Review of Nisekoi: False Love
On paper Nisekoi looks like a tired concept recycled into a slightly different form. It's a harem anime where the mostly boring main character is somehow loved by a bunch women at the same time. All the girls compete to win the boring male's heart and drama ensues. It doesn't deviate from this mold, but still finds a way to be enjoyable. First, let's get the easy stuff out of the way: art and sound. The art was futuristic and saturated. It looked good, but was sometimes lazy. Many anime use still images with some sort of directional pan to save a little bit on budget. Thisis just the nature of the medium and it's cost limitations.
But in Nisekoi they used these still images as excuses to gawk over the various female characters bodies. 7 times out of 10, a still image would be either peering up a skirt or looking at large boobs. Especially ridiculous were the still images in the pool and beach episodes. They basically bumped it up to 9 out of 10 tit, ass, or leg images. This tactic is cheap and I wish anime creators wouldn't be so lazy to use it.
I do have to give Nisekoi props for the onsen episode. After I saw the pool one, I thought the onsen episode would be borderline hentai, but they managed to make it more tasteful.
The music fit the mood of the current moment and amplified the power of scenes. It wasn't outstanding, but it did it's job.
Now for some of the tougher topics: story and character.
The plot was definitely not the most original, with tons of tropes that you'll have seen before. But even so, it did keep me interested throughout the entire length of the 20 episode season. It was a bit cookie cutter, but still managed to be unpredictable enough to be engaging.
Character is where I feel this anime really lacked. And not for the reasons you've probably read in other reviews. Sure the characters are all typical. The nice girl. The tsundere. The rich girl used to getting what she wants. The tomboy friend. The perverted friend who always gets beat up. You're not going to find any complex characters here. But I don't really see that as a problem. Artistically, it may be a little tired and if done too much, it may make viewers cringe. But as long as the characters work in the context of telling the story, I'm ok with cookie-cutter characters.
The problem with character in Nisekoi is not that the characters are cookie-cutter. It's that the characters are forced to fit into the plot. In the beginning of the story this is not bad. But toward the end, when the drama between Chitoge and Raku begins, that's when it really started to go downhill for me.
Raku was pretty clueless throughout the story. He didn't really know what was going on in his own head, much less the heads of the other characters. But in order to extend the drama between him and Chitoge, the writers basically cut 50 points of his IQ. For the last few episodes, he wasn't just pretty clueless. He was oblivious. I kept rolling my eyes every time he and Chitoge had a scene together. He kept saying: "何だよそれ" and I lost respect for him every time. ばか doesn't even cut it.
With all of that said. I still enjoyed the anime. It's fun, funny, and entertaining. The character interaction is interesting and I was actually curious to see which of the girls would win. Chitoge is the classic tsundere, but still manages to be likeable. Kosaki is ridiculously nice and cute. Hanazawa Kana delivers that high-pitched, airy, delicate voice that perfectly fits someone as nice as Kosaki. Marika is not the most likeable and I didn't really think she needed to be part of the story, but she added another element the the competition.
On paper, you wouldn't think I'd score this anime above a 5. And without the cheap sexualizing tactics and degradation of Raku's modest intelligence, I was planning to give this an 8. But even with all these faults, I still enjoyed this anime and that's what matters most.