Right, right, because anyone who believes in equality is a "white knight'? That's a ridiculous dodge used by people who oppose equality, and nothing more.
I'm not talking generically here, remember. I'm talking about the relationship of those two characters in Nozaki-kun in specific. And it's not just "slapstick comedy", it's far worse than generic slapstick.
I mean, there was a time when people in the West thought that Punch and Judy (look it up, if you've never heard of it) was acceptable entertainment. Most people today would not consider something so sexist and racist harmless fun! Something similar is true for this.
Women in anime... independent? Er... no. Actual independent women are quite rare in anime, as you'd expect from a society as sexist as Japan is. Women in anime are almost always the old sexist stereotype of the "strong" woman who only really wants a stronger man to fall in love with, not legitimately strong and independent characters.
There's a manga where "tsundere" is an actual medical condition, and not just the usual violent entertainment stuff... what was that called... bah.
Male-on-female violence is orders of magnitude worse and more common than female-on-male violence. Women VERY rarely kill their husbands, for example, while men regularly kill their wives. The two situations are, simply, not equal. Of course both are awful, but one, male-on-female violence, is worse because of how dramatically more common it is. Men are more likely to be physically violent than women are, don't try to ignore that fact. I at least do think that the more plausible something bad is, the worse it is -- something clearly absurd, like Mortal Kombat fatalities or driving down the sidewalk in GTA games or something, aren't at all realistic, so they don't feel as "bad" as something that might be less violent, but is much more plausibly realistic... such as some of the scenes between those two in Nozaki-kun. Way too far on the 'plausible' side.
Why does it matter if they're a confessed couple or not? They ARE a couple, that is their primary relationship -- she likes him, and he likes her but also beats her when she does things he thinks are dumb. Of course, he never bothers to actually EXPLAIN anything to her, something which would have solved the whole problem in the "does he want to dress up as a girl" scene. Because that'd make way too much sense. Just hit her again instead when she misunderstands. "LOL". Because anything is okay when you call it comedy!