Nisekoi – 18-20 [END]
A fitting way to wrap up the false couple’s spat.
Nisekoi is over so I guess that means I have to write something about it. Here goes.
And The Winner Is…
The stars… they shine so brightly!
So yes, you could say we got the open ending without any girl winning. But if you ignore the last quarter of the finale, I’d say Chitoge was the clear victor. That thing with Onodera was so obviously thrown in at the last moment just to pull back from a proper Chitoge ending, so I’m going to pretend that the show ended before that happened. In perspective, this means that all things considered, Nisekoi didn’t end on too terribly bad a note. Tsugumi never felt like a serious contender and also managed to take herself out of the running in the finale. Marika joined kind of late, and while she had some momentum, she just didn’t get enough screen time to secure a spot in Raku’s heart. So overall the winner is Chitoge. Sure, her relationship with Raku got a bit shaky in the last few episodes, perhaps to cement into our heads the cliche that “women are difficult creatures,” but the “fake” couple made up and pulled through in the end.
I’m honestly not sure why the past is relevant now considering the pendant has been conveniently disposed of.
I guess if we really must mention Onodera, she does come in as a close second purely because Raku continues to claim that he likes her. But I can’t consider her as proper competition because she’s too much of a pansy to make a move on the guy without the forceful aid of Ruri. So the win ultimately still goes to Chitoge. That said, Nisekoi manages to swerve sharply and avoid a completely open-ended conclusion (or lack thereof) by presenting a clear hierarchy to the girls and also by limiting the number of real potential endings to two. And again, this is only if we consider Onodera, which I would hardly do since she even requires the show to shove her in our faces so as to not make it such a one-sided victory for Chitoge. But we still know who won. Plus, we must never forget that by the laws of anime, the first girl always wins. And I think you’ll find that Chitoge was the first identifiable girl of the cast to appear on-screen.
So yeah, not much else to say about the show. Was I disappointed? Not really. I knew all along what I was getting myself into. That still doesn’t stop me from strongly pushing the RakuxChitoge ship though. Who says you can’t support a couple even in a show that has no end in sight? That kind of thinking only results from not fully appreciating the nature of shows like Nisekoi. Which is to say, they’ll lead us around by our noses and we’ll take it anyway because we’re all masochists for picking up the show to begin with. Bonus points if you also read the manga. Oh, and if you’re still wondering why I so strongly support Chitoge, it’s mainly because she was the only heroine in the one-shot that spawned Nisekoi. So in my eyes she’s still the true heroine; all other girls are just unnecessary baggage. Anyway, I’d write a longer post but I’d much rather read Molester Man so I’ll just leave it at that.
7/10
About Sumairii
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
Yeah. Good place to end the first season.
Unfortunately, I’ll bet real money there’s going to be a second season.
I have a real love hate relationship with this manga series. I just wish the author would get a freaking vision for where he wants this story to go, rather than dragging the story out to sell more issues.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think the vision is “dragging the story out to sell more issues”. If people are still buying it, and he doesn’t mind continuing to write it, then the merry-go-round it is!
POWUH: 800-899 and Mad Scientist with 814 comments
There’s a lot of debate as to whether Komi Naoshi has sold his soul to Weekly Shounen Jump or if he is being forced by the magazine to drag things out due to Nisekoi‘s popularity. But in any case, there is definitely an air of exploiting the manga for continued profit until enough people get fed up.
Those of us who read Medaka Box may recall that it went through something similar.
POWUH: iLurker with 19 comments
It was quite disappointing for me overall. So many cliche cards played, not enough progression in any sense.
Personally, I just kind of stuck around since I’m a sucker for cute characters/scenes. Nisekoi really made me think about what Shaft does as a whole, and I really want them to try some new things soon. They’re regarded as a very “avant-garde” studio, but something is only avant-garde when it’s actually new. If there was anything good to come from my sit-through of Nisekoi, it’s that I was reminded to unearth one of my very first series “Negima!?”, of which I had never really considered to be Shaft (probably because I had no idea of popular studios at that age).
I ended up giving it a 5/10. To be entirely honest, I’m glad I didn’t see an S2 announcement at the end of it all, but it’s not something I absolutely dreaded, like Kyoukai no Kanata.
POWUH: 800-899 and Mad Scientist with 814 comments
In my eyes, Shaft has only recently gained a misguided reputation for taking on “avant-garde” projects. Sure, this might be exemplified by franchises such as Madoka and Monogatari, which arguably propelled what used to be a “more traditional” studio to stardom. But I still remember the days when Shaft made plenty of “usual” stuff like Rec and Moon Phase, which were great in their own right despite not garnering the same attention for being “special.”
So at any rate, I find the demand for Shaft to continually take on avant-garde shows to be a rather unfairly posed expectation. They will simply do what they want, as they have always done. And every once in a while they might wow us, just like any other studio.
I do have to agree I’m glad there are no immediate plans for a second season though. I don’t think I would even consider watching any more; the manga is enough punishment for me. =)
POWUH: iLurker with 19 comments
There is a lot more Shaft dislike in the community than I initially expected. I can’t say I dislike or especially like them myself.
As I mentioned, being a studio that stays on top of new concepts and visuals is nice, but Shaft’s currently established style is no longer “avant-garde”. It’s an avant-garde style that has been sapped to death over a period of almost 10 years, if I would place the starting point around Pani Poni Dash back in 2005.
I’ve had a few friends that say the manga is especially torturous. I fear what devastation that would bring.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Initial Nisekoi annoucements said an anime-original character, Mimiko, designed by Komi Naoshi himself was to be used for the show, but apparently it was never implemented.
http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/04a5c9d5502a9d7f52549c680930994a1373370425_full.jpg
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 110 comments
well yea finish watch this sure whole he said & she said of raku-chitoge been most of going on series.
sure give onodera been 2nd place,marika 3rd, & tsumugi on 4th yet give harem route still go if recall ova on way?
yet series it did ok of sorts sure recall many face designs on it.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Knowing from the very beginning that this was going to be a merry-go-round made it a lot easier to take, since you knew that every time someone would make progress, they’d go grab the idiot ball and screw it up somehow, or something “completely random” would happen to interrupt.
I never had much hope for Tsugumi, and her place in the second OP really confirmed that she was more just the non-random girl who has no chance. I had hoped for more from Marika, and for a while she looked like a promising candidate, but she quickly got a bit too flanderized, and gave up any character development that she had.
The show did a very good job with developing Chitoge throughout, and just the fact that it took her from the symbol of bad things through to a symbol of good things was a good job. Of course, neither Raku nor Chitoge could actually be honest with themselves throughout, although Raku did start realizing that she was a lot nicer than his initial opinion of her would allow for.
Kosaki and Raku’s interactions just got too formulaic. Can two people be THAT unable to speak their feelings? It’s not that Kosaki couldn’t do anything without Ruri shoving her. It’s more that even *with* Ruri and Shuu trying to get them to move on it, they wouldn’t. It also would have been nice if they had turned the tables a little bit between Chitoge and Kosaki. Instead of every setup being “Raku is going to do something with Kosaki, but then something happens and he has to go to Chitoge” it would have been nice to instead disappoint Chitoge with something like that.