The Spring 2022 anime season is in full swing, and that includes a fresh set of rom-com anime series, many of which take place in modern high schools -- a familiar setting for the genre. That includes the all-new series A Couple of Cuckoos, which is a fun series to watch between episodes of Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie and Aharen-San is Indecipherable. More than a few elements of A Couple of Cuckoos may feel familiar to experienced anime fans.
This anime is based on a recent manga series of the same name, but it nonetheless treads familiar ground and may remind fans of many similar titles, most of all the overlooked rom-com Nisekoi. Both series have a similar initial premise, but of course, A Couple of Cuckoos also makes sure to set itself apart from author Naoshi Komi's lengthy Nisekoi series.
How A Couple Of Cuckoos Follows In Nisekoi's Footsteps
All it took was the premiere episode of A Couple of Cuckoos to establish this anime series as a must-watch for fans of Nisekoi and similar titles. The story begins when an earnest young man named Umino Nagi gets ready to meet his biological parents after being raised by his goofy but caring step-parents. However, Nagi doesn't wish to fully return to his biological family, intending to stay with the Amano family that has raised him from birth after a baby-swap incident at the hospital. Then he sets out to meet his new family.
This is where the Nisekoi-style shenanigans begin in A Couple of Cuckoos. By sheer chance, Nagi meets his biological parents' foster daughter Amano Erika, the baby with whom Nagi had been swapped by accident. Nagi and Erika were thus raised by each other's biological parents, and what's more, the Amanos want Erika to enter an arranged marriage with an unknown boy. As fate would have it, that boy is Nagi, and Erika and Nagi must go along with this arrangement for the good of both families.
This amusing premise echoes the arranged relationship between Ichijo Raku and the hotheaded tsundere Kirisaki Chitoge in Nisekoi, with these false lovers merely playing along to keep their respective mobster families happy. Raku and Chitoge didn't get along at first, but over time, their relationship became more genuine, even if a love triangle soon formed between Chitoge, Raku and Raku's original crush Onodera Kosaki.
This raises all kinds of possibilities for A Couple of Cuckoos, from Nagi getting serious about his current crush Hiro to Nagi and Erika going on tense but amusing false dates to keep up appearances. If Nagi isn't careful, he might end up with a harem, just as Raku once did. However, involving one might dilute the core "baby swap" theme of this anime and weaken its narrative. This may be a show where a bare-bones cast of characters is best.
How A Couple Of Cuckoos Differs From Nisekoi
Even if A Couple of Cuckoos feels like Nisekoi 2.0, the anime is already taking steps to set itself apart from its forebearer. To begin with, the two main characters' families are not feuding with one another; in fact, they want to get closer together. There was a Romeo and Juliet theme to Nisekoi, but A Couple of Cuckoos avoids that route entirely, meaning the drama will have to come from some other source. Perhaps that source could be the potential love triangle, or else a serious clash of personalities between Erika and Nagi. Alternatively, Nagi's foster sister Sachi might disapprove of Erika and do something about it, whether Erika and Nagi like it or not.
A Couple of Cuckoos also promises to be more wholesome than Nisekoi, perhaps due to changing sensibilities or trends in the anime community. Erika may have a bit of a temper, but she isn't a violent "gorilla" like Chitoge and can actually listen to people rather than losing her cool and thrashing her false boyfriend.
Some anime fans are concerned about the "tsundere girl beating up her dense boyfriend" paradigm, which might even normalize violence at times, and A Couple of Cuckoos strays away from that. Erika sees some faults in Nagi, but she's not about to pummel him about it. Instead, she's more willing to talk things out, and that puts her well ahead of Chitoge. She sets a good example of a tough but fair anime girlfriend who can look after herself without resorting to questionable means to express her anger or dissatisfaction.