Rumi Yokoi is a normally studious girl... who sits next to apathetic Toshinari Seki, who spends the day playing his highly creative games. As much as she wants to ignore them, she cannot help but get sucked into his stories and schemes. Hilarity Ensues.
My Neighbor Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun, or "Next to Seki-kun") is a manga written and illustrated by Takuma Morishige, which began serialization in Media Factory's Comic Flapper magazine in 2010. The series later received an ONA and a 21-episode anime adaptation of 7 1/2-minute shorts in January 2014 courtesy of Shin-Ei Animation. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime for North America; Vertical licensed the manga, and began releasing the English-language version starting in January 2015.
In 2020, Morishige posted a comic
depicting Yokoi and her 2 year old son 10 years after the end of the series. This comic would later become the basis for a Sequel Series, My Neighbor Seki Junior, announced later that year.
This manga provides examples of:
- Acceptable Feminine Goals and Traits: Yokoi has a pretty strict idea on what boys do/like vs. what girls should do/like. She gets angry when Seki turns Jun's Rena doll into a masked vigilante, not because he's tampering with the doll at all but because she doesn't think it proper for Jun to grow up with that kind of action-y influence. She also doesn't believe that girls would be interested in monster movies, something that gets slightly disproven when her Tomboy friend starts raving about one. Conversely, she always expresses surprise and some scorn whenever Seki does a typically feminine activity, such as knitting, dressing up Rena dolls, and gardening.
- The Ace: Seki. He's mastered a truly staggering number of crafts and hobbies to a professional level all by high-school age.
- Adapted Out: The anime skips all of the appearences of Jun she had made so far.
- Adults Are Useless:
- You have to wonder how oblivious the teachers are sometimes. At one point, Seki even starts playing with two cats.
- Averted with Seki's mother during a parent visitation day in chapter 60. Though in the end, after she teams up with Yokoi to stop Seki's playing, Yokoi ends up getting called on but didn't hear the question.
- Agony of the Feet: In chapter 20, Seki decides to do his strange hobbies using his feet rather than his hands, because he needs to keep his hijinks under the desk since Maeda isn't there to shield him from the teacher's gaze. While Seki's accomplishments are still impressive, he's noticeably less dextrous and ends up both stepping on a spiky flower holder (which is so severe Yokoi has to offer him a band-aid, which he applies... with his feet) and dropping a dumbell on his right foot.
- Aloof Big Brother: Seki doesn't treat Jun very well and would rather ignore her to play by himself. Yokoi remarks that her own big brother also acts similar.
- Ambiguously Gay: When Gotou isn't imagining Yokoi and Seki's love life, she's thinking up ways to be closer with Yokoi. In art class she ends up making a collage of Yokoi's facial expressions when trying to draw the "real" Yokoi, the art teacher says that it was made with her love for Yokoi.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Seki treats Jun like this. He routinely scoffs at or ignores Jun's attempts to join in his games and treats her like a pest. However Yokoi, and thus the narrative, takes Jun's side and sees Seki more as a Big Brother Bully or Aloof Big Brother, depending on the situation.
- Apathetic Teacher: During one music class, the teacher plays a piece that causes her whole class to fall asleep.
- Appeal to Tradition: Duing Seki and Rumi's acorn marketing battle in chapter 86, Rumi tries to use this to differentiate her acorns from Seki's more commercial acorns, despite the fact that both are selling the exact same acorns.
- Audience Surrogate: Considering how many people are wishing for Yokoi and Seki to be together, it's safe to say Gotou is this.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- Despite Seki sometimes getting angry at Yokoi for interfering with his games or Yokoi's constant frustration at Seki being a distraction, the two of them do genuinely like each other. Yokoi has gone out of her way to spare Seki total humiliation and to aid him when he was freaking out and had to reach his bag. Seki has included Yokoi in his games from time to time, and at one moment when he was furious at her he immediately backed off when he accidentally made her cry.
- Though Seki can be an Aloof Big Brother towards Jun, he still has some tender moments with her, such as when she fell down and started crying and he immediately took her downstairs to tend to her wounds. He has also made some activities specifically for her, even though Yokoi notes that he's less enthusiastic about them than he is about his own games.
- Babies Ever After: The sequel "My Neighbor Seki Junior" shows that Yokoi and Seki get married and have a two-year old son who is just like his father in all the worst ways.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Seki came to learn that just because Yokoi is sweet and kind doesn't mean she has no backbone. Whenever she judges his games as being too cruel, she won't hesitate to intervene.
- Beyond the Impossible: Despite the setting being a mostly mundane school slice-of-life, some of the things Seki manages to achieve are literally impossible. Yokoi even lampshades on it.
- The Big Guy: Takahiro Maeda, Seki and Yokoi's classmate who sits in front of the former. His size is what allows Seki to engage in his playtime without the teacher noticing. When he's out sick, Seki is forced to play under the table with his feet.
- Bland-Name Product: The clock seen at the front of the class is a Selko.note
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Seki never pays attention in class, but is so extremely skilled in a wide range of hobbies that, at one point, he even made an animated TV commercial during class.
- Butt-Monkey: Yokoi is always getting busted for getting lost in Seki's antics during class, and is rarely, if ever, allowed to do her studies properly like she wants to.
- Calvin Ball: Don't expect Seki to play any orthodox games of Shōgi and Go, to put it lightly.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': During the class inspection, Yokoi gets caught with having a CD she borrowed from her friend Tomoko, which she doesn't even listen to in class, whereas Seki evades being caught with his "Robot Family."
- Cassandra Truth: When Yokoi gets in trouble for not paying attention during class, she attempts to tell the teacher that she got distracted by Seki goofing off. Of course the teacher thinks she's making it all up, because Seki cleans up very quickly whenever the teacher looks; when Yokoi saw that all his stuff was replaced with books and papers, she just gives up.
- Character Development:
- Unusual for a gag manga, but Yokoi is seen becoming stronger and more assertive over the chapters. Seki is aware of that, believing at one point her angry spirit has come to haunt him and get him to stop playing his games since she was too sick to come herself. Despite the actual complete lack of any threat, he complies.
- Later on Seki begins to work Yokoi's involvement into his stories while the latter has generally stopped trying to persuade the former to stop his stories and pay attention to class.
- Later on, Yokoi is seen fully participating to Seki's games, having high expectations since she now believes Seki is truly talented. Thus, she now acts as a spectator who feels entitled to dislike the show, chime in to set it right and get angry when she misses an episode. If anything, it ruins Seki's fun much more than when she wanted him to stop playing.
- A reversal occurs in chapter 71 when Yokoi is distracted by Seki's antics even when he was absent from class.
- Yokoi actually realizes her development in chapter 74 in which she forgot to tell him not to play in class and actually wonders if she got corrupted by Seki. She tries to reverse her development, but without much success.
- Childhood Friend Romance: A Downplayed Trope. In the sequel series, Yokoi's friends assume that she and Seki must have been destined soulmates since they knew each other since middle school, only for Yokoi to reveal that they actually fell out of contact with each other after they went to separate high schools. It wasn't until they had a class reunion years later that they actually reconnected.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Yokoi is seen as this by her friends. They're probably right on the matter, even if you wouldn't believe it at first. At one point, there is no other reason to explain Yokoi's shenanigans. Amusingly, she tried her hardest to be the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder to Seki, being the proud and dutiful student trying to rein him in. Which makes the above spin funnier.
- Conveniently Seated: Seki sits at the back corner of his classroom, and behind the tallest guy in the class at that. This means that his seatmate Yokoi is the only one who can notice the wacky hijinks he pulls off at his desk.
- Cool Big Sis: Seki's little sister Jun really likes Yokoi, and they spend a lot of time together in chapter 53. In chapter 79, Yokoi lends Jun her aid in getting included and, later, trying to defeat Seki when they play their own version of Go. She also holds Jun when she falls asleep after playing, even as her legs go numb. Goto reads it as Jun feeling safe in her future sister-in-law's arms.
- Combining Mecha: Chapter 8 sees Seki crafting one out of Chess pieces, shaped like a giant rook. It destroys the white army and consumes a knight on it's rampage before Yokoi cuts in and ends its reign of terror.
- Covert Pervert: Gotou's imagination regarding Seki and Yokoi's relationship can get a bit sexual at times. It's dialed up each time she appears and one has to wonder when it'll stop. We've reached a point where she starts to fantasize about Yokoi having a foot fetish just because she looked at the ground while Gotou was in full Imagine Spot mode.
- The one time we directly get to know Seki's actual thoughts comes in chapter 125, when he's reviewing virtual reality games and writing down his critique of them. One of the games is a Simulation Game about working as a fast food cook, and Seki's review says that he doesn't see the point in making a game where you have to do real-life work, but that he enjoyed the part where the attractive manager comes to scold you for eating on the job, and that he didn't mind the pain that the haptic feedback gloves give when the manager slaps him on the hand. After giving poor reviews to a few other games, Seki puts the fast food game back in for the express purpose of triggering the manager's ire.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Seki loves invoking this trope. Many of his games have stories where the good guys are being cruelly overwhelmed by the bad guys. Yokoi usually intervenes whenever this happens.
- Curious as a Monkey: Yokoi just wants to study. At the same time, even if she tries her hardest, she will get interested in what Seki is doing.
- Cuteness Proximity:
- Yokoi's susceptible to this, particularly around cats. When Seki's little sister has to be brought to class, Yokoi is ecstatic.
- In the sequel, Seki's little sister Jun absolutely adores her baby nephew Makuru. The sight of him turns Jun from terse and stoic to cheerful and playful in an instant, to the point that her speech becomes more babyish to match Makuru. She won't even allow Yokoi to scold him for misbehavior, and can't do so herself when the potential for the boy to become a Spoiled Brat is pointed out to her.
- A Day in the Limelight: Gotou's shared the spotlight on a couple of occasions, with her own fantasies about what's going on between Seki and Yokoi. In one chapter, Yokoi is absent and we see Seki's game from Gotou's point of view.
- Deus ex Machina: When Yokoi gets invested in Seki's stories she'll intervene in order to make the ending happy in order to circumvent Seki's love of Downer Endings.
- Dirty Coward:
- In the game of Shogi, the Gold General betrays and overthrows the King, then flees when his army is surrounded. He only returns after the King deals with the enemy army.
- Downplayed, but Yokoi's first reaction when caught getting distracted is usually to try and expose Seki, who is usually one step ahead of her.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The eraser shaving pickup device and how much time a person wastes playing with it is treated somewhat like an addiction. Yokoi tries it once, but she realizes how much time she's been wasting and doesn't pick it up again. Seki on the other hand spends hours at a time on it, looking tired and malnourished and losing valuable time on school before he decides to finally throw the thing away.
- Mountain Climbing features a white-furred bear watching a brown-furred bear climb up a mountain... just like how the white-haired Yokoi usually watches what the brown-haired Seki is doing.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: One early chapter has Seki making a post office around the whole classroom, in later chapters no one but Yokoi (and sometimes Maeda and Seki's mother) is aware of Seki's antics.
- Easter Egg: On the volume covers, you'll notice that Yokoi's Drama Panda and bunny keychains change poses and clothes a lot of the time.
- Elephant in the Living Room: Nobody except Yokoi ever seems to notice Seki's games. The Hand Wave is that he's sitting behind Maeda, the tallest kid in the class, yet somehow they still don't notice things like cats meowing during the lesson. It is revealed that Maeda himself does notice at least some of Seki's games (considering a number of them involve Seki attaching stuff to Maeda or getting debris on him, it'd be hard not to), but he chooses to just ignore it unless it gets especially irritating (like when Seki tries to put a clip on his shirt collar again).
- Escalating War: A number of the scenarios Seki drags Rumi into fall into the classic sitcom version of this trope, but her attempts to stop Seki from throwing paper airplanes in chapter 76 takes the cake for Rumi realizing that her and Seki's countermeasures toward each other follow the pattern of actual war history. To wit:
- Seki throws paper airplanes low to avoid them being seen by the teacher
- Rumi tries to block the flight path with her book bag
- Seki develops a low-flying plane that can go under her bag
- Rumi blocks the path even lower
- Seki counters by developing an invisible stealth plane out of scotch tape, which take a high path without being seen by the teacher
- Realizing the path of history is to invent an even stronger weapon, Rumi decides to use statesmanship and declares the area above her desk as her own airspace, charging Seki an unattainable fee to fly through
- Seki, taking things incredibly seriously as usual, attempts to sell off his fleet to pay her fees, which she refuses.
- Expressive Hair: Gotou. She loves grabbing her hair to reflect her state of mind.
- Facial Dialogue: Yokoi is apparently fluent in Seki's nonverbal language. She can somehow understand everything he does even when he isn't muttering a single word.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Any attempt Yokoi makes to resist getting distracted by Seki or any attempt to get him to stop. On the reverse side she will always succeed in making Seki's stories have a happy ending.
- Foil: Subverted. At first, Yokoi and Seki appear to be foils of each other — Yokoi being studious and diligent, and Seki being Brilliant, but Lazy — but as the series progresses, we see just how similar the two are.
- Friendly Enemy: Yokoi considers Seki to be her Arch-Enemy, and has tried to bust him countless times for hindering her attention in class, but she can't help but be invested in his stories against her better judgement, and often does give him a heads-up when he's close to getting caught red-handed. She only gets more invested in him as time goes on, at one point even apologizing for accidentally ruining his minigolf game.
- Gentle Giant: Takahiro Maeda. Despite his imposing appearance and being The Dreaded to Yokoi, when he accidentally steps on her eraser he quickly turns back and apologizes. He's also much more aware and tolerant of Seki's playtime than Yokoi would've imagined.
- Girlish Pigtails: Gotou sports two big, braided pigtails that she often plays with. Jun sports two little pigtails.
- Good Parents: From the Sequel Series. Yokoi is a very attentive and doting parent to her son Makuru, playing with him and embracing the loony aspects of his role-playing. While Seki himself isn't shown interacting with him (being The Silent Bob), flashbacks show him buying him gifts and watching TV with him, implying that, while likely busy with his own affairs, he's not as neglectful with him as he was with the robot family as a teenager.
- Gold Fever: Happens to Seki once when he plays as a gold gatherer. He cures himself after he unintentionally made Yokoi cry when he accused her of stealing.
- Heroic Mime:
- Seki will never say a single word. Yokoi is more than happy to fill in the blanks.
- It runs in the family, as Seki's sister Jun and their mother are as mute as him. Of course, just like Seki himself, Yokoi can understand them perfectly even if all they do is wag their arms (Jun) or fire off rubber bands (Seki's mother).
- Hidden Depths: Seki really is quite the talented boy, but most of his accomplishments are done behind his teachers' noses, with Yokoi being the only witness to them.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- In chapter 103, Seki's contraption — a conveyor belt inside his desk, onto which he feeds eraser shavings through a hole in the top of the desk that are then deposited back onto the desk via a scoop — proves so distracting that Seki (and, later, Yokoi) can't stop playing with it, and he actually gets in trouble from the teacher (for not paying attention, not for the device itself).
- Also nearly literally happens to Yokoi during the Chess vs. Shogi match during the health film. Yokoi sneaks under Seki's desk to secretly intervene. However, Yokoi's skirt gets trapped under Seki's chair, keeping her from making a clean escape back to her seat.
- Seki wants to play burr darts, using Maeda's back as a target. Maeda notices what he's doing and actually retaliates, forcing Seki to throw his burrs on the jacket Maeda hangs on his chair instead. After the period is over, Maeda angrily throws the burrs to spell out "stupid" on Seki's back.
- Hypocritical Humor: One of Seki's mannerisms is to shush Yokoi when she's telling him to be quiet, despite him instigating the noise in the first place. This is the easiest way for Yokoi to lose investment in whatever he's doing (even if she's ultimately drawn back in regardless).
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter/episode is called a "period", as in a school period, going 1st period, 2nd period, 3rd period, etc. The anime also adds a title, describing what the episode's about.
- Idol Singer: Seki films a home video of Jun playing at being an idol so he can play at being her fan. Yokoi notices he's not really into it, and decides to cheer Jun on.
- Imagine Spot:
- Once a chapter. Seki is the one playing and crafting but Yokoi, at the very least, has as much imagination as him.
- It's actually amusing to see what happens once someone else notices Seki's games. Yokoi will always follow along with him, while Gotou actually thought he was playing because he'd been arguing with Yokoi. Gotou also has a lot of imagination though, but only concerning love.
- Implausible Hair Color: Yokoi is a white-haired schoolgirl in an everyday setting.
- Innocently Insensitive: Seki has no idea of how much he's annoying Yokoi with his shenanigans, no matter how many times she tells him to stop it.
- Ironic Name: One meaning of Seki's name is responsibility.
- It Runs in the Family: Seki's mother and sister are just as mute and inventive as he is; in his mother's case, she's one of the few people capable of outplaying him, mostly by shooting rubber bands at him. Seki's father, meanwhile, is a renowned mascot actor who gets just as immersed in his roles as Seki does. His son Makuru, even at the age of two, shows signs of his paternal family's traits.
- I Wrote Our Story: The anime's opening credits feature Seki making an anime about him and Yokoi. He even gets Yokoi to say the last line of the OP ("stop it").
- Jerkass:
- It's downplayed, but does Seki really need to make all his characters suffer like that?
- Uzawa can also fall into this. While not an outright jerk, he has a habit of grabbing people's belongings, usually Seki's, without asking permission first. Even while they're using them.
- Jerkass God: What Seki often is in Yokoi's eyes. He often constructs a story where the good guys are suffering under the hand of the bad guys.
- Kaiju: Two chapters focus on the subject; one where Seki decides to make a Kaiju romcom flick, and one where Yokoi discovers the inner workings of his cardboard Kaiju statue.
- Karma Houdini: Seki is never busted for bringing all his stuff to class and fooling around with it. Though he's occasionally caught and scolded for not paying attention, that's the extent of it, and it never sticks.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Uzawa starts to play roughly with the Robot Dad and throws it in the Kaiju cardboard statue. Little did he know that the statue can mimic its film counterpart's regurgitation technique, where it sends whatever went down its throat back at double the force— and sends it hurdling at Uzawa's chin, knocking him over.
- Last-Name Basis:
- Virtually all of the named characters are exclusively referred to by their surnames. One of the few exceptions is Tomoka, one of Yokoi's friends, who calls her "Rumi," and is called "Tomoka-chan" in return.
- Seki's little sister is referred to by her first name, Jun. Both because she's much younger than everyone else in the cast and to differentiate her from Seki himself. In the Junior spinoff, a teenaged Jun refers to Yokoi as "Rumi-chan."
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The intro to the anime starts with a quick montage of Seki playing various games... then goes into Seki storyboarding, drawing, colouring, and animating said montage, all set to a song sung by Yokoi's voice actress, Kana Hanazawa. The opening ends with Seki handing a book of lyrics to Yokoi and holding up a microphone so she can record said song.
- Like Father, Like Son:
- Or rather Like Brother, Like Sister. Seki's little sister Jun is as playful and skilled as him, and she also has the natural talent to get Yokoi interested even when she didn't plan to.
- A straight case, however, in the sequel. Yokoi's son Makuru is every bit as creative and cruel to his toys as Seki was, which similarly worries her.
- Locker Mail: Yokoi being seen putting a note in Seki's locker fuels the rumor mill that they're dating. In truth, it's Not What It Looks Like. Her notes kept getting rejected by his note-passing "postal service," so she wanted to bypass the system to force him to deliver it.
- Lost in Character: Occasionally happens to Seki when he's playing a part. For example, when playing an automated factory robot, he got so into it he momentarily lost his emotions.
- This happens to Seki again in chapter 115, where he begins operating a puppet version of himself who plays with blocks on a miniature desk. It gets so bad that Yokoi ends up talking to the puppet instead of Seki to tell him that the teacher is coming, but the puppet doesn't seem to understand the concept of real Seki and just cleans up it's miniature desk. Yokoi begins to wonder if Seki's consciousness has somehow been transferred into the puppet and realizes that shooting the puppet with a rubber band seems to cause the real Seki pain in the manner of a Voodoo Doll. Unlike a number of stories, Seki never puts the game away or otherwise snaps out of it, he's completely lost in the persona of the puppet.
- Minimalist Cast: Most chapters are built around just Yokoi and Seki interacting, with neither input nor interruptions from anyone else. Even the side characters aren't that numerous.
- Mood-Swinger: Yokoi. And boy, she's not shy about it. She'll frequently switches from one mood to another when she's observing Seki's games. It's lampshaded by Gotou in the manga and made blatant by the anime.
- Mr. Imagination: Seki never listens to his classes and spends all his time either playing games, building weird contraptions, or engage in roleplay and story-telling. He tends to get so immersed in his roles that he appears to show genuine delight whenever he finds fossils, gold and other trinkets in his desk, even though he's clearly the one who planted those objects himself.
- Mundane Made Awesome: On the outside, Seki is playing. On the inside, stories of epic proportions are taking place. At least, they're treated as such.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Seki was once so engrossed in a story, he actually made Yokoi cry. He stopped his game immediately, to her delight... then started another one.
- Yokoi has this when she takes the Robot Family after Seki's neglect put them in danger too many times. After she calmed down she realized that all she had done was commit an act of theft.
- Never My Fault: Yokoi blames Seki for distracting her in class, even though he (usually) is only minding his own business, and it's (usually) her who makes the conscious decision to participate in his stories, usually out of investment for his characters.
- Nice Girl: Yokoi in a nutshell. It's amazing the lengths she'll go to when protecting Seki's toys from his evil. Her initial opposition to his antics is at least partly out of concern that he'll end up getting in trouble.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Seki has a tendency to create characters just to put them through hell. Yokoi is not amused, and usually intervenes to protect them and give them a happy ending.
- Nightmare Retardant: In-universe. While Seki is sleeping in class, Yokoi tries to give him a nightmare by putting a drawing of a monster under his pillow. He finds the monster funny instead, and actually draws it on the black board the next day. Everyone else in the class also finds it funny.
- No Ending: The anime ends after the class inspection story, with Rumi's mother mentioning that the faculty wants a family meeting with them, much to Rumi's horror.
- No Name Given: Some of the minor characters are not given names. For example, the teacher who conducts the inspection (played by Vic Mignogna) is called "Mr. Yellow Tie" in the credits, while Mrs. Yokoi is called "Mom."
- Not So Above It All: Yokoi starts out becoming easily distracted by Seki's antics despite being annoyed by them, and only ends up getting more involved with him over time. Any story that involves the Robot Family will end up with her being more invested in their story then even Seki. At one point, Seki is playing a game completely out of her sight. Instead of being happy, she's mad because it's not fun for her, and spends the chapter trying to sneak a peek.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- Rumors about Yokoi and Seki being together started when a classmate saw Yokoi putting a letter in Seki's locker.note
- Pretty much every time Gotou is around. Including an incident where Seki and Yokoi were under the desk searching for one of Seki's 'golf balls', and another on a bus where Yokoi was bending low over the slumbering Seki's lap trying to repair a Teru-Teru Bōzu.
- In the volume 10 extras, Yokoi's mother ends up learning about her daughter's relationship with the Sekis from Mrs. Seki. Even she asks if Yokoi and Seki are going out, but she's bewildered when Yokoi tells her they aren't.
- Not Your Problem: Yokoi has a complete inability to mind her own business.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Seki acts like this toward Yokoi when he takes on the role of postmaster for his classmates' notes. When Yokoi tries to send him a note telling him to cut it out, he rejects it by informing her that it's too large. After she resends it on a regulation-sized note, he returns it with a delivery form that she needs to fill out, one that's longer than the note itself, despite the fact that she's handing the note to him. After Yokoi fills out the form, he closes for the day before she can turn it in. Yokoi's rather annoyed with Seki's rules, and puzzled as to why he finds this fun.Yokoi: How bored do you have to be if you're mimicking government workers?!
- Old Shame: Seki treats his works when he was a child as this In-Universe. He's not helped by his classmates who keep mocking what he did, unaware he actually was the maker. Then, he subverts it, oblivious to the ends Yokoi had to go to in order to spare him the humiliation. Then we witness Yokoi going evil for the first and only time.
- Only Sane Man: Yokoi thinks she's this, even though she's just as likely to get sucked into Seki's Zany Schemes as he is to start them.
- The Olympics: Preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games was covered in one chapter. Seki was actually commissioned to work on a design for the Olympic medals, and spent most of the chapter coming up with innovative and entertaining designs that kept the spirit of Japan in it. His final choice ended up getting him rejected.
- Punny Name: Most characters have one.
- An alternate character for Seki means "seat," making the title "The Seat Next to Me."
- Yokoi Rumi can be read as "yoko iru mi," meaning "looking from the side."
- Part of the kanji for Maeda's and Gotou's names means "at the front" and "at the back," respectively. Maeda is sitting in front of Seki, and Gotou is sitting behind Yokoi and Seki during art class.
- Uzawa is a pun on "uzai" ("annoying"), and his given name Akiyasu is one for "akiyasui" ("loses interest quickly").
- Rightful King Returns: In Seki's Shogi game, the King piece is overthrown by the Gold General, but pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment to save his army when they're surrounded by the enemy and the Gold General flees.
- Serial Escalation: Fully admitted to on the author's part. What was once a 10 page per chapter story about Seki doing minor things on his desk evolved into very elaborate builds that last double the amount of regular chapters, all in an attempt to keep the formula fresh. It goes without saying that Morishige took some hiatuses to get the creative juices flowing again.
- Serious Business:
- Absolutely everything, for both characters. The greatest example goes for the robot toys. Yokoi will treat them like real human beings and do absolutely everything to protect them from harm. Same goes for Seki who is getting way too invested in his stories.
- Mention also goes to the occult for Seki, who completely freaks out when a classmate messes with his Ouija Board, and knitting for Yokoi:Yokoi: It's not a simple crochet, it's an afghan double hook!
- It's lampshaded by Yokoi's friends after she spent a whole night making cards to thank her friends when all they did was encourage her via little notes.
- Seki plays with a remote controlled car on his desk. He studies traffic laws and takes a driving test. He becomes frustrated and disappointed when he doesn't pass, trains hard for his second attempt, and is exultant when he does pass. Yokoi notices that he's even more serious about this than his usual games.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Occasionally, a chapter will feature a conclusion where neither Yokoi or Seki "wins".
- She Is All Grown Up: While Jun looks adorable as a little kid, the spin-off shows her grown up as teenager who is best described as a cool beauty like her mother.
- Shipper on Deck: Due to misunderstanding Seki and Yokoi's interactions and her own overactive imagination, Gotou not only assumes that Seki and Yokoi are together, she's convinced they've already gotten physical with each other — even in class. She decides to support their "relationship." However, she'll be on the money... in about eight years. The sequel even shows that her vivid imagination towards Yokoi and Seki's relationship ended up taking up a career as a romance novelist.
- Ship Tease:
- Gotou's imagination aside, there have been actual hints of Yokoi liking Seki, most notably when she wanted to see him in a certain pair of glasses because she thought he looked really nice in them. In later chapters, Seki's mom openly approves of Yokoi being around her son since she's just as exasperated with Seki's antics.
- The anime OP, which is Yokoi complaining about Seki messing with her feelings with his antics.
- The two page manga illustration of Seki and Yokoi in Emperor and Empress Hinamatsuri doll costumes.
- Over the course of the series, we learn that Seki likes to be scolded once in a while, especially by pretty girls. Who's the one girl in the series who's constantly on Seki's tail again?
- The Sequel Series shows that she eventually marries Seki and has a son with him.
- Shōgi: Seki doesn't so much actually play shogi as create elaborate scenarios around the pieces, at one point pitting shogi pieces against chess pieces.
- Shout-Out:
- The premise of the show is built very much on the same lines as Phineas and Ferb. A bunch of crazy and imaginative antics are happening right under an authority figure's nose while the one person who has a problem with this keeps seeming crazy when everything seemingly magically vanishes.
- Episode 14 of the anime features Seki being a Titan while eating his lunch.
- The School Festival chapter has Seki's class do kaiju cafe. The kaiju in question is a radioactive mutant who spawns small, ugly babies and has a powerful beam attack.
- On volume 9's cover, the bunny and Drama Panda keychains are doing the Sheeeh Pose.
- Chapter 126 sees Seki giving one of Jun's dolls a makeover in the style of an "American comic book heroine" like the ones from "recent movies". The outfit, weapons, and hideout Seki gives the doll seem to be most inspired by Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass, which is definitely in-line with Seki's trend of taking his games in a darker, more deranged direction than they're meant to be. At the end, Rumi is shown wearing a similar outfit and her Sci-Fi Bob Haircut drives home the similarity even more.
- Shrinking Violet: Seki's mother, it turns out. When Yokoi finds herself at one of the restaurants where Mrs Seki works, she's too shy to talk to Yokoi directly, instead sending messages on her and her friend's food and drink.
- Signature Move: Yokoi flicking her eraser. It's her go-to move when she wants to intervene. She later also picks up shooting rubber bands from Mrs. Seki.
- Taking You with Me: Yokoi's go-to move when caught slacking off in class, though she often fails. She succeeds in Chapter 32, where Yokoi gets caught checking out Seki's books. When she realizes that she's doomed no matter what she says, she claims that the books were hers instead of admitting that she stole them off Seki's bag. This earns her detention, but all of Seki's books are confiscated as a result, which she considers a victory over him.
- The Silent Bob: Seki is never shown actually speaking, and primarily communicates through facial expressions, gestures and occasional handwritten notes. His sister Jun and their mother are also this.
- The Slacker: Seki, in regards to his schoolwork.
- Spanner in the Works: Uzawa, much to Seki's dismay. Whenever he's involved, he will ruin Seki's game unknowingly just by being really meddlesome. Even Yokoi can't help but feel sorry for Seki.
- Stern Teacher: Adachi-sensei is apparently scary when he's angry, which is why Yokoi doesn't want Seki to get on his bad side. "Mr. Yellow Tie" similarly is rather strict about the inspections, confiscating toys, video games and music CDs as though they were dangerous contraband.
- The Stoic: Maeda rarely talks and is rarely seen without a scowl on his face. Probably justified, as he only gets focus when he's getting annoyed by Seki's antics.
- Straight Man: Yokoi thinks she's this to Seki's antics, but really Maeda is the Straight Man to both of them.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Yokoi is able to easily follow what Seki is doing with no words between them. This is further emphasized in an omake where it's revealed Maeda is aware of Seki's games, but he ignores them instead of getting sucked in like Yokoi.
- Strictly Formula: Each volume has a certain number of plot points to run through:
- One chapter with Uzawa bothering Seki and ruining (intentionally or unintentionally) one of his projects;
- One chapter featuring the robot family and their misadventures;
- One chapter of Gotou and her wild fantasies about Seki and Yokoi's "relationship";
- One chapter of Seki playing a strategy game in a way only Seki can;
- One chapter where Seki bothers Maeda;
- and one chapter that involves Jun, or Seki/Yokoi doing something for/with the girl.
- Suddenly Speaking: While Jun was a Silent Bob like the rest of her family in the original, she suddenly speaks full sentences in the spin-off My Neighbor Seki Junior.
- Supreme Chef: Chapter 116 reveals Seki's mom to be one, to such an extent that she basically fills in at all the local restaurants when they're short staffed. Her culinary creations are just as elaborate and inventive as her son's games, even if she seems embarrassed to be seen by Yokoi.
- Taking You with Me: Happened once. Yokoi sure didn't like being scolded for Seki's goods, so she simply confessed and let them get confiscated, to Seki's horror.
- Team Rocket Wins: Some chapters end with Seki "losing" and without Yokoi getting into troubles. For example, the remote control car chapter, where Seki's excitement got him picked to answer a question by the teacher, which he can't because he's been playing the whole time. This is happening more frequently as the series went on.
- Teens Are Monsters: Downplayed with Seki, but his maniacal laughing when he's making his characters suffer makes some of Yokoi's worries justified.
- Those Two Guys: Tomoka and Yuu are Yokoi's two friends who are unaware of Seki's games. They seldom appear and are mostly used for Yokoi to interact with outside Seki's antics.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yuu and Tomoka. As mentioned above, Yuu has short hair and more of an interest in monster movies, while Tomoka has Girlish Pigtails and a more feminine personality.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed, but Yokoi has been showing more evil grins as the series goes on, due to dealing with Seki. She's also shown more willingness to interfere with his builds, seen most notably when she destroys the "Justice" mod of Jun's Rena doll.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Happens regularly to poor Yokoi, since Seki is fond of Downer Endings.
- Tsundere: Yokoi is a Type B. Normally, she's rather polite, but Seki's more crazed antics tend to rub her the wrong way.
- Unknown Rival: Uzawa frequently serves as this, dismantling Seki's schemes either on accident, due to clumsiness, or because he barged in without realizing what was going on. Seki and Rumi both seem to resent him for this, but Uzawa never seems to be aware of the trouble he causes or the disdain the other two have for him, and seems to view Seki as a friend.
- The Usurper: The Gold General betrays and overthrows the King in Seki's game of Shogi.
- Visual Pun: in the anime's OAD, the second part has Seki bringing cats to class in his schoolbag. He's letting the cat out of the bag.
- The Voiceless: Seki is capable of talking and chatting with friends. We just never see it on-screen. This also extends to his family, all of whom are similarly silent.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Yokoi may be constantly trying to make people discover Seki, but she will be the first to be sad or dissapointed if Seki is doing something less complicated or interesting that his usual elaborate games.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In Seki's case, anything supernatural makes him shake like a little girl. Yokoi has used this against him before.
- Zombie Apocalypse: One story featured it with a dash of Our Zombies Are Different, since those happened to be weak to sunlight.
