Format: DVD / Blu-ray
Release Date: 19th October 2015
Publisher: Kaze / Manga Entertainment
Certificate: 12
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English / French
Discs: 2
Run Time: 250 Minutes
Just thirteen weeks after part 1, the release of The Kana Hanazawa Show Nisekoi Part 2 is upon us. This release seems to have managed no major delays, which is a pleasant surprise, and is once again, available on blu-ray and DVD from Kazé. This time, however, I’ll be reviewing the DVD version, as that was made available as a review copy. Some issues will stem directly from this, most notable those due to the DVDs being PAL; this is not an issue on the blu-ray version. The release, again, consists of 10 episodes; it’s a shame Kazé were not able to include the three post-season 1 OVAs, but being bundled with the manga in Japan, they likely had no say. Best girl Kana Hanazawa The characters continue to shine as they did in part 1 and fan favourite country bumpkin character Marika Tachibana also joins the cast, with her voice actor even contributing to two EDs.
The collection starts off with Raku reminding us their friends that Chitoge and him have elected to use each other’s forenames from now on to reduce suspicion. For the most part, the series continues to play out the same as the first half, with misunderstandings the cause of many a comedic moment. Immediately after discovering a photo from childhood, with another girl alongside Raku, she transfers into the school. She has her own key and is seemingly Raku’s fiancée, which, naturally, adds to the mayhem. Nisekoi even manages to pull off a decent obligatory beach episode, with actual character development rather than just an excess of fan-service “plot”. Unfortunately, this release also contains the worst episode of Nisekoi; episode 20 consists, primarily, of the characters butchering Romeo & Juliet in an attempt to be funny.
Stylistically, the visuals remain the same as the first half of the season. Kazé have, again, provided us a suitable presentation of this colourful anime that relies on visuals to emphasise many of the situations characters find themselves in, not just the comedic ones. Studio SHAFT certainly know how to exaggerate scenes, with backdrops taking the place of backgrounds frequently. At times facial expressions, and sometimes whole characters, devolve to outright caricatures to perfectly emblazon the comedy. Subtitles seemed improved over the part 1 release, with no timing issues noticable throughout, and if there were any spelling or grammatical errors present this time, they went unnoticed by me. Subtitles are white, which is always of benefit to the reader. There are five episodes on each DVD, so compression isn’t too much of an issue, though the limitations of the DVD format are apparent. This is most noticable in the ED used for episodes 18 and 19; rather than seeming textured as intended, colours seemed blurred and messy, as if at a much lower resolution than the rest of the release. However, throughout all ten episodes, lines are noticably less sharp than in the blu-ray release of part 1. Additionally, subtitles are not as easy on the eyes, but at least they are still white. Unfortunately, having undergone a PAL conversion, some panning shots are significantly jarring.
Once again, the audio options are a Japanese track, or a French track; with the French track inclusion only being to cut down costs by creating one master for France and the UK, I only bothered watching with the Japanese track and English subtitles. Character voicework continues to excel, and the subtitles for Marika Tachibana manage to get across her country-esque manner of speaking when she slips into it. Episodes 11 through 14 continues to use ClariS’ perfect “CLICK” OP, while episodes 15 through 19 make use of new ClariS track “STEP”. “STEP” is first used as the ED for episode 14, however. Episode 11 features “OrderxOrder” by Yumi Uchiyama as the ED. Marika Tachibana’s VA Kana Asumi provides “Hanagonomi” as the ED for episodes 12 and 13. Episodes 15 through 17 feature an ED, “Souzou Diary”, sang by the VA’s of Raku’s harem of Chitoge, Onodera, Tsugumi, and Marika. My favourite ED of the release is that which is used for episodes 18 and 19, “Taisetsu no Tsukurikate”, sung by Nao Touyama and – I’m seeing a pattern here – Kana Hanazawa, the VA’s for Chitoge and Onodera.
When it comes to extras, we are treated to the trailer for Garden of Words, a title released by All The Anime in the UK, before the menu on discs 1 and 2, which can be skipped. Disc 1 also contains textless versions of OP2, OP3 and ED5. Disc 2 contains textless ED6 and ED7. The final ED is exclusive to the home media release of episodes 18 and 19. Being a review copy, I am unsure as to whether more art cards will be included with this release.
Verdict – 89% Awesome
Although I reviewed the DVD version this time, I’m confident that the blu-ray version manages to accomodate the improvements noted effectively, while also not having the issues caused by limitations of the DVD format and PAL conversion. Thusly, Nisekoi has earnt an 89% for the part 2 release, being a noticable improvement over the issues found in part 1.
This title was reviewed using a review copy provided by Manga Entertainment.
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