Review
by Theron Martin,Nisekoi: False Love
Sub.Blu-Ray 4
Synopsis: | |||
While helping out as an emergency fill-in cook at Kosaki's family's confectionary shop, Raku winds up stuck there when a typhoon strikes, much to the private elation of each. Later, at a festival, Chitoge uses Raku as a means to get free food at stalls run by Raku's family's gang, though Raku – and others – have their hearts set on a special relationship charm. An ensuing trip to the beach leaves no one saying what's really in their hearts, and that and Chitoge's growing realization that she may actually be falling for Raku leads to tensions between the supposed lovers. Those tensions are a distraction as their class prepares to put on a rendition of Romeo and Juliet for the cultural festival, with Raku as Romeo and Kosaki as Juliet, a show that no one will soon forget. |
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Review: |
The fourth Blu-Ray release for Nisekoi covers episodes 15-20, which constitutes the final quarter of the first series. Unlike the ending of the second season, it actually makes one key progression in the relationship dynamics – i.e., getting Chitoge to admit that she may actually be genuinely in love with Raku rather than just faking it – and has a sense of resolution to it. That the final episode is one of the series' strongest definitely doesn't hurt, either. Much of these episodes consists of fairly standard love triangle-style relationship hijinks, where each of the three principal players is unable to frankly admit his/her feelings to his/her love interest and one of the girls (Chitoge) is oblivious to the fact that it even is a love triangle. Technically Marika could be factored into this, too, but she has nowhere near the impact in these episodes than she did in the third quarter. Here she just hangs around the periphery and occasionally proves a nuisance. The real meat of the story (such as it is) kicks in with the end of episode 18, where Raku fails to realize that the casual trading of insults that he and Chitoge have always had is not being taken casually by Chitoge anymore, as her feelings have changed. The remaining two episodes deal with the fall-out from that and Raku's attempts to mend their relationship while the whole affair with the play is going on. That leads to the actual presentation of the play, which takes up the first half of the last episode. Partly thanks to a lot of ad-libbing, it becomes one of the funniest, most off-kilter renditions of Romeo and Juliet that you are ever likely to see. Between that and the resolution between Chitoge and Raku, the series finishes on a high note. With the bulk of the content through these episodes being relatively mundane, the series has to fall back on its visuals to give it some juice and distinction from other harem titles. That it is well-equipped to handle, however, thanks to the creative effort from chief director Akiyuki Shinbo and his SHAFT animation team. Really, it is mostly the same shtick that they have been doing all along, such as background jokes/references; in this case, the two prominent ones are a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance of a Chucky-like doll from the Child's Play horror movies and more overt Attack on Titan references in the elaborate sand castle during a beach scene. Architectural designs, both inside and out, continue to stand out, including a floor pattern in one place in the cast's school which gives a ripple effect. Both the costumes for the play and the swimsuits for the beach scene are also sharp, and Kosaki looks darling in her “store girl” outfit, too. Although the animation is mostly pretty decent, it does have a few readily noticeable failures; in at least three places, animation which is supposed to make the characters look like they are moving through scenery instead makes them look like they are walking/running in place. Use of fan service is still mild and limited (virtually nonexistent outside of the beach episode, in fact), although the camera definitely likes to ogle the girls during the beach episode. The soundtrack remains equally active and creative. It continues to rely on a core set of themes but is very nimble about transitioning between them for comic effect and occasionally throws in a fresher one. New opener “STEP” by ClariS, which actually began as the closer for episode 14 and then became the regular opener with episode 15, finishes out the series, offering improved and updated visuals but a beat nearly identical to ClariS's first opener and an overall sound that is very similar. The closers offer a bit of a change from the original stream, however. Originally episode 16 had no closer and episode 17's was a repeat of episode 15's, but for this release the original closer for episode 20, “Imagination Diary,” is used for both of those episodes but with new, key-themed animation – and yes, that does mean that episode 16 ends up being extra-long. New closer “Hanaganomi” is used for episodes 18 and 19, with “Imagination Diary” in its original form being retained for 20. As with previous releases, there is no English dub and viewers have the option to turn the subtitles on or off. Irritatingly, though, opening and closing themes still are not subtitled, so you have to view their clean versions in the Extras to get the lyrics. The Japanese cast does a particularly good job through this stretch, especially Kana Hanazawa as Kosaki. The aforementioned clean opener and closer are the only on-disk Extras this time around. Physical Extras are the same format as last the last volume: a trifold mini-poster featuring Marika, a set of cards showing the ending art pieces from the original stream (including a sexy World Conquest Zvezda Plot take-off), and a Kosaki card for the Nisekoi deck of Bushiroad's Weis Schwartz card game. Interior and exterior case art, as well as slipcover art, all feature Marika. Towards its end Nisekoi does start to show the drama aspects that will become more prominent in the second series, but for now the comedy and timid relationship factors are still mostly what carry the series. The latter can get tiresome, but the former never does, making for a generally entertaining volume overall. |
Grade: | |||
Overall (sub) : B
Story : B
Animation : C+
Art : B
Music : B+
+ Presentation of Romeo and Juliet, several nice artistic touches. |
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