Nisekoi (2014)
[ニセコイ]
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo
Studio: Shaft
Starring: Koki Uchiyama, Nao Toyama, Kana Hanazawa
Episodes: 20
Synopsis:
The children of rival mob families pretend to be dating in order to avert a gang war.
Impressions:
I only knew this series from people griping about it, so I was somewhat reluctant to give it a shot. I quickly decided I was going to find this to be a bit of an exercise in frustration. The premise is fairly interesting and I think playing up the comedic angle was a good idea to keep things fairly light and enjoyable. There's a bit of a Ranma 1/2 vibe (even with Ken'ichi Ogata voicing our lead male's father), to the point where I was joking about the senior Ichijou making engagements for Raku left and right when he was a kid (and I wasn't too far off the mark). Speaking of lead male Raku, I like that he has a gimmick in the form of his superior cooking skills. It doesn't get used much, though. As for the lead female, if you don't like the violent and unreasonable tsundere archetype, you're not going to like Chitoge, though it is interesting seeing Nao Toyama play such a role. Her rival love interest Onodera is painfully passive to the point where you pretty much discount her as a serious contender even though she's the one Raku has his heart set on at the beginning of the story. If Onodera was a little more assertive and there was a genuine rivalry at work, that might have been interesting. Instead we get additional rivals with no real shot at the prize (though I did find myself partial to Tsumugi). There are some of the visual and stylistic hallmarks of Studio Shaft and director Akiyuki Shinbo, but it feels quite a bit more restrained than other works like the Monogatari Series or Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. Perhaps if Shinbo had a freer hand, it would punch up the material a bit. As far as romcoms like this go, it's hardly the best, but it's far from the worst as well. I'm a bit torn on how to rate this. I'll say give it a watch, albeit with some reservations.
Rating:
Watch It