Koi x Shin Ai Kanojo

A story that’s held up by its many interesting ideas, its encapsulating mood and its message on romance as a whole.

Koikake is my favorite work from Nijima thus far, as he’s able to tie everything together in a pretty complete package. His strength definitely lies in creating an atmosphere or mood and pulling the readers right in there with the characters. His use of imagery and descriptions really help paint a vibrant scene in your head and I think very few writers can accomplish what he does in that front, getting into the protagonist's head space and what not. In Koikake, this style is used perfectly to describe the emotions and feelings of the characters, making them feel that more developed.

At its core, Koikake is a romance SoL story. While the common and character routes are lacking in its execution, it does have its fair share of enjoyable moments. While the SoL present is done in Nijima’s traditional manic style, which can get overbearing at times, it doesn’t go overboard on it, compared to his other works. Instead, it’s better mixed in with more serious scenes, to create a more fulfilling touch.

The character routes aren’t too eventful, with minor drama taking up quite a bit of the script size for these routes. It’s nothing overtly strenuous, yet it feels pretty dull all the same. These routes feel like extensions of the common route, with a greater focus on the romance aspect of course. It gets the job done, but nothing to write home about.

However, the key component of Koikake is its infamous true end. This is where everything all clicks together as it is everything Koikake is building up to. All the tension, all the emotions, all the little moments, it’s all built up so the true end can accomplish everything in a pretty effective manner. While I personally believe that the True end should have been made longer in exchange for cutting some of the padding the common route and character routes, it’s still something that is incredible in its own right.

The true end has a very somber position on the ideal of love, as it attempts to subvert the reader’s expectations. It’s definitely very different, and hence why it is so polarizing among readers. However, I found the ideas it circulated to be quite intriguing and thought provoking. While the actual execution could be shoddy at times, by the time the final credits rolled, I felt drained from all the emotions. In that regard, Koikake is quite the satisfying story.

In the end, Koikake is the perfect definition of a slow burn, with its best cards being at the very end. It starts with some boorish SoL and romance, but manages to turn it around and provide the reader with some nuggets of wisdom to ponder about by the end.