Comics / Manga

Nisekoi: False Love Volume 4 manga review

By Leroy Douresseaux
July 1, 2014 - 18:53

Nisekoi: False Love Volume 4 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

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Rated “T” for “Teen”

It is hate at first sight.  Raku Ichijo and Chitoge Kirisaki are two high school students forced into a sham relationship because of their fathers, both of whom head yakuza syndicates.  To stop a gang war, Ichijo and Kirisaki pretend to be a couple, although they cannot stand each other.  In fact, Ichijo is searching for his childhood sweetheart.  He wears a pendant lock around his neck as a memento of the promise he made to a mystery girl 10 years ago.

As Nisekoi: False Love, Vol. 4 (subtitled Making Sure – Chapters 26 to 34) begins, Seishiro Tsugumi, Chitoge’s teen bodyguard, receives a love letter from Toru Suzuya, a handsome boy on the school’s soccer team.  She doesn’t know what to do with it, as she has never before received one.  Plus, she secretly admires Ichijo.

Ichijo and Onodera shop for a birthday gift for Chitoge, so he decides to use this opportunity to ask Onodera a very important question.  Also, Ichijo and Chitoge attempt to find out if his pendant lock matches her key.  Finally, enter Marika Tachibana, and more trouble for Ichijo.

THE LOWDOWN:  The Nisekoi: False Love manga is a romantic comedy driven by the comedy.  Romance complicates Ichijo’s life in ways that are funny to the readers; his misery is our humor.

This energetic shonen manga takes elements from a few genres, including the yakuza comedy; the explicit violence is exchanged for mock violence and gunplay.  Nisekoi is also something of a fanservice shonen manga (like Strawberry 100%), but that is less evident in the latest graphic novel, Nisekoi: False Love Volume 4.

Creator Naoshi Komi piles on the obstacles for Raku Ichijo, but every new supporting player makes Nisekoi worth reading.  All that girl trouble makes this a sparkly teen comedy for teenaged males, not of the Seth Rogen variety, but of the shonen variety.  By the end of each volume, the new troubles make the next volume worth reading, and I am certainly ready for more.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Readers looking for offbeat shonen love will want to try Nisekoi: False Love.

Rating: A /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12