~The Promised Girl
Nisekoi is a story about a promise. What this promise is exactly and who all is involved is what the entire series revolves around.
Our story begins with Yakuza heir Ichijo Raku sometime between spring and summer in his first year of high school. Following typical anime cliches he has a chance and violent encounter with a girl who happens to be the new transfer student: Kirisaki Chitoge. Raku, like any high school boy, has a crush on a girl. However, that causes issues when various and largely irrelevant plot elements force Raku to be in a fake relationship (Nisekoi means fake love) with Chitoge.
Nisekoi is largely a harem show. So, like any harem show the largest strengths lie in the characters. First and foremost we have our male lead Ichijo Raku. Raku is a kindhearted individual who is easy to like but hard to relate to. He does what you would expect from a male protagonist but is able to feel unique though within the genre to be refreshing.
The girls all fill common niches and talking about them too much could potentially spoil things. So I'll make this light. First up is Chitoge, your classic tsundere with a foul mouth. However she is thoroughly entertaining. She has the most development out of anyone in the show. Her interactions with Raku are some of the best I've seen outside of Monogatari. They aren't as memorable individually but each one is quite hilarious.
Onodera is the timid girl with a crush. Onodera is easily one of the best and worst aspects of this show. The way her development and progression is handled is enough to make you want to pull your hair out. However, she is still enjoyable to watch whenever she is on screen.
There are two girls added later on but they have absolutely no contribution to the plot of the anime in any way shape or form, other than to simply boost numbers in the harem.
Nisekoi is a harem that knows it's a harem, often making fun of other harems. The plot feels gimmicky at times, and the pacing can be frustrating. However, if you can look past all of that and accept the show for what it is it's quite enjoyable.
The art and animation is typical Shaft, mirroring the Monogatari series in many ways as far as style goes. Everything looks great. The backgrounds are crip, the characters look beautiful, and the animation is fluid. Considering how undetailed the manga was Shaft did a phenomenal job bringing this anime to life.
The soundtrack on the other hand is pretty mediocre outside of the OPs and EDs. Each track is able to add emotion to the scene but none are particularly well done enough to enjoy on their own.
The anime however does come with it's own share of issues. Being a manga adaptation many things are bound to be lost or cut. Some of these severely hampered the show. First and most obvious are the two girls added later on. Each one has lost many of their individual chapters making them simply feel like numbers in a harem rather than a compelling characters to move the plot forward. To go along with this many chapters explaining Chitoge's development were also removed making the events in some scenes lose their impact.
Overall Nisekoi is a very good anime, easily my favorite harem. It does have it's faults and it ends with the promise being entirely unresolved but there is hope for consecutive seasons.
Nisekoi is a show that completely surprised me, and now I find myself wanting more.
