First Impression: Nisekoi Second Season

        Note to self: If a girl changes her appearance, even slightly, I must comment on it. Otherwise I’ll be punched into the stratosphere. Right?

        Nisekoi had a very popular first season, but popularity doesn’t mean anything to me. What really matters here is that I really liked the first season of Nisekoi. It had really great realistic interactions between characters and a premise that was based off of Romeo and Juliet, but still felt unique in its own right. If you haven’t seen the first season of Nisekoi, there is no reason for you to even consider watching the second season. If this is the case, go watch it now and come back to me later.  

The story continues on with the premise of a love polygon, but don’t write this off as your run-of-the-mill harem. The main character, Raku, has a childhood memory of a girl he fell in love with and promised to marry. The symbol of this promise is the locket wears around his neck and his soulmate is supposed to hold the key that will open it when they meet again. As the story progresses, we have 3 girls who could possibly have the key to open the locket, but the locket breaks and cannot be opened. Such is life.

Anyway, back to the point. This is the second season of the show which had a pretty good ending. I expected a big bombshell to drop to make the season more interesting. We get a reason to keep the show going, but it’s kind of lame and dull. I wanted some depth and reason to have a second season. From what I’m seeing in this first episode, the show might just become a slice of life with nothing good going for it except comedy and cute characters.

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Plot: 1/5- So I’m not grading what happened in the first season. Basically all that happens in this episode is Chitoge trying to get Raku to notice changes in her appearance, all from Chitoge’s perspective. There’s a minute to explain that the locket is still broken and can’t be opened yet, but the rest of the episode is about lip gloss, shampoo, nails, and ribbons. Do I think it’s cute? Yes. Would I watch the second episode if this was a standalone show with different characters? Not a chance. If anything, this felt like a bonus episode or an OVA. This first episode could have been just fine as a recap of the first season with a new development for each of the main three girls.

Art: 4/5- The art doesn’t seem to have changed from the first season, and that’s a great thing. Nisekoi’s art style is very well done and is just unique enough to be recognizable among other animes. I’m also a big fan of their jumps to more cutesy animation styles, and their blushies. We all like the blushies.

Sound: 5/5- They got LiSA to do their opening. That’s an automatic perfect score.

Overall: 3/5- Look, if this wasn’t Nisekoi, this episode would have been super lame. But I like Nisekoi and so does everyone else watching the second season. Maybe they’re aware of this and know that we’re going to like anything that has the Nisekoi characters in it. And that sucks, because objectively speaking, this episode’s plot was completely generic and not something worthy of anyone’s time.

        TL;DR: This first episode sucked, but it was more Nisekoi, and that’s all we want. Nisekoi is kind of like the return of the Twinkie. They came back smaller and not as tasty, but they are still Twinkies and that’s what we were missing.

         Bonus: You might have been wondering what team I’m on. I’m proud to say that I’m on #TeamMarika. Not because she shares the same family name as Tachibana Kanade from Angel Beats!, but because she is the one who really loves Raku. She’s waited her entire life to meet him again and tried to make herself the perfect lady just for him, even though he was happy with the girl she already was deep down. Also, unlike the other two, Marika knows exactly what she wants and will fight for it.

      Watch the first episode here.