Review of Nisekoi: False Love
Disclaimer: Review may contain spoilers for Season 2 and the Manga!!! If you have a hobby of listening to “intellectual” people on the internet, then you’ve likely picked up on the fact that tropes aren’t a very popular concept among the populace. Typically, overused tropes have a habit of making stories with fascinating premises into something very predictable. They turn characters that could have been multidimensional into entities that lack any sense of growth or development. On rare occasions, however, a talented writer could take stale and overused tropes and wring more enjoyment out of them than one could even begin to comprehend. Nisekoi is afine example of this duality of trope usage, a duality of the majesty of its perfectly executed tropes and the deluge of mediocrity that it would eventually call home.
Story
The premise of Nisekoi is probably the most important aspect of its story. The story begins with our protagonist Raku Ichijou finding out that he has to pretend to be in a fake relationship with a girl of his father’s choosing. You see, Raku is the son of a yakuza boss and since his (surprisingly lax) yakuza dad isn’t very good at keeping his boys from picking fights with a nearby American gang, the only rational decision is to force his son to martyr this mess back into shape. This is problematic for Raku as he already has a girl in school that he really likes (though lacks the stones to let her know his feelings and the awareness to realize that the feelings are mutual) and the girl that he has to play pretend with is a violent tsundere that hates his guts, because their first ever meeting was less than stellar.
This setup, however, quickly takes a backseat with the introduction of Raku’s keyhole pendant which he claims he received from a girl when he was very young. He and said girl made a promise to reunite and maybe get married and be in love forever. Conveniently, Raku has no recollection of any faces or names from this event and all of the girls related to said event that turn up over the course of this series are “seemingly” just as clueless. And with this, the harem anime sets itself up for some “tropey” goodness.
The reason I said that the initial premise is important is because the story is essentially a near endless regurgitation of these two premises, constantly repeating itself like a broken record. This is barely noticeable in the 1st season, because of the emphasis on introducing the main characters and establishing Chitoge’s feelings. As you move on to the rest of the series, however, you will find an overwhelmingly staggering amount of filler that does nothing to move the story from its standstill. Oh look, Tsugumi found another random spy device that makes her have to be close to Raku. Oh look, Tachibana found a way to rope him into spending more time with her. Oh look, it’s another festival and/or another school club/event that may or may not have already happened during the previous school year. Every iteration of these moments ends up feeling longer and emptier as the show adds more auxiliary characters that it has to forcefully involve in every scene. This continues until the last few chapter of the manga, which I can only describe as dramatic, yet strangely empty. As someone whose “best girl” ends up being chosen in the end, I was still left feeling very unsatisfied by the ending of this series.
Characters
Raku is the epitome of the bland harem protagonist. He’s an extremely nice guy, willing to go above and beyond to help a stranger in need, especially if that stranger can be added into his harem afterwards. He’s exceptionally average in both sports and academics so as not to overshadow any of the girls who excel, while also always being there for the girls that don’t. In true shounen fashion, however, this does not stop him from breaking expectation if the plot calls for it. He has no outlandish sense of fashion that might scare the girls off, instead opting for the safe and highly sought-after school uniform/ white shirt and pants. The only things that really make him stand out are his enormous necklace and the unexplained hair clip in his messy bed hair.
Though bland, Raku can actually be mistaken for an interesting and multidimensional character whenever he has to interact with Chitoge. This is because, unlike the rest of the harem cast, Raku’s attitude towards Chitoge fluctuates wildly throughout the series, leaving each interaction much less predictable than with the rest of the cast. Towards the end of the series, this was the main aspect that kept me somewhat invested in his character as it’s the only aspect of it that felt somewhat grounded in reality. His nice guy status begins to feel somewhat forced and unrealistic when he walks away smiling from a forced gang infiltration mission, being stranded on a deserted island, and taking on multiple mafia gangs by himself, all because of “friendship” or “because why not?”
Chitoge is one of the main love interests for Raku and is introduced as the daughter of a rival gang that Raku has to appease by forming a fake relationship with her. Though Chitoge can be described as just another tsudere, I believe her to be one of the most, if not the most, developed characters in this series. Her main appeal is the very fact that she is an incredibly flawed person. Her uncertain past and problematic relationship with her family has left her to being pretty clueless as to how to interact with people. This makes her constantly waver between trying to be polite and friendly, whilst trying to keep her brash and antagonistic side from rearing its ugly head and screwing up everything for her. Initially she can come off as extremely unlikeable, but as the series moves on and she begins to learn how to better handle her internal turmoil, she becomes better at reining in her aggressive and standoffish side. It also helps that she is one of the few girls that aren’t immediately in love with the protagonist, as the events that lead her up to that revelation are actually quite humorous, jaw-dropping, and heart-warming.
Onodera is the other main love interest for Raku and is introduced as a long time classmate and crush of our protagonist. Though she herself has shared this sentiment since the two were in middle school, Onodera can’t confess these feelings because she suffers from an extreme form of shyness known only as Dandere. Instead she tries to slowly win over Raku with her overwhelming cuteness and sweetness, and that’s an understatement. Onodera is, quite possibly, the very manifestation of sweetness. Just about every scene, in which she is prominently featured, will force a smile to creep across your face. Unlike Chitoge, her flaws aren’t offensive and aggravating, but are rather quirks that enhance her natural sweetness. She’s shy, but not to the point where she can’t make friends or be sociable. She’s not very smart, but not to the degree that she feels like a moron who needs her hand held through everything. She can’t cook, but has a hidden strength that still lets her shine and compliment Raku’s mastery of the kitchen. Though she lacks any real growth or development beyond her slowly mustering up her courage over the span of way too many chapters/episodes, she is a very likeable character and easily understandable favorite for a huge chunk of the audience.
Those three are the pillars upon which this show stands and I don’t think it will be very “spoilery” to say that none of the other girls introduced throughout this series have a sliver of a chance at coming out on top against those two archetypal behemoths. Regardless, I will very briefly run through who they are and my opinion of them.
Tsugumi is Chitoge’s bodyguard and is initially introduced as a double agent with the mission to uncover the falsehood of her relationship with Raku. Though she develops feelings for the boy in time, she does her best to cast them aside and aid Chitoge in her ventures. The conflicting nature of her personal and professional position was an interesting idea, but the series does nothing with it that is of note. She herself, while fine and likeable, is very predictable and this gets rather repetitive.
Tachibana is quite possibly the worst character in the series and the first nail in the coffin that is Nisekoi. She is extremely aggressive with her pursuit of Raku, often forcing herself into scenes seemingly out of nowhere as she screams “Rakuuuu-samaaaa!!!!!!” She is loud, obnoxious, needy, rude, and thirsty as hell. The show tries to make her likeable by making her suddenly turn shy when her cringe worthy tactics actually work (because that makes sense) and by being extremely sickly and frail in every other scene, but the above. It’s a cheap attempt at forcing the audience to care about such a repulsive character and it only gets worse the further you go.
Haru is the little sister character and spends the vast majority of the series being very misguided about her choices in love. Yui is the older sister character and spends her short time with the series being very overconfident about her capabilities and very oblivious of her impending rejection. Both are introduced to seemingly draw out the length of this series as I honestly can’t think of any ways that these characters contributed to the story. Technically Haru helps Onodera with her pursuit of Raku, but technically Ruri already does that. Technically Yui holds a piece of information about Raku’s past, but technically so does Tachibana, his dad, and seemingly every other adult in this universe. Gutting these two characters would have done wonders for the pacing of this series, in my opinion.
There are also some reoccurring side characters that appear throughout the series, but the only ones worth even mentioning are the best friends of Raku and Onodera, Maiko and Ruri respectively. Maiko is a lovable goofball/pervert with a secret and “mature” passion, as well as a heart of gold. Ruri is the no nonsense smart girl with a penchant for comedically-timed death stares. Both are fairly entertaining characters that get a little arc dedicated to each of them.
Overall
Despite the harshness with which I’ve approached the series, I do absolutely adore the 1st season of it. The best that Nisekoi has to offer to its viewers is frontloaded into that first quarter of the story. That, combined with Shaft’s general style of producing anime, results in an absolute treat for anyone willing to just have fun and not think or expect too much. The same can be said for the 2nd season as well, though to a lesser extent as that is where the filler starts to crop up. It is, at least, worth watching if you’ve enjoyed the 1st season.
If after all of that, you are still interested in seeing the story through, I highly recommend looking up the online chart that tells you which chapters of the manga can be skipped. There will be a lot of questionable content in the manga even without the filler, but I imagine that it will be much less painful of an experience. That said, it should be clear who the “winner” is going to be by the end of the 1st season and the finale isn’t particularly stimulating, so skipping the manga altogether is a plausible decision as well. For me, the manga was a massive disappointment of mind-numbingly boring proportions and I can’t stress enough the caution with which one should approach it.