Raku Ichijō

is the main male protagonist of the Nisekoi series that is written and illustrated by Naoshi Komi. He serves as the fake boyfriend of Chitoge Kirisaki for the next three years of his life to prevent a war between the Bee Hive Gang and the Shūei Clan before they eventually get married.

Background
One summer ten years ago, Raku made a promise to a girl to marry her once they reunite. The promise girl exchanged a pendant with Raku and held on to a key that would unlock it once they meet again. Ten years had passed and Raku has no memory of the girl's name or what she looks like but remembers the promise he made.

After he started his fake relationship with Chitoge Kirisaki, he encounters a series of events where he learns that Chitoge Kirisaki, Kosaki Onodera, Marika Tachibana, and Yui Kanakura all possess keys that are connected to his pendant and that they all met each other ten years ago. They all seemed to have made a promise with a boy ten years ago too. This makes all four of the girls be the possible promised girl until Yui returned to Raku and confirmed herself that she is not one of the possible promised girls, despite having a key.

His interest in the keys that Chitoge, Onodera, Marika, and Yui  possess can get him in trouble for certain situations. He will go to great lengths for his pendant and freaks out if he loses it. Chitoge and Raku had tried opening the pendant with her key but it broke in the process. After Raku gets it fixed, Shu's uncle says that the only way to open it is to break it open.

Raku is also the heir to the Yakuza family as the only son but wishes to not take the position, even if he is urged by the members of the gang.

Personality
Raku Ichijō presents himself to be quite civilized and highly artistic, except when he encounters a person with a lack of respect or regard for him or others around him. As a child, as evidenced in flashbacks, Raku would go as far as to put himself in difficult situations for others' benefits. He is kind and considerate as said by most girls in the and it is also what gets them to fall in love with him. He is easy to get along with and is highly motivated by past actions. He is highly skilled at rough/hard work and is happy to do so, as evidenced in his cooking for his Yakuza clan.

He can also be highly oblivious of academic faculties and is highly unaware, at times, of certain conversations that he can easily misinterpret, either because of the vagueness of the circumstance, or the fact that he is lost in thought about Chitoge or Onodera. He is dull as he is oblivious to the romantic feelings of the girls around him, especially Chitoge's and Onodera's. Because of that, he was very surprised when Yui Kanakura, Kosaki, and Chitoge confessed to him and he had to process their time together while realizing it was true.

He is well-educated and is slow to anger, but will respond with the same emotions or tone, most of the time, if he is addressed as a bean sprout by Chitoge. He can use his faculties to run in order to escape whenever he feels that he is in a situation.

Relationships
"Main Article: Relationships of Raku Ichijō"

Appearance
Raku is a little taller than average for a high schooler and has messy, black hair. He has lightly tanned, fair skin, dark blue eyes and also has a big scar on the right side of his forehead.

In the winter, Raku wears his school's uniform which consists of green and white slip-on shoes, black pants with a green belt, a white long-sleeved shirt, and the school uniform jacket. The summer school uniform's only difference is the white shirt is short-sleeved and the school uniform jacket is not worn. He is generally seen wearing the pendant he was given ten years ago beneath his shirt.

While swimming, Raku doesn't wear a shirt but wears the school's navy blue swim shorts. He is also seen to wear red shorts in At the Beach.

Raku generally wears his outfit when he is at home, and casual clothing when he hangs out with the gang or on a date with Chitoge. When he is doing outdoor activities as shown in Temple Festival and Loss, he wears a cloth around his head.

Abilities
Raku Ichijō has demonstrated the following abilities to the best of his capacity:
 * Swimming: Ichijō has demonstrated that he is highly capable of swimming at unrealistic capacities. He used these faculties multiple instances, to save Chitoge and to teach Onodera. He also used it to leave the girls' bath and was shown to be capable of holding his breath for a long time.
 * Strength/Stamina: Ichijō is shown to be a capable runner, just as anime-like as his swimming faculties, and is able to perform a number of tasks with his strength. He can carry another person, as shown when carrying Seishirō Tsugumi. He is also very agile and flexible with his ability to dodge, despite Tsugumi's ninja-like agility. His flexibility and agility are shown when he repeatedly does handsprings after learning that Kosaki Onodera had been accepted into the same high school as him.
 * Endurance: Throughout the series, Raku displays an astounding amount of endurance, able to survive Chitoge's punches albeit still being sent flying with a single punch. Although this was seen more as a comical gag, he did display this endurance on few occasions, e.g. during the climax of Romeo and Juliet play (the same damage incapacitated Claude, who is a professional assassin).
 * Acting: He is highly capable of keeping Tsugumi, the Bee Hive gang, and his Yakuza clan from fighting, despite being involved in the somewhat serene circumstances of their "Nisekoi." and during the Romeo and Juliet play in the school festival.
 * Altruism: Although not evidenced by Chitoge's rough exterior, he is highly altruistic in a lot his behaviour. He can be thoughtful, despite his lack of thought in certain situations.
 * Cooking: He has demonstrated multiple times an almost super-human ability to cook things both quickly and precisely with a little amount of effort.
 * Singing:  During new year, he is shown to be good at singing that even Chitoge is shocked at how good he is. It is claimed to be one of his specialties but only strictly enka genre.

Weakness

 * Animals: For unknown reasons, animals hate Raku and tend to hurt him. However, he himself loves animals very much.

First Year Arc
Raku is the heir to the Yakuza family and is urged and respected by all the members in the gang for him to become their next leader. Raku personally wants to turn down the role and wants to become a civil servant. Going to school, Raku thinks about the girl he made the promise to marry to ten years ago and pulls out his pendant. As he observes it, a girl jumps over the school's high fence and accidentally knees him in the face in the process. The girl apologizes and runs to class because she's late for class. He begins his day, hating it after he got kneed but enjoys it again when his crush, Kosaki, offers him a bandage in the place where he got kneed. As class starts, Raku's teacher presents a new transfer student named Chitoge Kirisaki who was actually the girl who kneed Raku that morning. Raku instantly recognizes her and starts complaining about the accident. The two clash but end up sitting next to each other in class.

Second Year Arc
Chitoge realizes that she loves Raku and tries to do lots of things to get praise out of him.

Third Year Arc
Marika is forced to marry someone against her will and Raku & co comes to interrupt the ceremony. Raku declines Marika's confession. Raku has started noticing that he has feelings for both Kosaki and Chitoge. He, later on, finds out that he has developed the feeling of love for Chitoge.

Haru confesses that she knew Raku was her prince.

When Shu invites everyone to go stargazing along Bonyari High's rooftop, Raku passes out and Chitoge overhears Kosaki confessing to Raku. Chitoge later confirms that Raku likes Kosaki, so she runs away from Japan. Tsugumi confesses to Raku, then tells him to save Chitoge.

They meet back at the location '10 years ago' and Raku confesses to Chitoge after rejecting Kosaki.

Epilogue
In the epilogue, Raku is shown to have succeeded his father as head of the Shuei Clan, at the same time receiving a job as a government worker placed in the department of public safety. He is also busy with plans for his upcoming wedding with Chitoge, hiring Shu to send out his invitations to all of their friends.

He soon reunites with Chitoge at their promised spot where they reminisce on their journey together and current lives before Raku proposes to her once more and she happily accepts it. They trade jokes for a while before Raku moves to leave, but Chitoge quickly stops him asking for him to kiss her. At first, the two are nervous since it was both of their first kiss, but in the end, they shared their first kiss as a couple. The kiss was awkward as they hit their teeth and both argue in the way usually do about things.

After this, they got married and it is shown they had a son named Haku Ichijō.

Trivia

 * There is a running gag that has Raku earning the ire and jealousy of most of his male classmates because of his involvement with several female characters, only once letting him off in their 2nd-year school trip when Raku is paired up with the other guys instead of the girls.
 * In the original design for Raku in chapter 0, Raku is shown to be very smart, being one of the top students. He is also shown to have completely black hair, unlike his current design that has a mix of blue. As part of the Chapter 0 storyline, apparently, he was given an origami by Chitoge but later passed it onto one of his Yakuza members.
 * Raku's first love was Kosaki Onodera, his first girlfriend (fake and otherwise) was Chitoge Kirisaki, his first kiss was shared with Yui Kanakura, while the first promise of marriage was done to Marika Tachibana. This clearly shows that Raku has had a certain level of intimacy with all the key holders.


 * He is shown to have a son with Chitoge in the omake, named Haku Ichijō who just like his father did not want to lead the family.
 * Raku is actually quite smart he had to pass the Civil servant test to get a government position.
 * Raku could have become a singer due to s1 episode 5 ending showing that he could sing.
 * Raku was initially hated by his family's pet animals but by the final chapter, he is loved by them.