Nisekoi is among the chief disappointments that I have read. What started out as a rather funny and enjoyable love triangle manga has become an extremely bloated and needlessly long marathon in which we see a dopey protagonist somehow steal the heart of every hot girl in the series. Now why I judge Nisekoi so harshly is because I know what it can be. At its height I thoroughly enjoyed the series, and part of me still legitimately cares about the story. But at this point the actual story is becoming a faint memory, replaced with extremely repetitive filler in which nothing is accomplished. Gravely disappointing to say the least.

Nisekoi's story is simple enough: Raku Ichijou is the heir to a yakuza gang, and is forced to "date" Chitoge Kirisaki, the daughter to the don of a rival gang. The reason behind it is to "keep the peace" between the gang and the yakuza. The only problem is that Raku has feelings for fellow classmate Kosaki Onodera. And from there we have our story. Now the premise for Nisekoi may be severely simplistic and cliche, but does little to ruin what is an enjoyable first third. It is nothing revolutionary or genre changing, but it is rather funny, light-hearted and cute. However, everything changes after a certain event in the story. After this point, story and character progression quite literally grinds to a halt. Since this point the readers have been forced through several filler arcs and many more "false flag" arcs, or arcs with seemingly important story implications that turn out to only be extremely short or entirely worthless. Now for many this may be tolerable, even enjoyable, but for many including myself Nisekoi is a shadow of its formal self. It may of been cliche, but it was enjoyable. Now its cliche and increasingly frustrating. A very poor mix indeed.

Character wise the manga was never anything to speak of, even before the aforementioned event. Raku is a standard romance protag: boring and devoid of real personality other than being "nice" and "hard-working". This is of course to allow reader immersion, creating a blank slate for all to impose themselves on. The girls are all neat and tidy stereotypes, ranging from the cute dopey one to the tsundere one to the energetic one to Haruhi (Chitoge). Before the "event", as i'll call it, there was a decent amount of character progression, with certain characters, or should I say character, noticeably treating others differently, signifying change and growth in personality. Since the "event" however, this has also ground to a halt. As is standard for filler, characters go through the motions every chapter, only to disregard the events of said chapter when they are next called upon. In this particular genre, character development is hard to find, but I've seen bad shoujo that do it better than Nisekoi.

Nisekoi's art is one of its strengths. While sloppy in bits early on, there are moments of great quality and for the most part is fairly consistent. As the manga progresses, the art grows continually better. The designs, though rather uninspired, are all neatly drawn and distinctive, so that no character looks the other. A fair job all around, not much to complain about here.

While I rag on Nisekoi immensely, a small part of me earnestly wishes for its return to quality. I still clock in every week to see what the manga has dished out. The only problem is that, for what seems like ages, I am always disappointed in what I find. Nisekoi is a manga that I will continue to read, but at this point its only to see how it ends, not because I take any particular enjoyment out of reading it. Yes, Nisekoi is truly-

3/10
Poor