KimiKiss Pure Rouge

KimiKiss: Pure Rouge stood out primarily due to the pacing and romance narrative. Unlike typical harem-romance tropes, it avoided clichés like summer beach retreats, opting instead for a more realistic setting. This departure from the norm minimized predictable misunderstandings, allowing the show to focus on authentic slice-of-life moments, resulting in well-rounded characters and a compelling storyline.

However, it isn't flawless, particularly in its lead-up to the ending. While it tied up loose ends neatly, I found the character developments leading to the conclusion somewhat jarring. Around the two-thirds mark, characters underwent abrupt changes, building up unnecessary drama that tainted my overall impression of the series. Nonetheless, ... despite my reservations, the ending provided closure, albeit not entirely satisfying to my personal preferences.

The characters can be divided into two groups, with a love quadrilateral forming the core of the narrative. This group, comprising Kouichi, Kai, Mao, and Yuumi, offered the most compelling romantic dynamics, grounded in realism. However, the drama within this group occasionally overshadowed its strengths. On the other hand, the complementary love triangle involving Kazuki, Futami, and Sakino fell short due to unrealistic portrayals of soccer and initial character annoyances. Despite these shortcomings, the characters remained solid overall, contributing to the show's appeal.

The animation met the standards of its era, featuring vibrant character designs and picturesque scenery. The overall visual presentation was commendable.

While the soundtrack was forgettable, the catchy opening theme and stellar voice acting elevated the audio experience. The voice actors brought their characters to life, effectively conveying emotions and character growth. The seamless integration of voice acting with character development was praiseworthy, enhancing the show's immersive quality.

Despite its minor flaws, KimiKiss: Pure Rouge stands out as one of the better romance anime offerings. Its adept handling of romance-related drama sets it apart from its peers, making it a must-watch for romance enthusiasts. While it could have benefited from smoother transitions in its latter half, Kimikiss showcases a level of finesse often lacking in similar titles. It's a recommendation I confidently extend to fellow romance aficionados.

In essence, this is a quite classic romantic anime. What makes it a bit better than other animes of the genre is the larger than usual cast of characters, and the fact that it actual features two lead pairs.

The characters themselves are also quite classic, but a few twists here and there prevents them from being too predictable.

The anime also has the usual flaws of the genre: too many "Oh, it's nothing" lines at times, characters conveniently catching deadly colds from rain, etc.

Still, the double pair of leads saves the show, perhaps because it gives it enough density to be entertaining.

This is a mixed bag for me. Kimikiss isn't without ANY watchable features (actual establishment of relationships, carefully separated relationships and character personalities, love triangles hurrrr), but it definitely has enough drawbacks that I couldn't really enjoy it as much as I would have liked. While a 4 may seem pretty brutal, I just can't bring myself to rate a 5 considering the numerous standout problems that kept poking me in the face during every second of every episode.

Kimikiss clearly started off with the idea in mind of having multiple dynamic relationships, only to realize it had to pick one or the other; multiple or ... dynamic. It ended up choosing multiple, which means while we get three relationships all develop separately, the problems encountered in these relationships are both extremely predictable and extremely drawn out. Since having two arcs for each relationship would clearly have been ridiculous length (at least in the eyes of the writers), each relationship basically only follows one menial arc in the entire length of the show. Love triangles are often "elaborated" on to act as the show's filler episodes, with content we've already had established taken to /slightly/ further lengths in a very similar situation just to stretch out the episodes before that relationship hits its conclusion.

The writing was pretty poor too, unfortunately. Kimikiss could be described as a romcom without the com and with repetitive rom. Any humour aspects are few and far between and are /very/ weak, usually just spontaneously and thoughtlessly shoehorned into segments that are providing background context for future events. As for the romance; relationship arcs are brutally predictable in how they play out, and efforts to inspire emotions in the audience are fruitless due to two key problems with the writing. The first is the fact that since we're following so many different relationships with so few arcs we have seen very little character development, ergo it's difficult to be attached enough to the characters to really care who comes out best. The second is that precedent the show has set in order to advance to previous plot points is totally ignored in favour of advancing to new plot points, creating a confusing and sometimes contradictory plot to further baffle the audience that is already reeling from following all the separate characters.


**MINOR SPOILERS**
Take, for example, the filming of the movie. At first Mao AND Hoshino flat-out rejected the option to act in it and were not revisited at that time since their reasons were considered sound (Mao didn't think she could act and Hoshino was too embarrassed). Come back 10 episodes later, however, and both Mao AND Hoshino have acted in the movie after simply being asked "Pleeeeaaase?" at some point earlier in the same episode. It's so blatant it's depressing, and it totally detracts from the appreciation of the plot and places the fate of the series entirely on the characters /following/ the plot.
**END MINOR SPOILERS**

Not a great idea, because the characters aren't great either. Kouchi is an absolutely typical male character, totally oblivious to the feelings of the opposite sex, randomly and suddenly nice in convenient situations towards specific individual girls in need of lovin', not shown to have any particularly strong views or even any defining characteristics. Hoshino is the shy, embarrassed girlfriend of MC-kun who is apparently capable of giving extended speeches about friendship or acting in movies. Sakino is the soccer tomboy with a quick temper and an inexplicable crush on MC-kun('s lookalike) after he did two or three random acts of kindness for her... I could list these character templates for paragraphs and not totally reveal the extent of their mediocrity.

Some of them are even downright contradictory. Eriko just makes zero sense, her social patterns changing drastically with very little external influence over the course of about 5 episodes. Regardless of whether or not she is in a relationship or experiences emotions for the first time (lol), she remains a genius with a genius IQ and has been a recluse for most of her life; why is she suddenly able to be so insanely sociable and react naturally to any instance of MC-kun('s lookalike) being lovey dovey? Just watch the first half of episode 22 and you can see just how far Kimikiss has gone from actually having a genius loner to simply having a dandere voice actor.

A/V? It's debatable. Maybe I just detest the characters appearances because of how little I enjoyed the series, but to its credit the expressions are pretty well captured and animation is fluid. No crazy hair colours or hairstyles, but I'm not sure whether that's good or bad considering I would usually come to Anime expecting that kind of escapism or interesting art style. Doesn't help in distinguishing between characters either (although by around the mid-point of the series it shouldn't be too hard to remember who has a crush on who just by their voice acting and predictable mannerisms). The voice acting is pretty great in everyone except Kouichi, who I'd describe as "bland" right off the bat in the lack of variety in tones and expressions no matter what emotions his character should be feeling. Forgive my insolence, but I don't even remember the music, so I'll just avoid talking about that since I imagine I'd have identified it as good or bad if it had been in any way memorable.

Overall; not good. I don't think this even qualifies as satisfactory, although it's pretty close. There were too many basic problems and an overall feel of laziness in the structure and writing, to the point where I was simply watching the final episodes to get the less than enjoyable series out of my face forever.

(also the campfire scene gives me flashbacks to School Days,,,)