About

Nisekoi (also known as Nisekoi: False Love) is a romantic comedy manga and anime series created by Naoshi Komi and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The series follows the exploits of the two children of an American gang leader and a Yakuza faction leader, who must fake a relationship to maintain peace between the two gangs. Since its release, the series has gained a notable following.

Premise

The series follows high school students Raku Ichijo, next head of the Yakuza's Shūei Clan and son of the current head; and Chitoge Kirisaki, next head of the rival American Bee Hive Gang and daughter of the current head; who got paired as a way to settle the feud between their fathers' gangs. The task turns out to be quite challenging, not only because Raku and Chitoge hate eachother, but also because Raku has a crush on another student, Kosaki Onodera. Additionally, Raku made a promise of getting married with a girl 10 years prior to the manga's events, who gave him a locket, in the form of a pendant, while she holds on to the key, so they would be able to find each other again. Since then Raku however forgot about the girl's identity. The situation surrounding the pendant gets more complicated as Raku discovers not only both Chitoge and Kosaki own keys connected to his pendant, but two other girls as well. This, along with several other elements, make the situation surrounding the forced dating and pendant increasingly complicated for the characters.

From left to right: Ruri Miyamoto, Kosaki Onodera, Marika Tachibana, Raku Ichijo, Chitoge Kirisaki, Seishiro Tsugumi.

History

Nisekoi began as a one-shot manga released in Shueisha's Jump NEXT! magazine on January 11th, 2011, and started serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump on November 7th, 2011. The English serialization of the manga started on November 26th, 2012 by Viz Media under the name Nisekoi: False Love.^[13] An anime adaptation by Shaft begain airing on January 11th, 2014, and completed on May 24th. A second season aired from April 10th, 2015 to June 26th of the same year.^[12]

Reception

In 2013, Nisekoi was listed as #30 in the top 30 manga series sold in that year, with over 1.5 million copies sold.^[14] The next year, when the anime started airing, the series ranked in the 16th position, with over 3.8 million copies sold.^[15]

Online Relevance

A dedicated subreddit was created on August 13th, 2012, gaining over 6,000 subscribers in the following years.^[7] On June 8th, 2013, a wiki about the series was created,^[10] and a MyAnimeList for the anime series was created after the anime announcement.^[1] On March 24th, 2015, reddit user archerboy uploaded a picture poking fun at the series' plot to /r/anime (shown bellow, left), gaining over 1,800 points (over 96% upvoted) and 250 comments in the six following months.^[18] On April 10th, user Shadowflix submited a thread on /r/anime to discuss about the first episode of the anime series second season, gaining over 1,020 points (over 94% upvoted) and 560 comments in the following ten months.^[17] On December 19th, user fuzzyjustin submitted to /r/anime a yuri fan art by artist Taylor Tots depicting Onodera and Chitoge, gaining over 2,020 points (over 94% upvoted) and 360 comments in the following two months.^[19]

Super Mario Maker's Chitoge Costume

On February 18th, 2015, Nintendo Japan's official YouTube account uploaded a Super Mario Maker trailer featuring an upcoming Chitoge Kirisaki costume for Mario unlocked by beating one of the two upcoming Nisekoi event courses. In less than two days, the video was viewed over 178,000 times and was consequently reported on several news sites like IGN^[11] and NintendoNews,^[16] as well as some online communities like 4chan^[2] and reddit.^[20]

Fandom

The series gained a huge following online after the anime premiere. As February 20th, 2016 the Japanese artist community pixiv leads to over 6,400 results under the tag "ニセコイ",^[5] and the artist community DeviantART leads to over 8,300 results under the keyword "nisekoi".^[4] On Reddit, several subreddits dedicated to each of the female characters were created, with the ones focused on Chitoge (with over 1,800 subscribers)^[8] and Onodera (with over 2,100 subcribers) being the most subscribed to.^[9] Fandom presence can also be found on other communities like 4chan and Tumblr.^[6]

Related Memes

Chitoge Gorilla

Search Interest

External References