Better to have loved and lost…
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Naoshi Komi
What They Say:
It’s hate at first sight… rather a knee-to-the-head at first sight when Raku meets Chitoge! Unfortunately, his gangster father arranges a false love match with their rival gang leader’s daughter, Chitoge! However, Raku’s searching for his childhood sweetheart, with a pendant around his neck as a memento, and is surprised to discover three candidates with keyes: Chitoge, Onodera (his current crush), and Tachibana (the police chief’s daughter)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With some good but mostly familiar beats hit in this arc so far with Tsugumi, it’s a storyline that I can appreciate even if I don’t connect with it well. The whole servants that are so close to their master thing is a tried and true one in anime to be sure but it’s just so overdone and so common over the course of so many years that it doesn’t do much for me. Tsugumi’s not a bad character and I like that they mostly kept her interest in Raku as a kind of fringe and in the background thing for a lot of it. So having her starting to really come to terms with it, another sign of the series wrapping things up, wasn’t a surprise. It was just a matter of how they would do it because there are a couple of routes. But Komi for the most part looks to be going for amicable closure across the board.
And I can live with that. Life is made up of too much heartbreak and pain to really dig into it in a big way and manga fans tend to really not handle it well when their favorite characters have things go truly south on them, especially in this target age range. With Tsugumi having asked Raku what it is that she, as a “her friend,” is feeling, he’s pretty free in telling her that they’re all the telltale signs of love. And it’s easy to believe that he’d end up saying that since it’s true and it’s pretty obvious. Tsugumi’s not your normal late teenage here because of her position within Chitoge’s household and who knows how much she’s really been exposed to out in the world, even in terms of media consumption. So seeing her work through this realization has a naive kind of honesty about it that I can’t fault it for.
What I do like is that she does think that maybe there is some sort of chance with Raku based on what he says, what she’s feeling, and what Chitoge and Raku have said about their own relationship. And this leads to her really understanding in a surprisingly quick but strong way what it is that Raku and Chitoge are truly feeling for each other because she can see it in Chitoge’s expression and eyes. Having her “confront” her about it is wonderfully done because it does get Chitoge to admit what she’s gone through herself towards Raku, not realizing Tsugumi’s own feelings. Tsugumi’s reaction is spot on and I love that, awkward as hell as it is, Komi allows Tsugumi to have her own kind of true closure here in regards to Raku as well. It’s bittersweet but worked far better than I expected considering my minimal interest in her character.
In Summary:
Nisekoi draws another storyline to a close here in a sweet and solid way that makes me like Tsugumi more than I would have guessed from when she was first introduced. There’s a lot of internal dialogue going on here that helps to establish things, but there’s also some great time spent with characters talking to each other about things and being surprisingly honest with themselves and each other. It may not allow for a drawn out story (hey, that’s what the first two hundred chapters were for) but it makes for a far more interesting story where there are things happening and changes afoot. I’m definitely glad I dropped into this series amid the Marika arc because it’s delivering in spades with what’s going on, even with the weaker characters.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media via Weekly Shonen Jump from ComiXology
Release Date: February 22nd, 2016
MSRP: $0.99