WARNING
Before I begin, if you don't like the idea of your best girl getting judged; then I recommend to stop reading this review. Your favourite girls will be judged and it may or may not anger you.
WARNING END
I delayed watching Nisekoi: for the longest time, primarily because of the first season being rather bland and it's poor character development. Majority of the characters only had only their established personalities and did not develop at all throughout the entirety of the anime. What was there was only events that only made it seem that there was character development but only made the characters look even more static. In season 2, there was actually character development that felt like it was going somewhere and attempts to tie up loose ends. Unfortunately, all it is is a decent attempt at adapting the manga. The characters have a lot of depth this time around but the anime falls into the same song and dance from the first season.
The story is the same as where we left off. Raku still doesn't know who the girl he made the promise with years ago is. The girls all like him but they know that they could well as not be the girl that the promise was made with and they try to make him fall in love with them to avoid a case of unrequited love. The girls end up trying to capture his attention through many crazy antics and this generally causes some funny moments and some awkward/serious moments such as when we're let in on the secret as to why Chitoge loves her bow as much as she does.
The plot itself is rather poor. They managed to create a bit of focus with the plot this time around but because of the way they focus the plot it ends up detracting from all the other moments in the story. Where we would think that some characters would get a bit more screen time because they are part of the main cast; they don’t even get anything besides some scenes that don’t have an impact on their personality and a flashback one off episode.
The anime itself is very short having only 12 episodes. What they chose to do with the 12 episode span was still rely on Nisekoi’s chaotic nature to carry the show and at the same time bring the focus in on something. In the end it falls very short. It doesn’t help develop characters consistently and majority of the arcs that they go through feel very rushed as most of them are only one or two episodes and feel like they were one offs and have no impact to the actual plot. In fact the plot this time around is focused solely on main girl Chitoge. This is fine, but if one were to watch this anime without being told of this they wouldn’t exactly know what the plot was.
Each episode is about a specific girl/minor character and each episode intends to flesh them out slightly for some reason or the other. This only works sometimes, but majority of the time it comes off with almost no weight at all. By that I mean that while the impact may be in the episode it occurs in, the rest of the anime acts like there was no effect at all. There is no weight to the events that occur for majority of the characters, and this occurs for many of the characters and only really changes one or two giving some episodes a self-contained feeling.
It was obvious they wanted Nisekoi’s trademark chaos, but having organized chaos is a harder task to achieve especially the way the anime played out. Despite the nonsensical filler episode that did nothing for the plot they still did try.Is the plot a lot better than the first season? Yes it certainly is a somewhat average plot albeit with all the self-contained arcs. It just stops it from being something actually extremely good and confuses the viewer on what actually they should be focusing on.
With that said, there is still redeeming qualities about the story. Romance is the most obvious theme in the story, but it is well done in this season as opposed to its predecessor. Instead of ‘blue-balling’ people with stereotypical events that do nothing for the plot or characters, Nisekoi: creates really interesting moments of love in its episode. We see real love from some of the characters rather than some of the exaggerated love scenes we saw in the past season. Yes, this is an anime but when you can see someone actually feel conflict with themselves about their love whether it be their older than you like in Shu’s case with his teacher or one that you don’t know how to feel about like in Haru’s situation.
Nisekoi: handles love to the point where when it is shown, you can’t help but feeling something towards that character at that point; even Kosaki and backstory have some sort of charm to it. Nisekoi: has its comedy which can make you giggle from time to time. But as a romance anime it does its job decently, you can genuinely feel that emotion from the characters which allows for some of the one off episodes of Nisekoi: to be bearable. It’s charming, amusing and even sometimes very sad, Nisekoi: certainly did the romance part of its story very well.
The characters in Nisekoi are the focal point of the anime. The story takes a sideline as each character gets a sub story inside the main story so as to develop their characters through one off or two episode arcs which is fine. However out of the main characters, only one of them gets any real serious development and that girl is Chitoge. There are some other glaring issues with Nisekoi: especially in the character department besides this.
When we see Tsugumi again in this season, she still is the same awkward girl from last time and still likes Raku. The episode in question takes place to allow her to solidify her stance with where she is in the weird love triangle Nisekoi has created. In this we see her acknowledge that she loves Raku but she understands that Chitoge likes him as well and chooses to put aside her selfish desires and just be friends with Raku. This is a great way to change her character and make her into a companion of sorts for Raku on his misadventures. Unfortunately, this change isn’t exactly shown anywhere in the later episodes and in fact the only time it is even remotely shown is when Raku asks for advice from her. This of course is something a friend would do, but Tsugumi doesn’t seem to have changed whatsoever from that previous episode. This not only ruins her character, but makes having that episode illogical and irrelevant.
Another example of these situations are Kosaki , Paula and Haru.
Marika’s development is weirdly treated but the unlike with Tsugumi it works for her. The episodes of her are mainly for comic relief and showing just how crazy she can get. This fits with her character as a headstrong nutcase as nothing really can change her mind about who she loves and who she wants to marry, that being Raku. However, they do decide to touch on her personality and she is very aware of the blossoming relationship between Chitoge and Raku. This is a very nice moment because it shows how aware Marika is of the people around her. As a result of this, she creates a scheme to sabotage Raku’s relationship with every girl. This ignoring of events fits her character, but also acknowledges her selfishness. This change fits Marika while it doesn’t fit Tsugumi.
Kosaki, Paula and Haru are some of the worst characters because they are almost all sideline characters who get not even a smidge of development, yes even Kosaki who is supposed to be a main girl gets treated like this. Both Onodera sisters end up falling for Raku but the major issue with this is how both of them get treated differently. Kosaki gets an even worse arc than even her sister who isn’t even supposed to be a main character. The events of their result in Haru falling in love with Raku and her seeing him for the gentle and kind guy that he is, but does almost nothing for Kosaki and only makes her seem even more static that she already is. At least Haru gets some development and we can see her conflicting emotions, should she trust this guy who could be a player? Should she just fall in love with him? Or should she just leave him alone and let her sister make her moves on him?
This is a wonderful conflict as it makes Haru look more human and more likeable than her sister, which is sad because Kosaki ends up having nothing truly significant to call it development rather than a flashback to show why she fell in love with Raku and that’s about it which is just a reason and that’s about it.
Paula has almost no relevancy in the anime other than Tsugumi’s little arc. She provides almost nothing like Ruri and Shu to the story. Whilst Ruri and Shu are developed to deeply caring about their friends and know that they can only do so much; Paula is there simply for pandering purproses. There isn’t anything wrong with pandering, but if that’s her entire character, then what is the point of having her there in the first place?
While this is the case, this not the biggest flaw with the characters of Nisekoi: the greatest strength and flaw of Nisekoi: is Chitoge. While all the other characters are sidelined or not paid much attention to, we see Chitoge being the focal point for the entire season. Which is great, the series has finally learnt how to focus on one thing. We see Chitoge change from her brutish and gorilla-like behavior to an actual person with feelings and worries and fears. We see her actually cry and wonder about her part in Raku’s life.
This is her greatest fault however, because she is the only developed character like this and because of the magnitude of the development it overshadows Raku and all the other main characters. This means that you have lopsided character development for everybody. With only Chitoge really getting any spotlight everyone else really falls into the background even Raku himself as his only development is really realizing his partial feelings for Chitoge. As I’ve stated before with these main characters falling behind Chitoge it makes the anime more about her than about Raku and his quest for love. And ultimately causes majority of the characters to feel underdeveloped or almost not important, which for the main cast to feel like, isn’t a good thing at all.
Nisekoi:’s was certainly a big one as a lot of the visuals in the anime are superb. The character’s motions, facial reactions and flow of motion. With all the outrageous action that occurs in Nisekoi: it really does help give fluidity to the characters’ personalities. It isn’t just the visuals themselves that evoke emotions; the sound as well is the final puzzle piece to create the whole picture. It’s not just the voice actors emoting, but how the scenery looks and the sound that will inevitably suggest to you what you should be feeling at that moment.
▶ Video In this scene we hear a very slow and sweet piano piece along with the blooming of flowers and cherry blossoms. This is how we meet Haru. What this scene shows to us is a beginning as cherry blossoms can bloom in January; the start of a new year. The flowers blooming show us this too. The music gives us a very sleepy and relaxing vibe; as if this is a very happy and joyful time. The petals dance about in the air as the song grows more complex as if dancing along with the music. Then our character in the scene starts speaking. She’s a very young girl and as she’s going into a new school she herself is new to the experience at high school bringing in the entire feeling of new. Everything is new in this scene. As her excitement rises for the new experiences so does the song and in response the petals flow crazily matching the ‘rhythm’ of the scene. As the Haru’s excitement increases, so does the beauty and motion of the scenery and so does the song itself. This scene is essentially giving to us her hopes and dreams and her desires at the very end where the petals forming into a heart showing her hope for a new love or the love of her life.▶ VideoIn this scene we see a different feeling; for context, this pastry is to be for the season of autumn and it is supposed to encompass the feeling of that season. So as it begins we see the screen completely dark with only someone’s hands reaching and grabbing this strange orb and it turns out to be a sweet. After Onodera bites into and consumes the sweet her eyes begin to open, at that same moment a very energetic and light hearted violin begins to play. Sparkles are being heard as the camera zooms outwards to show her floating in the middle of the darkness; a strange light suddenly gets brighter and brighter around her as she is teleported into a new world. The song of autumn surrounding just as the falling leaves and wind twirls her around. This shows the events that usually occurs during the season; Kosaki is obviously enjoying it as soon she twirls around and faces the camera her arms outstretched as if trying to fly and laughing. This expresses how one might feel during this month where you can jump into piles of leaves and enjoy the slightly cold air as it slowly turns into winter. As quickly as this feeling comes it leaves her smiling again with the black backdrop symbolizing how quickly autumn comes and goes.
The expressive and symbolic nature of the visuals is what makes Nisekoi a joy to watch. Shaft understands how to have their characters emote and as well have their scenery express emotion itself. The animation alone could not do this, yes we can see the leaves twirling, but to hear the music along with it is what shows us feelings of autumn; the feelings they want us to feel. This is what makes a lot of Nisekoi:’s scenes because how would we know how to feel if not for the music and the lighting and flow of the animation? Without it, the show is nothing more than a manga slideshow.
Yes Nisekoi: certainly has faults as an anime plotwise and characterwise. The plot tries to be organized but ends up being just as disorganized as the first season and the characters are easily overshadowed by Chitoge herself leaving much to be desired from the other characters. What makes the anime worth a watch is seeing Chitoge grow as a character and seeing actual romance in Nisekoi that isn’t outrageous or unbelievable. There are some outlandish moments of course; but there is still a suspension of belief this time around. Coupled with the beautiful visuals and lovely sound it is well worth if you’re looking to finish up the rest of the adaptations or just want something you can make your guilty pleasure that isn’t that bad and isn’t that good either.
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