“You can't achieve anything if you don't make a move. Love is an all-out assault.” - Marika Tachibana

Nisekoi. A story of promises and love, and the development of love and relationships. My first impressions of this anime were pretty good, especially with a talented vocal cast doing the magic behind some of the main characters. The storyline was interesting and mysterious, and we were quickly introduced to what we should expect moving forward. As the story progressed though, it was soon apparent to me that i wasn’t going to get much progression on the storyline in Season 1. Instead, more characters were introduced and we got a bit more character development with them. I also noticed that this anime leaned more towards its comedy side instead if its romance side, because it was definitely full of funny moments and interactions. Overall though, how did it do? Well, lets see!

Art and Animation: 9.1/10

Is this much of a surprise? With a studio like Shaft, its very hard to notice any slip-ups in quality. Character designs were well animated, and we had also gotten those signature camera angles we all love from Shaft. The color palette was neither overused or lacking, but was well balanced for each scenario to add to the immersion. There weren’t any stiff animation problems that were obvious to me either, which is always a huge plus. When it came down to facial expressions and body language, Shaft had done a beautiful job in conveying the characters emotions and attitude through their body language and facial expressions. This is where Nisekoi was most consistent in my opinion, as we were able to see Shaft work their magic.

Storyline and Character Progression: 7.8/10

This is where Nisekoi fell off the most for me. In the beginning, things looked like they were progressing quite smoothly with the progression of the characters as well as the occasional addition of other characters. Soon though, it felt like we were getting a bunch of fillers that were neither important to the plot nor the development of any of the characters. Even the original goal of the entire anime: the locket, seemed to be just forgotten and insignificant at some points. It went from being a top priority and something special to the main protagonist, to something that could be left on the backburner and handled whenever. This change in behavior so suddenly was very confusing to me, and i just couldn’t get why it would change in priority so drastically. Sure, i could understand him getting to the locket another time, but outright just having little interest in opening it all of a sudden when you CLEARLY have the tools to get to the truth? This didn’t fit the main protagonists personality at all to me, with this wishy washy attitude. Also, while this anime did have its moments, it was definitely a more Com anime instead of Rom. There were plenty of funny moments to spare, and cute moments here and there too. As for the romance aspect of things, this too was mostly put in a comedic light. So there wasn’t much romantic progression in the first season of this anime. So if you like your Romcom with a bit more drama or spice, this may not be the one for you necessarily. As far as Character Progression goes, we do get a bit of it here and there. But its more-so focused and devoted to whole episodes. So when we get a sort of “filler” episode, thats all that it is. But when we get an episode on a character, its sole focus is on developing them more. Like i said earlier though, there isn’t much ROMANTIC progression. As this anime mostly handles romantic situations in a comedic light. This ultimately is up to preference, but i personally would’ve preferred to have the romance part of this anime the be handled a bit more seriously to add more depth to the storyline and situations.

Soundtrack and Audio: 8.6/10

This was balanced with both an average soundtrack and really great quality voice acting. The soundtrack was straightforward enough, and was great quality in some parts thanks to the help of ClariS. Nothing really AMAZING stood out though to be both emotional or memorable for me to drive the point home. As i mentioned earlier, i have almost no complaints when it comes to the quality of the vocal cast. They had succeeded in expressing sincere emotion when playing their roles. This is always such an important part of an anime in order to maintain or further progress a viewers immersion, so im glad they did such a great job with this.

Overall, Nisekoi had both its really strong points and obvious weak points. Despite all of this though, i believe this anime can be considered a classic in the Romcom genre because of how it executes all the usual tropes, cliches, and overall direction of storyline. Its still a good anime, but it just has some very apparent flaws that prevents me from fully investing myself into the storyline. If the storyline was handled a bit better in terms of priority and execution, im sure this anime could’ve been a truly memorable one. As for now though, this anime scores as right on the average line for me with an 8.5/10. It was by no means awful, but still had enough mistakes to be considered average to me. Thanks so much for reading this far, and i hope this helps paint a better picture of whether Nisekoi is your type of anime to watch. I’d definitely recommend it to someone in the romcom genre or just looking for a lighter romance storyline for sure. Until next time, see you in the next one!