Swooping in to make a reveal!
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):
The push towards a choice has been an exciting part of Nisekoi for a few months now and Naoshi Komi has worked things well so that it wasn’t a constant drumbeat. We got a lot of side stories presented and a sense of closing things down in order to focus on the core trio. Now that things are getting ever closer to some sort of potential resolution, we’re seeing the return of some of these sidelined characters as they in their own way want to be involved in that final choice. They’ve had their own layers of involvement for quite some time so it’s only natural – to some degree. Part of me really wishes it was just kept to the core trio and their discoveries as they return to this place after far too many years.
The chapter is largely split into two parts with a dash of Onodera making her way towards where Chitoge should be. The opening piece is given to Claude and his attempt at stopping Raku from ruining Chitoge’s life, only to be interrupted by Tsugumi. Tsugumi knows that her own path with him has long since closed but she’s loyal to a fault when it comes to Chitoge, so seeing her shove Raku off to find her and leave Tsugumi to deal with Claude is good. Claude has the typical “old man who knows what’s best” mentality going on here and is forceful about it as he tries to convince Tsugumi that he’s right. But after all that she’s been through you know it won’t work and this is just a solid delaying action to add a little more tension and drama. It’s a nice nod to bring Tsugumi back and it leaves me hopeful she’ll just destroy Claude as I really dislike the character.
What’s a little more interesting is that as Raku makes his way, he comes across the house where Marika was in convalescence ten years ago when he used to visit her. That brings up memories to be sure, but it’s Marika’s dropping in via helicopter that just draws you out of the situation. Yeah, it’s accurate to her, but the book has been working really well to keep things grounded since Marika’s arc ended and this just took me out of it. I do like the interactions between the two, though I wonder how heavily invested fans will feel about her admitting that she’s lied all this time about the childhood promise and that she knows it was never made with her. That she knows the truth isn’t a surprise, but I like that she makes an honest play for him here in all the right ways and he stands up and makes it clear that as much as he does love her, she’s not his choice. It’s a very good and well done moment for Raku.
In Summary:
While Nisekoi irks me just a bit here because of some of the elements it brings into it, it does a lot of things that I like. Tsugumi standing up for what’s right here, for Chitoge to face things and make her own choices and deal with them, and to see Marika making an honest play for Raku along the way – even if it is by helicopter. While I’d like to keep things closer to the main trio, what we do get here is solid and Komi continues to deliver with his assistants a weekly book that has all the right looks about it with flow, backgrounds, and layouts. I love the look of this series as it definitely stands out well compared to the traditional video of shounen titles.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media via Weekly Shonen Jump from ComiXology
Release Date: May 31st, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
