Manga Review: Nisekoi: False Love, Volume 9, by Naoshi Komi

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5-4

Publisher: Shonen Jump (VIZ Media)

Release Date: May 5, 2015

Volumes: 18+

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells. RightStuf.

Volume: 1. 8. 10.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Love triangle! Comedic antics!! Gang warfare?! You won’t want to miss out on Shonen Jump's laugh-out-loud feel-good manga series! It's hate at first sight when Raku Ichijo first meets Chitoge Kirisaki. But much to their chagrin, the two are forced into a false love relationship to keep the peace between their feuding gangster families.

Raku’s crush, Kosaki Onodera, has a younger sister—Haru! She’s determined to protect Kosaki from what she perceives to be Raku’s playboy ways. Meanwhile, assassin Paula joins Haru’s class with a secret mission in mind—to set up Raku with fellow assassin Tsugumi!

Review:

In this volume, we meet a few new characters, as the new first-years come in. We meet Onodera’s little sister, Haru. Who’s extremely protective of her sister, and very biased against Raku. There’s also some possible crush coming there, though hopefully it’ll just go into friendship with related interests. There’s Haru’s best friend, in a situation much like Onodera and Ruri’s relationship. And then Paula shows up, coming to school to be closer to Tsugumi. I like Paula, and I’m interested to see her form real friendship with other students.

I love all the characters in this series, how different each one is, and how complex they’re made. I do find the harem style a bit much at times, especially since there’s about a dozen girls at this point and only two boys, with only one of those boys as a real interest to the girls. Sometimes the ecchi stuff is a bit much too, for example when Raku accidentally sees up Haru’s skirt, like three times, and yet gets blamed each time.

But this series is still fantastic. The development with the characters, the way the girls are really forming friendships along the way. I really like Onodera, and I like the way Paula is growing, but I’m still a big fan of Chitoge, and I loved seeing her trying to work with her crush on Raku in one of the chapters. That was cute. 

I’m sure this series has no end in sight, and while I’d love to see a conclusion to the romance, I’m just enjoying it at this point.