To go back or forward.
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 a lot of manga series I’ll easily admit that I find them to get boring fairly quickly depending on the type of series it is. Nisekoi has fit into that realm before simply because a lot of the early material worked the familiar school romantic comedy material, though Komi brought some fun into it with the design work and the energy of it all. As I mentioned previously, what’s driving my enjoyment is that he’s actively shaking things up in a big way and that’s exciting because you want to see what’s going to happen next while not being sure of what’s going to happen. So many books are predictable for too long with character introductions, arcs, and entanglements that there’s nothing there to dig into.
Spending a chapter on how Raku was feeling upon realizing that Chitoge had left was fantastic as you could get into the kind of despair he was feeling and how it took him down significantly. With the school year now finishing out, he and Kosaki are skipping class for a bit to talk since she’s really concerned about him with how he’s been acting. It’s a kind of awkward scene, though well illustrated in a lot of ways, simply because the two are coming at the problem from different angles. Raku’s still a bit oblivious, though close to figuring it out, while Kosaki makes the leap of logic to understand it when the two talk and she learns how Chitoge was on the last day that Raku saw her. It’s not exactly a hard leap but a welcome one since she connects things so honestly and emotionally. That, combined with word from Chitoge’s father as he’s found out where she is, sets things in motion for a potential final showdown of some sort. It’s exciting even if we’re still sidestepping the whole Kosaki/Raku entanglement.
Thankfully, we don’t spend too long away from Chitoge as making that too big of a mystery would be problematic. Seeing that she ended up in New York City isn’t too much of a surprise as she’s staying with her mother, which means she’s working instead of just struggling with her internal issues. It’s interesting to see Chitoge presented this way since it’s out of our norm but she’s always been competent and smart and fairly worldly when you get down to it. There’s a lot to like in seeing the dynamic between mother and daughter because it’s more close friends in a sense, or even a little more mentor/student than traditional parent, but it works for them and helps to put Chitoge on the right path. That path being her making an actual choice about her future and what she wants to do. Does she want to go back to Japan and try and muddle through things or does she want to move forward to a new phase of her life. It’s not easy and it’s something that her gut is struggling with.
In Summary:
Nisekoi gas another solid chapter here that puts its focus on the core trio in different ways while showing us some of the paths forward. I really liked seeing Chitoge in this setting and how she comes across as it fits her past and how she can just settle in to do what’s needed. At the same time I really liked seeing the way Kosaki and Raku are struggling with being left without word and her figuring out what it was that may have happened. Komi continues to deliver installment after installment with great layouts, a solid flow for the storyline, and some very appealing backgrounds with details and designs that makes it feel all the more engaging. I’m still struggling with so many other books that are filled with white space that it takes me out of it, so a series like this just captures my attention all the more.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media via Weekly Shonen Jump from ComiXology
Release Date: April 18th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
