Nisekoi is the ULTIMATE Love Story

Nisekoi is a story about false love. This should be frankly obvious, given that that’s what the name literally translates to. This also should be obvious given the premise of the series, as it details the dilemma of the yakuza heir Ichijou Raku and daughter of a mob boss Kirisaki Chitoge as they are forced into a fake relationship to prevent an all-out war between their clans. However, what is not obvious is that this isn’t the type of “false love” that the series is talking about. Though it is the catalyst that sets the events of the story into motion, the fake relationship that is the basis of this story is far from one that ends with a love that is even remotely false. 

Nisekoi is about false love, but is also about what it means to find real love.

For Ichijou Raku, he had only two experiences with what he could consider love. In his heart, he held the memory of a promise he made when he was a child, under a starry night with a girl whose face and name he could not remember. They promised to one day meet again, no matter how long it took, connected by the locket on around his neck and the key that she held. When they met again, they would marry, and from that point in they were bound by the promise held within that locket that Raku still carried around with him into his high school years. That girl that he made a promise with was his first love.

His second experience with what he would consider love was far more current, as that was between him and a girl that he had liked for a long time, and who liked him just as much. Since middle school, Ichijou Raku and Onodera Kosaki were drawn to each other, yet they refused to do anything about it. For fear of rejection, for fear of the responsibility that those feelings held and the consequences that they entailed, the distance between them remained despite how much they wanted it to shrink. Neither one was aware of the feelings the other one held for them, and for four years they remained art arm’s length, never moving closer yet never drifting away, their feelings locked in their hearts and never advancing.

Nisekoi presents us with these two forms of “love” that Raku is familiar with: a fond memory that he keeps in his mind and a feeling that he longs to advance yet keeps distant for fear of rejection. As such, his world forever remained still, unmoving and comfortable. He had issues with the life that he was living yet never considered what was ahead of him, thinking only about the past held within the locket on his chest. Love for him was something distant, something he only ever knew as he watched it from afar. He was comfortable spending those days with his friends as he dreamed of one day finding the promise girl and maybe someday forming a relationship with Kosaki, but that was a long way off. What’s the rush?

But you can say this about love: while it may take the form of a memory or a relationship that holds comfort in distance, the kind of love that many would consider true love isn’t anything like that. For a love that’s considered true, most often it’s not something distant or comfortable.

Sometimes it hits you out of nowhere.

Unlike Kosaki, Kirisaki Chitoge despised Raku and he hated her back. She was annoying, he was uncool, she was a brute, he was a beansprout, she was energetic, he was easygoing, she was passionate and he was unmotivated. The two were nothing alike except for one thing: they were both placed with heavy expectations as the heirs of their respected gangs. The daughter of the Beehive and the yakuza heir, both of them surrounded by highly protective and violent thugs and judged by others because of it, neither of them really had friends nor were they able to live life easily. Despite all of their differences, it was readily apparent  that Chitoge and Raku both understood that one thing about each other. But…that wasn’t enough to make them like each other. And their situation that would be the result of their feuding parties didn’t make that any better.

Once again unlike Kosaki, the distance between Raku and Chitoge was anything but distant. They were forced into a fake relationship else their rivaling gangs would destroy each other, removing any ounce of their personal lives and privacy that they had as they were forced to get along and pretend to be in love. The love that they portrayed outwards was most definitely fake, but what started to grow between them in that lack of distance was anything but. Chitoge was loud, airheaded, violent and emotional, but as Raku found through their time together, she was also extremely caring, desperate to make friends, passionate, and…cute when she wants to be. Raku was oblivious, weak and unmotivated, but as Chitoge found out, was also extremely kind, always there for his friends, thoughtful and…maybe sometimes capable of being pretty cool. What was growing between them, while they didn’t know it at the time, would eventually also turn into love.

What’s interesting is that every girl that would come into Raku’s life, be it the cool tomboy Tsugumi Seishirou, the extremely obsessive and passionate Tachibana Marika, the young and protective Onodera Haru and the loving and kind Kanakura Yui, all represent an aspect of this thing we know as love. Tsugumi never understood what love was, let alone be able to express her femininity in the first place, but only understood the protection and dedication she had towards Chitoge and the frustrating feelings she had towards Raku. Marika was nothing but a ball of burning passion who threw her everything at Raku despite his constant rejections, so dedicated to him that she conformed herself and changed who she was to appeal to him. Haru wanted her older sister to be happy yet couldn’t hide from the feelings she had no matter how hard she tried. Yui couldn’t separate the feelings of love she had for Raku both as his older sister and as a woman. The one similarity amongst all of these different aspects, though, is Raku. Raku was the catalyst for this feeling that grew within all of them, but that catalyst didn’t just give them love…it changed them.

It was because of Ichijou Raku that Tsugumi felt as if she was actually a girl, that she could be her own person and do what she wanted. It was because of Raku that Marika from such a young age found a light in the darkness that was her life. It was because of Raku that Haru was able to distinguish herself from her older sister and do something not for the sake of her sister but also for herself. It was because of Raku that Yui was able to find a relationship and hope in this dark world of crime and expectations that she was forced into. Raku was the catalyst for their change, and the cause of that change was their love for him. But…for that change to occur, love must be accepted and faced wholeheartedly, something our players on this stage were unable to do at first.

Despite Tsugumi feeling more feminine, for a long time she was unable to accept who she was or find confidence in herself as she ran away from those feelings and put her dedication to Chitoge first and foremost. Marika felt so much love for Raku and expressed it, but she was unable to push as hard as she could, always making a show of everything, putting on a face, a persona that she built for Raku to love instead of showing herself for who she was.. As honest as everyone thought she was, she still held back. Haru wanted to find her prince, but her older sister’s happiness took priority. Yui wanted love, but wanted to keep her loved ones happy more than anything else. Chitoge couldn’t find the courage, Kosaki was afraid of the change…and Raku couldn’t find the strength in himself to cast aside his indecisiveness. While Raku brought them change, they couldn’t truly evolve unless they faced that love head-on. They would be stuck as they are, accepting the circumstances they had been given simply because “that’s just the way things are.” To accept stagnation, to constantly live in this limbo, this unfinished game that would never end, a ride constantly going in circles…a play with no end. A story with a conclusion they feel they need to accept; that they have no choice but to accept.

Nisekoi takes heavy inspiration from fairy tails and fiction, most notably and obviously from the tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”. In fact, the story that drives the motivations of Raku and the girls “Zaswe in Love” itself is a tragedy, a tale of a prince and four princesses who are bound together by destiny. Three of those girls with keys that only serve to open up a path for the prince and only one to unlock the key to his heart, but his princess was dead when he arrived. This story, similar to Romeo and Juliet, pulls its main leads apart, only for their story to end in despair. The path that led them there was just the way things were. It’s how they were written and there’s nothing they could do. But Raku changed that ending. Forcefully and almost childishly, he rewrote this end that dictated the path of this prince and his princess who desired nothing more than to be together and gave them a new one. He’s not someone who accepts things they way they are, and all those around him felt this as the feelings within them welled up, something his best friend became inspired by and reminded of when he was faced with the realization of his own love.

For Maiko Shuu, he had feelings for his teacher that he knew would never be reciprocated. All of the odds were against him; she was his teacher and not just that, she had a fiancé. What good would expressing his feelings do? What good would chasing after her do? But Raku wouldn’t let Shuu accept that. That’s lame, that’s not something a man should do. If you have feelings, don’t lock them up. Let them out. Even if you get rejected, even if it doesn’t go your way, that’s so much worse than pretending they were never there to begin with. You can’t accept things the way they are. While his feelings could never be reciprocated, he wouldn’t have to regret holding them back.

For Tsugumi to move on, she couldn’t sit here and deny those feelings that she had. She loved Chitoge, and Chitoge changed her, but she also loved Raku. Because she loved them both and because they supported her, she could become her own person. She didn’t have to be tied down by the orders of the Beehive or Claude, especially if those orders came at the expense of her feelings. But she couldn’t do that if she didn’t stop hiding from those feelings and charged forth.

For Yui, who believed without Raku she would always be alone, she returned to find that there were others around her constantly who would be there by her side and clung desperately to that time she had with them. She was merely trying as hard as she could to please others and to try to keep things so that they would never change and that she would always be alone. For all of her confidence she showed Chitoge that she would charge head-on into her love, those were merely words. She couldn’t separate that bond or damage it or risk losing the only family she had left, but Raku showed her that she wasn’t alone. Not only did she have him and all of the kids that she taught, but the Char Siu that she only saw as a destiny she had no control over were jumping to her side when she needed it most. Yui, who saw her fate as nothing but a certainty was told by a certain individual that fate can be changed if you just try, because if your feelings are true, then you wouldn’t be holding them back and you wouldn’t let fate decide that for you. All Yui had to do was decide it for herself, a command that she could give…something Marika didn’t have the liberty to do.

Marika was always at the whims of someone else. If it wasn’t her mother who controlled her destiny, then it was her idealistic vision of Raku. Her entire being was controlled by whether or not Raku chose her, because if he didn’t, if her life wasn’t bound to his, then it would be bound to the duties of her family. It was one or the other, what choice did she have? But Raku gave her a path. He and all of her friends that she gained because of her dedication and love for that boy who changed her life freed her and convinced her mother who tied her down to let her do what she wanted. Raku would never be hers, but she didn’t belong to anyone else. That long hair that she grew for the sake of his love now cut free.

Real love is honest, open, full force and sometimes even painful, but love has the power to change; and as change can only occur if you leave something behind, Raku had a decision to make:

Who do you really love?

After everyone had admitted their feelings and expressed them; after all of the others had gained the courage to chase their feelings wholeheartedly and move on as changed people, there were only two who remained. Onodera Kosaki who Raku had always had his eyes on and Kirisaki Chitoge who came into his life and shattered his monotony. Throughout the story he found that he loved both of them: Onodera being someone who Raku always insisted that he loved, who filled his every fantasy and made his days brighter every time he saw her, he was sure that the one he would end up with was her. She was cute, kind, supportive and everything that you could want in a girl and she was exactly his type. Chitoge, on the other hand, hated him and he hated her, but they saw something in each other that they could relate to. They understood each other and pushed each other to move into the right direction. When Chitoge was down and didn’t know what to do, he was there to call her stupid and just do what she needed to do. When Raku wasn’t like himself, unable to help people at once like he usually did, Chitoge was there to slap his back and tell him to snap out of it. From that understanding, from that connection came love.

A love that was grown for years, silent yet blossoming slowly. Seemingly everchanging.

A love that was jagged, rough and wild but created a beautiful image in harmony.

Which one would he choose?

When Raku asks Shuu what it means to be in love, Shuu replies with this:

“When you found a beautiful sunset, or if you found your taste in music, or if you win a pretty good prize in the lottery, those small things in everyday life. When you encounter those small happiness or luck, who is the very first person you want to tell that to?

Whose face came into your mind?”

Nisekoi asserts many things about love, but the one thing that holds true is that true love can only exist if it flows both ways. Not just that, but it must fill every space that exists between two broken people, changing not just one but the other as well as they spend time together. It creates an understanding that can only exist between those two. If that distance is grown, then one will always chase after the other until that space is filled.

True love only exists when one needs another.

For Raku’s love for Onodera and hers for him, there was this desire for that comfortable relationship between them to never end. These days where they could say “good morning” at the beginning of the day and “see you later” when classes let out were something neither of them were willing to let go of, and if confessing their feelings carried with it the risk of rejection, so would it risk the change of those comfortable days. Their love was a fantasy, comfortable in its distance yet never changing for fear of the pain that comes with love. She was his type and they worked well together, but there was no sense of a deeper connection than that and no desire to deepen it. If love brings change, then the one for Raku would be someone who he not only changed but changed him…something Onodera couldn’t do.

The answer to Shuu’s question was obvious, who else could it be? Their love was chaotic, wild, painful and full of hardship but it changed both of them and set them into motion. It didn’t matter what the past dictated, what their circumstances gave them or what fate told them, because in the face of their love what could stand in their way? This story that had the makings of a fairy tale with a conclusion that could seemingly only end in tragedy was rewritten by their love because, you see

The face that filled Raku’s heart was that of Kirisaki Chitoge.

Love is when the space between the two of you closes before you even notice. Love is when their company is normal, comfortable and fun. Love is when you close your eyes and can only think of them. Love is when the moment they’re gone, a part of you is ripped from your chest and can only be filled by their presence. Love is when a storm hits and you remain together strong. Love is when even if the world fights to tear you apart and fate tells you no that you change the ending and take your place by their side no matter what. Love is when they change for you and you change for them. Love is when something irreplaceable and irreversible comes into your life. Love is when your heart drives you and every cell, every atom in your body and all of your soul to get into motion. That is what love is.

Nisekoi’s roots in fairy tale are fitting. What we see as love in popular media is idealized, comfortable and pleasant, but that’s far from the truth. Love is messy, love is painful, love feels as though a fire is swirling inside of you, destroying you from the inside. Love can cause everything in your life to be turned upside down, but even though it’s messy, crooked, wild and disjointed, even the most chaotic blend of colors can create a beautiful image. The love that Raku knew as a memory held in a locket was that which he found in a fairy tale, but the love he felt as he stood there in a field that held those precious memories with the one that filled his every thought; this violent, easily angered, self-conscious girl who Raku loved with every fiber of his being, he understood. This…is love.