Are we dead yet? I can never be too sure.

As most of the Interweb is aware, Japan is animating Nisekoi. I have to wonder why I care. It is just another lame and predictable romantic comedy from the pages of Shonen Jump that I would never recommend to anyone; but try as I might, the sappy gooey mess that I hide beneath my armor of glamorous gun-wielding babes, and tank-riding schoolgirls tends to find the cracks in my defenses from which to ooze out of. What results is a person much comparable in likeness to myself, secretly downloading the mild-mannered obscenity that is Nisekoi… What can I say, it’s true.

I absolutely loved Naoshi Komi’s previous work Double Arts, which was cancelled far too early. I was hoping Nisekoi would be a worthy successor, an original idea that could compete against its predecessor in terms of potential. Instead I got a graham cracker and a marshmallow. All the fat lonely slobs of the world latched onto this bait with its promise of promiscuous bath scenes and immoral slip-ups, making Nisekoi Naoshi Komi’s longest and most successful work to date. Good for him.

I was not spared from this underhanded trap, and as much as I pretend to hate s’mores, I brought with me my stash of Hershey’s. The rest is history: this manga fried my brain. How else can I explain my unmistakable joy with each chapter, as vanilla stench takes form in black and white on my monitor screen. At any rate, now that I am fully invested in this series, and now that it has stolen my money… what could possibly go wrong?

They decide to animate it.

Nisekoi wasn’t a very well thought-out series, and I am sure even a seasoned fan can admit that aside from its cute assortment of girls, the story barely has any legging to work with. For eighty-seven chapters the only thread tying the characters together was the protagonist’s unreliable assortment of memories which seems to change details with every flashback. I am a proponent of structure, and really frown upon this style of “make shit up on the go” writing. But I like the mangaka and forgave him every time I felt the sharp sting of pain run across the right bridge of my neck whenever I chose to ignore some glaring flaw in his plot.

All of this is irrelevant because the anime has already been greenlit. I really believe they should have let the series run its course for another year before moving forward on an anime, but as my opinion has very little effect in swaying the powers that be, I did the gracious thing and stepped aside. Now I’m here to promote this shit, and hopefully at some point in the future, someone will buy the manga. Like I did.