Left to right: Yuu, Koizumi, Jun, Misa
La-la-la-Ra-men dai-ski Ko-i-zu-mi-san
— The ending jingle of every Eye Catch
Miss Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles (Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san) is a Japanese manga series by Naru Narumi. The story is basically about a girl named Koizumi who loves eating ramen and her classmate Yuu who loves watching her do it. It began to be serialized in Takeshobo's Manga Life Storia magazine in September 2013.
A live-action drama series aired from June 2015 to December 2016. A 12-episode anime by Studio Gokumi aired during the Winter 2018 anime season.
Miss Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles provides examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: Shu, Yuu's older brother, has one in the second half of episode 8 when he and his friends go to an iekei-style restaurant to try ramen with rice.
- Art Shift: Every Eye Catch has all the characters in a Super-Deformed looking way.
- Bait-and-Switch: In Chapter 4, Yuu asks Koizumi if she's even been to MacD before. Koizumi actually replies that she has, 2 months ago... to one in Hawaii, for cup ramen.
- Big Eater: How is Koizumi able to eat so many bowls of ramen every day?
- When Yuu cooks for her in Chapter 9, Koizumi eats five whole portions. Partially justified there, as Koizumi hadn't eaten all day.
- Note all those ramen dishes she ordered when Jun invited the gang to a Chūka restaurant in Episode 10.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Koizumi likes all sorts of ramen, even unusual combinations, such as with pineapple, lemon, strawberry, or natto-kimchi-cream-cheese in it.
- Boyish Short Hair: Yuu keeps her hair very short, to the point she could be confused for a feminine boy.
- Bridal Carry: In Chapter 9, Yuu carries an unconscious Koizumi to her (Yuu's) home this way.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: In Chapter 23, Yuu becomes very worried that she'll have competition with her brother when she thinks that he's got eyes for Koizumi. Luckily for her, he only wanted the kind of ramen Koizumi was having.
- Color-Coded Characters: The four main characters are associated with colors. Yuu with blue, Koizumi with yellow, Misa with red and Jun with green.
- Comfort Food: Ramen is the only thing that can make Koizumi smile.
- Eating Lunch Alone: The highly introverted Koizumi is perfectly content with eating ramen all by herself.
- Imagine Spot:
- In the anime, Yuu has one where she and Koizumi are getting married.
- In Chapter 8, Yuu imagines she and Koizumi happily chatting together.
- In Chapter 13, Yuu gets one of Koizumi being taken away by a suave older guy.
- Improbable Food Budget: One has to wonder how Koizumi can afford to go to all those ramen shops she goes to every episode.
- Irony: Despite loving ramen, Koizumi is unable to cook any from scratch for herself.
- Masochist's Meal: The Level 9 "North Pole" Ramen in Chapter 5 is the spiciest ramen that Koizumi (and Misa) has ever eaten.
- Missing Child: At the ramen museum, Koizumi meets a German girl named Hannah who mistakes Koizumi for her mother.
- The Nose Knows: In Chapter 13's bonus sketch, Koizumi manages to sniff out tonkotsu ramen from a Kyoto ramen shop from across the street.
- Obsessed with Food: Ramen is pratically all Koizumi talks about. In the Grand Finale, after not being able to leave home due to a cold, finally being able to have a bowl of ramen again actually makes her cry!
- Only Sane Man: Jun is this among her friends. Compared with Koizumi (a normally emotionless ramen-junkie), Misa (very concerned about her image, vain and obssesed with not gaining weight) and especially Yuu (infatuated with Koizumi to disturbing extremes), she comes as collected, responsible and mature.
- The Quiet One: Koizumi rarely speaks, and has a rather soft voice.
- Ramen Slurp: Once an Episode, obviously.
- Real-Place Background: The ramen restaurants Koizumi visits are real-life establishments (although some have closed down in the meantime). Special mention goes to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, which is recreated in painstaking detail.
- Shout-Out: In Chapter 14, we have "No Ramen, No Life".
- Skewed Priorities: In Chapter 6, Koizumi reveals that she handed in her test paper completely blank because the day before the exam, she impulsively went to Touhoku to eat some Natto Kimchi Cream Cheese Ramen.
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: Yuu still constantly tries to be friends with Koizumi no matter how many times she says no.
- Spoiler Opening: Near the end of the opening, you not only see shots of Yuu, Jun & Misa, but also various other characters that Koizumi would eventually run into as the show went on.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Koizumi, a cold and distant girl capable of having an extremely warm smile.
- The Stoic: Koizumi almost always sports a straight face and droopy eyes.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Despite Koizumi denying Yuu’s requests to hang out, there were a few times the two got to hang out together. One episode even had Yuu cooking ramen for her.
- Voice of the Legion:
- Yuu-chan does this a couple of times when talking about Koizumi; making her Stalker with a Crush tendencies all the more creepy.
- The keeping figure obessed Misa also does this when she finds out her ramen dish has back fat.
- Yandere: Yuu's obsession with Koizumi, over time, does not portray a girl with a sane mind in any capacity. For example, an entire chapter turns out to be this for Yuu, as she deluded herself into thinking that Koizumi came over to eat ramen at her house, and she happily converses with the Koizumi in her head.
