Review of Nisekoi: False Love

So, I was debating a few shows to start at the time when I began watching Nisekoi. Honestly the decider came down when I realized Shaft was the producer for the series. I've always been a bit partial to harem romcoms, so keep that in mind while reading my thoughts. Nisekoi starts as a reverse Romeo and Juliet tale, of two warring families who encourage a relationship to quell tensions between Japanese Style Yakuza and American Gangsters. Raku and Chitoge, are the "victims" of this relationship, and are burdened with keeping it mostly secret while also trying to appease the gangs suspicious members. Right off the bat,you'll notice there are plenty of tropes in this anime. There are a lot interrupted confessions, a lot of fanservice, and a lot of plot twists out of left field (one of the major ones for the series comes 3/4 in to the season). New characters crop up constantly and are often there to stay. Overall, if you get blue balls from watching love-confessions broken up 3x an episode, you'll want to avoid this anime. Additionally, if you hate the violent tsundere stereotype, you will also want to avoid this show.

What this show lacks in originality of character design, it makes up for with the stories, situations, and exploratory adventures it puts the main cast of characters in. Each girl in this "harem" show still gets their own episodes, even though it's pretty easy to figure out the "main" interests. Additionally, these arcs could occasionally break the mold and flesh out a character even better. Without any spoilers, the bathhouse episode seemed like it would be a typical fanservice episode to me. While it filled those roles, it also became important for showing the trust that Chitoge actually puts in Raku's character. This is a show where actions definitely speak louder than character backstory/personality. Thus, the drive in watching this show is less about a character "changing," and more about revealing their personality through trials and tribulations.

While this won't be my favorite anime by a long shot, this show did a few things that I appreciated with regards to story-telling. The art is crisp, the music is decent, the characters are a bit bland, but the situations they're put in allow them to at least appear to be broken out of their mold.