Review of Nisekoi: False Love

One of the most popular and iconic romantic comedies of its era created pretty big impact with its whole ‘love triangle’ thing. There is a girl with a certain promise, and another one that ‘invades’ the life of the main protagonist (Ichijou Raku) and they both need to pretend they are dating each other, in order to keep peace between their gangster families. Both girls (Kirisaki Chitoge a.k.a. Princess Gorilla, and Onodera Kosaki) have its own charm, which divides the viewers into two sides, each rooting for one girl or the other. The problem starts, when the show starts introducing new girls and each has herown ‘promise’ with our lucky harem ‘Bean Sprout’.

This brings me to the main issues of the show. It drags seemingly forever. Introducing more girls into the story doesn't lead anywhere. And don't expect any new girls (other than the original two) to win. Some episodes even feel irrelevant to the story progress. It's painful watching them with perfect opportunity for progress, yet there never happens an actual one.

The show is trying to be mainly funny. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The jokes are based mostly on misunderstandings, which fall flat and feel cringy. The way it achieves genuine laughs is through the artstyle. Knowing Studio Shaft, we can expect all those sparkling effects, visual effects, iconic head tilts, random focus on the slightest details, changing color palette; it looks gorgeous.

With all the problems, it is still iconic and I think it deserves its popularity. But quality-wise, I don’t know if it will stand the test of time with lot of its ups and downs and pretty much no development throughout the whole show.

Pros:
+ artstyle/visuals

Cons:
- over-complicating of the story
- stretching and dragging with no conclusion
- cringy misunderstandings

Double-edged:
+/- exaggerating situations – some funny, some cringy, or both
+/- rooting for a specific girl decides your enjoyment
+/- some good comedy elements, some bad
+/- not really that good, but still iconic
+/- has many double-edged characteristics (other than those mentioned above)

6/10 (OK)