Nisekoi

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: ニセコイ

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 25

Chapters: 229

Status: Finished

Published: Nov 7, 2011 to Aug 8, 2016

Genres: Comedy, Romance

Themes: Harem, School

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

Authors: Komi, Naoshi (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.72¹ (scored by 110,794 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1597²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #37

Members: 194,578

Favorites: 13,330

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Wikipedia

7.72

Ranked #1597Popularity #37Members 194,578

MangaShounen Jump (Weekly)Komi, Naoshi (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /25

Chapters: /229

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Synopsis

When Raku Ichijou was young, he made a heartfelt promise to his childhood friend that if they were to meet again, they would marry each other. Ten years have passed since that fateful day, leaving Raku's memory of her faded. But he still holds a relic of their relationship together—a locked pendant, which his childhood friend holds the key to. He hopes to reunite with her one day, despite not remembering what she looks like.

Now a first-year student at Bonyari High School, Raku attempts to live a normal life, dreaming of becoming a public servant and marrying his crush Kosaki Onodera. However, this isn't as easy as it seems, as he is the unwilling heir to a large yakuza family, and Raku can't escape from his duties when the American Bee Hive gang wages war on his family's turf. In order to forge peace between the two feuding families, Raku is forced into a fake romantic relationship with Chitoge Kirisaki, the beautiful daughter of the Bee Hive's leader. The two quickly come to hate each other, but have to learn to live together and pretend to be deeply in love in order to keep their families at bay.

However, Raku's quest for the key to his pendant isn't becoming easier as more girls—who were all involved with his pendant in some way—enter his life. Join Raku as he juggles his false relationship, maintains the balance between warring families, and unravels the identity of the girl who will unlock his heart.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Nisekoi was published in English as Nisekoi: False Love by VIZ Media under the Shonen Jump imprint from January 7, 2014 to January 2, 2018. It has been published in Italian by Star Comics since March 1, 2014; in Spanish by Ivrea since April 4, 2015; and in Indonesian by Elex Media.

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Related Manga

Other:	Koi no Kamisama, Ore Koi!!, Haikyuu!!, Minna no Kochikame
Side story:	Nisekoi: Urabana, Nisekoi Bangai-hen: Ticket
Spin-off:	Magical Pâtissière Kosaki-chan!!
Adaptation:	Nisekoi:, Nisekoi: OVA, Nisekoi, Nisekoi OVA

More characters
Characters

Onodera, Kosaki

Main

Kirisaki, Chitoge

Main

Ichijou, Raku

Main

Tsugumi, Seishirou

Supporting

Tachibana, Marika

Supporting

Maiko, Shuu

Supporting

Onodera, Haru

Supporting

Miyamoto, Ruri

Supporting

Kanakura, Yui

Supporting

Sasaki, Ryuunosuke

Supporting

Reviews

Aug 1, 2023

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A manga with a good cast and solid romance, but that drags on too long and feels intentionally frustrating.

Nisekoi is a rom-com centered around how the protagonist, Raku, and a girl named Chitoge are forced to date each other despite hating each in order to help calm the conflict between their two families. In a way I guess this is kind of like Romeo and Juliet, in that it features a couple whose respective families hate each other. But I think of it more like a reverse Romeo and Juliet, because instead of the couple wanting to date and the families being against it, ... the couple doesn’t want to date and the family’s leaders are for it. Instead of trying to hide the fact that they’re in love and meet secretly, they have to hide the fact that they aren’t but having to put on a show of being in love openly.

However, in addition to that there’s a plot thread surrounding what happened in Raku’s past. He made a promise with a girl that he was in love with as a kid that when they grew up they would get married, and as proof of that promise Raku got a lock pendant and the girl was given a key. However, he doesn’t remember who that girl was at all and thus is essentially just looking for a girl with the key to his pendent. The thing is that there are multiple girls with keys that remember a promise like that, none of them seem to actually remember who they made the promise with, and furthermore the lock Raku has seems to be broken so they can’t simply use the keys to check.

To be frank, the plot in the manga was pretty weak. A seemingly core element of the manga is that Raku’s family is yakuza and Chitoge’s family is American mafia which is why the two are in conflict, but that very rarely matters. Early on there’s this thing about how it’s hard for the two to make friends due to their families, but that gets pushed past really quickly. Nothing yakuza or mafia related ever happens. There are supposed assassins but they never assassinate anyone. Eventually a girl connected to the police force and a girl connected to a Chinese triad come in as well. But still, nothing serious happens. Beyond the fact that everyone is super rich, it’s all just aesthetic. It’s actually kind of bizarre how it never plays into anything at all and no one seems to care. Still, I’m fine with manga that aren’t plot focused and rom-coms especially are generally better that way, so while it is disappointing that something that had potential wasn’t used, I don’t see it as a negative.

What was a bigger issue is the other core element, the plot line involving the key and lock. While not having a plot I don’t think is a negative, having a bad plot I think certainly is. And while I don’t think the plot is bad necessarily, the way it was told most certainly is. The problem is that is moves incredibly slowly while still constantly being at the forefront. It’s constantly throwing in details that feel like they’re pushing forward in solving the mystery but there’s rarely ever actually any progress. Rather, after it seems like new information is learned, it’ll pretty much always introduce further new information that results in the information previously learned not actually mattering and things being just as mysterious as they were before. It’s frustrating and annoying and wholly unnecessary.

Still, even with the weak plot, the majority of the manga is just the cast living their lives while attending high school so the cast is able to hold up the manga pretty well. Raku is dense and indecisive, but the manga manages to write him pretty well as a good person that genuinely cares about everyone around him so as far as dense and indecisive protagonists go, he’s a pretty great one. None of the heroines are all that deep, but they all have pretty solid personalities and are all written to be pretty likable, so it’s pretty likely that most readers will end up fond of at least one of them.

The problem is that though there are definite highs and lows, overall things just get too repetitive. While the cast is all pretty likable, no one has a character arc. There are maybe hints of character development here and there, but not enough to matter much in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore, while the cast are likable, they have a very rigid role in the story and they never really step out of it. They’re always in similar situations which they respond to in similar ways without anything too wild ever happening. It becomes immensely predictable and to a degree dull. A lot of the comedy is also rooted in this, and thus while the comedy is decent enough per se, it too starts feeling repetitive and dull. This may not have been a problem when reading it weekly as it came out, but when binge reading it in around a week, I started to feel burnt out on the whole thing.

Still, the romantic aspect I think was handled decently enough that in the grand scheme of things, the manga came out okay. Half of the heroines don’t have a relationship arc, they’re just in love with Raku from before the manga started and remain in love with him. The other half have relationship arcs, but only one felt like it actually fleshed things out properly and was well written. Still, the manga does manage to write all of them being in love and all that fluffy stuff pretty well so everyone’s story is pretty amusing. The one exception that was especially well written was Chitoge’s relationship arc. While her character doesn’t change much over the course of the series, her development of bonds with the other heroines as well as her bond with Raku is really well written and she’s at the center of a lot of very impactful moments.

The final stretch to the manga also culminates with a heroine getting picked so I’m sure some will be disappointed that their favorite wasn’t. But although it’s somewhat uncertain for most of the manga, during the final stretch it builds up to the conclusion over time in such a way that it felt really obvious long before it got there and regardless of outcome and was also fair to all of the heroines and hits strong emotional beats with all of them. Thus, I feel it was handled as well it possibly could be and I found it a satisfying conclusion.

The art I felt was too dull. The quality was decent enough and it could be kind of fun with facial expressions. But just in general even for a manga centered around high school, it just felt too plain and like it was never doing anything interesting or trying to look especially nice. In hindsight I feel that may have been a core part of what led to the manga feeling so repetitive.

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Jun 16, 2023

NightWig

Mixed Feelings

Starting off by saying I love this manga. At least most of it. It's a wild comedy with good humor and that's basically it for the good things. But some stories doesn't need much else to be good. The story is a twist on the typical romance comedy with the utilization of the fake love aspect. There are some stories that do this and do it well, and this one kinda does to an extent.

Let's talk about the story. It's not deep. But it doesn't have to be. It focuses on the comedy rather than the story and while there is progression in the ... story and some development it doesn't really get that deep. The fake love with the main character (the man) is in love with someone else and that's basically it for almost all chapters. The story is more character based than story based and that's fine.

Speaking of let's talk characters. They're fun, unrealistic and clichéd. But it works for the most part. Certain characters, like Tachibana Marika, do come across as more annoying than funny and in some scenes it just feels forced and criminal. But the main character just accepts Tachibana's actions which is even more infuriating. And that brings me to the main character, who is halfway to a decent character for the story. A dense, rather dull boy who just happen to be involved in humorous happenstances. He works as the lead and I don't have a lot to criticize there except that his kindness, which in some circumstances would be better classified as gullibleness, borders on unrealistic to the point of ridiculousness, and not in the good way. The rest of the characters are fine, shallow but fine. The two side characters Ruri and Shuu are the only ones I felt had a real feeling to them, the rest were just characters.

If we just look at all what I have written it would be a solid 8/10 manga because it doesn't need to be deep, it's a funny comedy and that's what the focus was. The problems and why it landed on a 6/10 comes in the later chapters. I'll try to explain without giving up spoilers by being rather vague. The author clearly had in mind an ending for this manga, and you could see it in the story throughout that if the author followed clichés and tropes there was only one ending. But for this to work, there had to be development and the author managed with a few characters to make it seem natural. But one character, the main character, did not have a natural development of his character which rather than make the ending rather alright even though I wouldn't say ideal, it instead became a frustrating mess. This makes it so that instead of this manga being remembered as a great manga, it will stand as a disappointment.

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Sep 2, 2022

NapoJefferson

Not Recommended

English (Translated with www.DeepL.com)

The great enemy of Nisekoi is its overlength. It lasts longer than it should, in itself, the base is interesting enough to have given a good story, of reference we have the One Shot, which in its few pages reaches the same conclusion as its serialized counterpart after more than 200 episodes "What the One Shot does not have this tangled plot of discoveries and revelations?” Better

The story when not engrossed in its repetitive arcs or weekly filler, is focused on the mystery surrounding the girl with the key. Of course there was interest at the time in deducing who the promise ...

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Manga 'Nisekoi' Gets Special Chapter

The 2nd 2019 issue of Weekly Shounen Jump magazine has announced on Monday that Naoshi Komi's Nisekoi will have a special chapter released on 3rd 2019 issue of...read more

Dec 9, 2018 8:25 AM by tsubasalover | Discuss (34 comments)

Manga 'Nisekoi' Gets Live-Action Movie

This year's 20th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shounen Jump announced a live-action movie adaptation of Naoshi Komi's Nisekoi (Nisekoi: False Love) manga...read more

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Recent Forum Discussion

Where to start reading after the anime? BadSenpai - Sep 26	6 replies	by chunkybovi »» Yesterday, 3:59 PM
Poll: Nisekoi Chapter 229 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Aug 4, 2016	297 replies	by Tribbiy »» Sep 3, 9:26 AM
Coping with the last scene of the manga imissnisekoi - Jul 27	10 replies	by asztalosdani »» Jul 28, 4:52 AM
Poll: Nisekoi alternative ending xEzioAuditore - Aug 9, 2016	28 replies	by luisfunes99 »» Jun 21, 10:49 PM
The reasoning the author gives for choosing... is meh [SPOILERS] ( 1 2 ) diu613 - Jul 20, 2016	95 replies	by plebbityplob »» May 20, 9:40 AM

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