What will become of this unlikely couple?
What They Say:
Raku, the son of a Yakuza boss, is a high school student who meets a transfer student named Chitoge in an unfortunate way. Because of her, Raku loses the locket that was given to him by his girlfriend a long time ago. Will they be able to find the locket?
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Originally published as a one shot in Jump NEXT! by Shueisha, and then into Weekly Shonen Jump, Nisekoi is a now-10 volume manga about an unlikely love between two rival yakuza gangs. Viz picked up the manga for their Shonen Jump digital services, but I bought the subscription when Nisekoi was up to its 90-something chapter.
But now, three years after its original publication in Jump NEXT, Akiyuki Shinbo and his guys at SHAFT are making it into an anime. The animation is typical SHAFT with gorgeous backgrounds and a lot of quick cuts and lingering shots (more on that to come). And, in the hands of Shinbo, I have faith that it’ll at least be entertaining.
Nisekoi starts with flashback framed in an old film reel-style, with a promise about a locket and marriage. But like all things, the film reel breaks away and we return—or I suppose go for the first time—to the present where Raku is cooking for his yakuza family.
So Raku is your typical, down-on-his-luck high school student that’s never lucky with the girls…until today! When a crazy, backflipping girl with toast in her mouth jumps over a fence and knees him straight in the face. I imagine she’s the rival gang member he was warned about.
Each introductory shot, like with Onodera or when the crazy, face-kneeing girl walks into the classroom, lingers for a few seconds too long. It’s trying to show each of the characters in action, even if that action is turning around. It worked with Raku since he was cooking and it was an entire sequence, but it calls back to the strange directing behind Bakemonogatari, without the cutaways.
The two have the perfect fixings for being extremely generic and boring in the typical traps of anime romantic comedy, but it’s actually working. From the get-go, Raku has a just enough more personality and backstory to be a more fleshed out character than most of the bricks that lead harem shows. For now, Chitoge is a little too generic and “anime girl-y” to be great (she’s even got the defining feature of red hair tie) and shots linger a little too long on her womanly parts; granted, shots linger on all the girls in the class during the few minute P.E. scene.
Chitoge has been a little cheeky throughout the entire episode, and she gets into a huge spout with Raku when she just gets sick of searching for his stupid locket. Right on cue, some (kind of bad CG) rain starts to come down, perfectly symbolizing their sadness—which is kind of the brilliance of the show, that they’re taking these tropes and throwing them in our faces while admitting that they’re dumb. But it’s the next scene that really speaks a lot to Chitoge as a character, as she stays behind and searches for the locket after Raku leaves and finds it. Sure, she pitches it into his face with a perfect fastball, but she found it and that’s kind of sweet of her.
What turns out, following the events of the entire episode, are perhaps exactly what you expected. But it’s the art, character designs, and direction that really make the scene work. It’s emphasized by a prior scene with Onodera, while Raku was having a locket pitched at his face.
In Summary:
It’s hard for me to say whether this is good or bad yet. A bad story can hide behind competent direction (and this is good direction) and feel good. This isn’t a bad story, but it’s been tread on over the years several times and only time will tell if it falls into the same stupid traps that other harem shows do. For now, it’s just always going to be fun to watch SHAFT do their thing with some beautiful backgrounds and above average character designs.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: PS3, 32 in. Olevia 720p TV