Oct 9, 2021
To put it in short, Nisekoi is a wonderful rom-com. While there definitely is a bit of a lull midway through the series, the last five volumes are absolutely phenomenal. There's drama, angst, suspense which takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions, ending the series with a bang.
Usually, stories tend to lose focus at the end and just get worse, but Nisekoi did the exact opposite and just picked up speed and drama and appeal, and just became instantly better. Raku and Chitoge's relationship is probably one of my favorites and almost all the characters are amazing and each has their own quirks and
...
appeals.
While Raku's a little bland, he complements his bizarre friend group in perfect harmony. His nice-guy personality meshes well with Chitoge's moodiness and dramatics, while Shu complements him with his eccentric personality. Marika, who seems rather dislikable without context, is one of the best characters in the series. Her confidence and assertiveness really brighten up the series and her friendship with Chitoge is just amazing. I would usually hate her type of character, but surprisingly enough, she quickly become one of my favorite characters of all time. Komi really went all-out on the Marika arc at the end of the story and it was exquisite. Tsugumi and Ruri are also really awesome, too.
Even though Nisekoi is a comedy and many of the scenes are comically exaggerated, all the characters have depth and you can really see how they've grown at the end of the story. Their personalities haven't skewed but you can sense a lot of maturity as the story progresses. I feel like this isn't a good series to binge read, only due to the fact that you won't really be able to feel the characters grow as time passes by.
And then there's Onodera, Kosaki Onodera to be exact.
To put it simply, she ruins everything.
The thing about Kosaki is that she's just really boring, and every time there's a chapter centered around her it just feels like a waste of time. The other main and supporting characters of the series are all quite eccentric with a lot of personality that complements Raku's generic nice guy persona. Don't get me wrong, Raku isn't bland or anything–he just nice and a bit timid, but it works for him and I love him too. He has a few quirks–he's bad with animals but he still loves them and he's the son of a yakuza leader–he's not perfect. He displays a lot of emotions and works well with all the other characters because he's not so over the top (unlike them).
The issue with Kosaki is that her only personality trait is being "nice". The only thing she's bad at is cooking...but even so she's wonderful at decorating food. She lacks the flaws that make a character interesting. Raku's whole crush on her is a complete bore to read about since her only quality is pretty much that she's "nice".
To put it simply, she and Raku are both zeroes–they're not too over the top. Let's say Chitoge is an 8. If you put 0 and 0 together, you're still going to get zero–the couple just isn't interesting, they're just boring. If you add 0 and 8 together, it's going to be 8 so it's still going to be interesting. Chitoge and Shu and Marika and pretty much every one of Raku's friends have an interesting relationship together because one's a bit over the top and the other one's a bit timid. If you have two timid people nothing interesting is going to happen–they're just boring.
Throughout the series, I was waiting and waiting for Kosaki to do something interesting, but she never did. While the other characters are great, she's just boring and annoying, and just carries that boringness around with her everywhere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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