Raku would lose his head if it weren’t attached to his body.
What They Say:
“Borrowing and Lending”
Chitoge faces surprising difficulties in her attempts to thank Raku for rescuing her. After discovering the true nature of Chitoge and Raku’s relationship, Onodera tries to muster up the courage to confess her true feelings for Raku.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I guess I never noticed it before, because these episodes have been largely singular. What I mean is that each episode only deals with the one subject (Raku losing is locket, swimming, among others). But this one has two completely separate stories that seemingly have nothing to do with each other than the intersecting characters involved.
In the first half, we get Kirisaki trying to say thank you to Raku for saving her in the pool. The misunderstandings that sprout out of it are some of the best bits of comedy I’ve seen in anime in a while (save for Seki-kun). Some of the best comedy, after all, are “zigging when you expect a zag,” to borrow from Film Crit Hulk. Further, “[It’s] subverting logic. It’s built on a turn.” And Nisekoi is great at doing that because Kirisaki can’t exactly say “Thank you” and apologize for hitting Raku over and over again and Raku can’t exactly interpret her convoluted words. Not only those moments, but Miyamoto trying to read Raku and Kirisaki’s relationship and Claude’s suspicion.
The second half is a lot more subdued and deals with Onodera trying to confess her feelings to Raku. As always, naïve me thinks that it’s actually going to happen! But of course it doesn’t. Of all things, a baseball flies through the window, cutting Onodera’s confession short. It’s heartbreaking (and glass shattering).
But paramount of a good episode is to make it thematically tie together. In this one, both Kirisaki and Onodera are struggling with just saying what they feel (admittedly, a theme of the show). Even though these two seemingly divergent stories seemingly have nothing to do with each other, they feel like they belong together because neither could really stand on its own.
In Summary:
Nisekoi is THIS CLOSE to something big happening between Raku and Onodera every episode and yet it never feels forced and it never feels overdone. Not just that, but they’re using a lot of the same delivery for their jokes but they’re still working. Simply the plotting, characterization, and delivery of the show are spectacular.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24 in. Vizio 1080p HDTV, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
