata and Lupin (as if those two weren't also clearly in love with each other). Poem is destined to flout the rules and rock whatever style she damn well pleases, regardless of what the school dress code demands. Tougo is bound by his terminal squareness to take Poem to task for daring to wear cute underwear and a skirt that doesn't go past her fingertips. Obviously, they are destined to be together.

If The Klutzy Class Monitor has any major obstacle to overcome, it would be the titular monitor himself. The problem with Tougo isn't that he is an obsessive and socially awkward dork who takes the rules too seriously; the problem is that the particular rules of student conduct he's decided to obsess over make him way more lame than a guy who was, say, way too dedicated to keeping the study group on task, or whatever. Look, I am a high-school teacher by day, and even I will tell you that absolutely nobody likes the kid who chooses to take on the role of School Snitch with such gusto. ACAB includes teenage hall-monitors, I am sorry to say.

That said, if you can get past how much of an insufferable pill Tougo is throughout the first half of this episode and take the show on good faith that he might be changed by the inevitable love story he will share with Poem, there's plenty to like about this anime. Poem herself is a cute and fiery heroine, the sort of girl I would have madly crushed on myself back in the day, no question. Speaking of good looks, the cartoon itself has a refreshing sort of day-glo color palette and striking but simple character designs that make for a fun sense of style overall. I also found myself chuckling over some of the excellently timed and animated visual gags, which paired with the lively vocal performances to make for some genuinely solid comedy. Too many romantic comedies forget about the “comedy” half of their genre expectations, so I have to give The Klutzy Class Monitor credit for making good on the yuks.

I don't get the feeling that The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt is going to produce a romance for the ages, or even for this year of our Lord, 2026. It's competent enough, though, that I expect plenty of genre fans will get a kick out of it, and who knows? Maybe by the time the show is done, Poem will convince her boy to shed some of those cop instincts and learn to live a little. If our central couple can collectively scrape together just a little more likability, then this little show has the potential to improve exponentially.