What They Say:
“Confirmation”
Chitoge tells Raku about the boy she made a promise with ten years ago. Raku admits that he, too, made a promise with a girl ten years ago. They decide to try and see if Chitoge’s key would open up Raku’s locket. But…
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I’m sure the subtitles were just playing around with what Raku and Chitoge were actually saying, but they translated it as “Show me the money.” Remember? From that movie Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. Anyway, in this context they use it to have Raku tell Chitoge to put the key in the pendant.
The imagery in this scene is extremely overt and represents exactly where these kids are at this stage in their emotional development. Which is a really fancy way of saying that the key is a penis and the pendant is a vagina. The key breaking shows that they’re not ready for this kind of physical relationship, but they are ready to get nearly that close to someone. High school kids, as I recall, are not ready for having sex, but they really want to. Some of them do it anyway and make mistakes that nothing’s going to change. But, through this scene, it shows that Raku and Chitoge aren’t ready, they will make those mistakes, but given that they are them and in a comedy anime instead of real life, something will go wrong, which is the turn. The turn makes the scene hilarious instead of touching or offensive or any other emotion, really.
Most importantly, we learn a few things about this promise Raku made. He talks to Chitoge’s dad and his own dad and a myriad of revelations are told. There’s two girls, Chitoge and Onodera, who have keys. And only one pendant. Chitoge’s key broke inside of Raku’s pendant and they don’t know if it worked or not. But Chitoge’s father is saying that the three of them used to play together ten years ago. Raku only remembers one promise, though, so who did the other girl make the promise with and who is the girl who made the promise with Raku?
This is moving things forward, finally. The biggest flaw I see in Nisekoi is that it’s holding this promise over our heads and just expecting us to go with it. Through characterization and comedy, it’s managed to keep my attention thus far, but it’s wavered a few times. Now, things are finally happening and we’re SO CLOSE to learning the mystery behind it all. Chitoge’s father remembered all three used to play together and Raku’s father even dropped that they have picture of “the little girl with the key.” He made an important promise with her. And we may finally learn!
This wouldn’t be Nisekoi is things were this smooth, though. The class is picking out pictures from their trip to get. The teacher, of course, teases them that they should get one of their crush, but anyway…Raku takes a photo of Chitoge down because Onodera is changing in the background. Her bra is visible. But when he runs into Onodera, he drops it. She picks it up, her thumb conveniently over the part of the picture with her in it. So who is Raku really in love with if he has a picture of Chitoge in his hands, she thinks?
In Summary:
Occasionally, I’ve been complaining about pacing in Nisekoi because it seems to just trying to be funny instead of move anything forward. Things are finally moving forward now and we might actually learn the secret behind this pendant and the show can move on to new and exciting things. Not that I don’t love what’s happening with the pendant, I do. But they sometimes beat the horse a little too hard with that storyline. It’ll be nice to see some other stuff go along with the great characterization in the show.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24” Dell UltraSharp U2410 set at 1920 x 1200, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
