It’s clear by now we have several independent relationships going on, so instead of trying to work them together in one narrative, I’ll just give the update on each. The show has made very little effort to try to connect them, so either it’s not happening at all, or it’s choosing to let the relationships develop more before some actual crossing goes on.


Kazuki / Nana
– Kazuki is still thinking about that kiss from yesterday, and his imouto is trying to get his attention as she’s showcasing her new motteke sailor fuku. The two seem pretty close – like, physically close – as she’s constantly rubbing her face up on his and all that juicy stuff. Let me reiterate that only guys who don’t have a younger sister will find this hot. Which is most of us. Huzzah!
Romantic Outlook: Mild, with a slight chance of foggy jealousy


Kouichi / Mao
– Still playing video games at night. “Mao-oneechan, you should go to sleep.” “Ohh, you worried about me?” Eventually, she worms out some info about his romantic interest at school, but he’s not giving any details – so she gets pretty close – like, physically close – and attacks him, doing all that older sisterly bully stuff. Let me reiterate that only guys who don’t have a one-san will find this hot. Which is most of us. Huzzah!
Romantic Outlook: 6 out of 10, which gets bumped to 12 out of 10 as soon as Eiji and that chick that digs Kouichi hook up

On the way to school, the Kazuki / Nana pair meet up with Hiiragi (greasy film club prez, no relation to any miko twins), and scope out this real hot rich chick (Shijou Mitsuki), who seems to be a magnet for falling sakura petals as there’s always something pink floating around her.

Three steps past the school gate, a twin-tailed tsundere with an arm-band (see Haruhi, Mawari) stops Nana for having an ugly-ass frog as a backpack decoration. I like tsunderes. They typically have the twin-tailed hairstyle. Why is that? Anyways, her name is Kuryuu Megumi, voiced by the same chick that did Mai in Mai Hime. Hot.

Three seconds after being taihou shichauzo’d by Megumi, a chick with the female version of that ugly ass frog thing shows up. Narumi Satonaka, which I think is the last chick in our lineup of six main girls. But who knows. I should also mention that Nana isn’t in the lineup (those six that show up in the beginning of the OP), so anyone honestly hoping for some imouto lovin’ will have to go back to watching that unbelievably bad Choco show.


Kazuki / Asuka
– Geez, the supposed B-male got way more girls to deal with. Asuka is that genki chick that fits the Hashiba (Suzuka) / Satsuki (Ichigo 100%) mold with the athletic build and big ass ponytail. She’s trying to promote the soccer club and bumps into Kazuki.
Romantic Outlook: Slim to none, until Asuka kicks a soccer ball straight into Kazuki’s crotch and has to rub him down in the nurse’s office. But that’s probably material for another show.


Nana / Narumi
– Wait, what? From frogs to fornication? One can only hope. Let me reiterate that only guys… and some girls will find this hot. Which is most of us. Huzzah!
Romantic Outlook: Don’t get your hopes up 🙁


Eiji / Mao
– Eiji has asshole written all over him, but Mao’s got this thing where everybody has to be her friend. So, being the asshole that he is, he’s playing saxophone in some not-so-secluded place on the school grounds, then when Mao goes up to him and does her “haaayyy that’s pretty cool” routine, he packs up and walks away. Except this time, Mao talks her way into his not-so-thick-but-still-makes-him-a-huge-dick shell, and eventually the two seem to become friends.
Romantic Outlook: A Kenny G song away from switching late-night video game partners. And this time they won’t be playing racing games.


Kazuki / Eriko
– Turns out Eriko is some 190 IQ super genius that doesn’t give a rat’s behind about school. So, bored as hell, she thought she could play with this dorky Kazuki kid who picked up one of her paper airplanes, and kissed him. Except Kazuki, being the dork that he is, took it seriously and wanted to “talk about it.” Wait, isn’t this like, role reversal? Anyways, she gets pissed off and says goodbye. Dork.
Romantic Outlook: Only a matter of time before she gets bored again and tries another “experiment,” surely to be slightly more… I dunno, naked?


Kouichi / Yuumi
– So apparently the two have never talked to each other, even though they’ve been in the same class since last year. So why does she get so deredere whenever he talks to her? Hell, why does Kouichi go all red-faced too? Mao sees the two talking and attacks Kouichi some more that night. Huzzah!
Romantic Outlook: Not so much a matter of time as it is a matter of order, who’s gonna get to Kouichi first?


Preview


Thoughts

Yea, so the characters are generic as hell and it’s totally not what I expected from the people that brought us H&C and Nodame, but to pass judgment based on previous successes (or failures) goes against my principles, so I’ll spare the unpleasantries and hope for a non-generic story. It’s doing an ok job of that with allll the different things going on (which I’m not convinced is that good of an idea), but as long as they stay consistent with the concept and pull some twists and turns along the way, it should work out fine. Besides, I’ve been so starved for a decent non-harem romance series that I’m willing to look past a few transgressions (Suzuka manga is ending… noooooo).

So in the meantime, the characters are taking their time to get acquainted with each other, which is to be expected, considering the semester just started. Well, all the boring intro stuff is moving along quite quickly, which is a good sign of things to come – less intro, more time for some OMGDRAMA to happen later on.

Which makes me believe that ultimately, Kimikiss is one of those anime you just gotta watch till the end before deciding whether it was a good show or not – so I guess I’ll keep following it. After all, as someone stated in the comments, the romance show that sucks the least out of all the other ones, and that’s gotta count for something!

Mouse-over the screenshots for captions!

42 Comments

  1. The first episode was fluent in animation. In the other hand, this episode have a lot of award positioning and movement of the characters. The storyline seems to be nice and hopefully it gets better.

    @Era: Was the manga harem?

    P.S.> I wonder were i can get the manga.

    banzemanga
  2. I love the animation, the character designs are incredibly pretty.

    I hope there will be some nice drama along the way, the director is the reason I got interested in it in the first place,I try to stay away from purely harem shows, please keep blogging this…

    LifeCarrier
  3. @banzemanga
    The manga isn’t harem. Each girl appear in different stories, but with the same main guy. In each story the plot focuses mainly on that girl and our main character. No one else appears in the story, unless he/she is a plot device. After each arc is done, then the story starts from the first day again.

    I wasn’t really expecting this show to be harem anyways, but now they have created more characters at the same time. I believe this will diverse the focus and make the each story less appealing….>_>

    Era
  4. @Era:
    Yes, i agree with you. Because there are so many characters and the focus is not currently in the main guy, i thought that the other guy might be the main character instead!

    But then, how come it is not harem in the manga if all the girls appear with the same main guy in different short stories?

    banzemanga
  5. @banzemanga
    Think of it like alternative universe….>_> or maybe dating-sim. You focus mainly on one girl and then start over and try to get a different ending. I believe harem means a bunch of girls (or boys) like the same boy (or girl). But in the manga no two girls appear at the same time, so i guess it’s not harem….

    Btw, isn’t this originally from a dating sim?

    Era
  6. Not too shabby after 2 episodes. I think most romances suck as a rule, but I’m half-interested in this one. Best character designs of any romance this season, plus it seems that the director’s gone away from the crappy-sounding source material.

    I can still see this show going downhill fast, but right now, for me, it sucks the least of the romances this season.

    funguy
  7. @GhOsTeDgE:
    Not unless they put situations in like misunderstandings say when Girl A who’s destined to Guy A somehow ends up in a compromising position with Guy B in an accident. Then there’s the issue of how many girls there are compared to the guys (someone counted 4 guys – I believe there are 6 girls? So the two unpaired girls could figure into something)

    Sailor Enlil
  8. @Sailor Enlil:
    I agree and it’s exactly what I’m waiting for (not unlike Kimi ga Nozomu Eien); I haven’t completely written off this series yet. But as others have said, it has a chance to go downhill quick.

    GhOsTeDgE
  9. @funguy

    Check out Honey & Clover if you haven’t, it’s from the same director, it’s romance among other genres, see if you can say that romance sucks after that watching that one.

    LifeCarrier
  10. I like how this show is going so far. The characters are amusing, and after i finished watching the first episode of this, it made me want to d/l the manga. i did, and well… i definitely like the anime better so far. Why? I’m a girl, i don’t like watching shows that show a single guy with girls flaunting all over him. Secondly, the ‘vibe’ i get from the anime is that it’s cute, innocent and sweet. I like the whole concept of it, how there’s more than just one ‘main’ guy in the story, and how the childhood friend seems to play a ‘friend’ role instead of the ‘lover’ role.
    So far, it seems like the perspective is split between Mao, Kazuki and Koichi. The fact that there’s no love interest between these 3 characters is nice also. That means there’s possibly going to be 3 diff love stories going on and we get to see both the perspective of the girl and guy.
    Well, that’s what i’m hoping for anyways. If the producers decide to move towards the manga and take on the manga storyline, well, then… one show less for me to watch this season
    =)

    Kocopo
  11. It’s just a simple romance tale, so people who are likes this simplicity and fluff will enjoy this 🙂

    I don’t have any complaints in the pairing so far… except that I want genki Asuka to be paired up with one of the guys! 🙁 I was hoping she’ll be paired up with Kazuki, when I saw how she’s already his practice partner. But then Eriko comes in the scene, and from the looks of it, the anime is going for Kazuki x Eriko (with the teaser summary in Newtype, of episode 5).

    Sigh… I guess the predictions I made will somehow be different. Perhaps I’ll go on an Asuka crusade or what, if she’s not given enough attention ^^;;

  12. shucks! i was hoping this would follow only a single male protagonist, but sadly it doesn’t seem so. thumbs up for the game, down for anime. well, i don’t give a crap if kimikiss turns out to be some new hit series of this year, i’ll still put a “failure” mark on this piece of garbage.

    andynai
  13. @LifeCarrier:

    Yeah, come to think of it you might be right. Honey & Clover also had a case of not just one male protagonist in a romance situation, yet it was a great series. Perhaps we can think of Kimikiss Pure Rouge as a High School edition? (considering H&C was in a college setting)

    Sailor Enlil
  14. Meh, He’s spot on about the guys, why the hell do they have 2 pointless characters out of the 3 guys?

    Kazuki is a dork, 100% true.
    And Eiji is like, wtf, typical asshole, though I bet the show will try to show that he’s a pretty nice guy or something. I personally don’t like these two lamers. And although none of the other characters are anything special and pretty generic, the whole thing will probably end with Kouichi / Mao after 20 or whatever eps of d0rama just to keep you watching. Remember, why did Mao even bother to come back anyways? If it wasn’t cuz she was in love with Kouichi then it better be something more important.

    GP
  15. Oh, and the whole Eiji / Mao bit seems so forced, what with her just “having to be friends with everyone”. It’s like they couldn’t think of a better way to try and pair them together.

    GP
  16. Comparing this to Nodame or H&C is not fair. They had great source material to work with. If anything JC Staff is TRYING to improve on something (by splitting the main character into two people) that wasn’t very great to start with. I’d say imagine the boring and cliched characters in a harem setting and that is what the game was. I think the show is pretty interesting so far.

    ann
  17. Personally I’m thinking the writers are just ripping off ef – a tale of memories with more than one guy getting attention. Too bad as it stands it has no chance of comparing.

    Wererat42
  18. “Romantic Outlook: Slim to none, until Asuka kicks a soccer ball straight into Kazuki’s crotch and has to rub him down in the nurse’s office. But that’s probably material for another show.”
    I lold.

    Boomstick

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