Kimikiss Pure Rouge is an anime that tells the tale of three different love stories with each different in the way the couple approach their relationship (hint: the storylines are similar to my opening paragraph). Although I say "different," I mean that the romance is different but all the characters are friends with each other. The story of the anime begins with a very pretty girl, named Mao, coming home to Japan after spending a few years in France (though we don't get to hear her speak French at any point in the anime). Because her parents are still overseas, she returns home and lives with one of our main male leads, Kouichi, who is her childhood friend. Without sacrificing too many episodes, the anime plants each character into their own love ship: Kouichi and his high school crush Hoshino the librarian, Mao and the rather quiet jazz student Kai, and Kazuki (a friend of Kouichi) and the quiet and seemingly emotionless Futami. The ships sail in relatively calm waters but given that Kouichi and Mao were childhood friends…well I'll leave it there. On the other side of the sea, Kazuki and Futami's ship is hindered by the strikingly athletic soccer player Sakino and it is up to Captain Kazuki to choose either to throw Futami into the shark infested waters and welcome Sakino aboard or leave her aimlessly drifting in the sea clinging on nothing but her small lifeboat.
There are no overarching themes or explicit obstacles to overcome in the story. Kimikiss is purely a romance story. It focuses on how the characters change over the course of the story, highlighting their realizations as to what they seek in a relationship. There is a small comical side story of Narumi and Nana, two first year (?) high school students, who are on their quest to make the ultimate bowl of udon. Their quest is not particularly enticing except for the Grandpa who helps them in the process (try counting how many lines he says in 24 episodes). As long as you do not invest yourself too much in a particular ship, the ending of the anime is quite satisfying. You may find yourself choking up on the last two episodes.
A significant portion of the drama in the anime revolves around the group film project that most of our characters help develop (except for Futami and Sakino). The film they make is about two childhood lovers who come to realize their feelings for each other. Without spoiling the main actors in the student film, the writers were pretty smart in having the characters tell their true feelings for each other while as fictional characters.
I might add that the director of Kimikiss Pure Rouge, Kasai Kenichi, also did other notable anime such as, Hachimitsu to Clover, Nodame Cantabile, all three Bakuman, and a few episodes of Toradora!. That's a pretty impressive resume but the story of Kimikiss Pure Rouge doesn't live up to the good stories of those other anime (possibly he ran out of gas after doing Nodame Cantabile as this anime was aired soon after Nodame).
The characters of Kimikiss Pure Rouge fall into the standard romance archetypes: the childhood friends (Mao and Kouichi), the quiet librarian (Hoshino), the vibrant athlete (Sakino), the "sidekick" who in this case is extremely dense (Kazuki), and the also quiet but emotionless genius (Futami). Kai is the guy who doesn't fall into a category in my book at least. The anime does challenge these standards but not so dramatically that the characters feel entirely fresh. My only concern with these characters lie in Kazuki, who seems to have contracted a severe case of "dense MC." While he was at a clinic with Sakino in one episode, the doctor forgot to issue him a prescription to deal with this deadly syndrome.
On the technical side, the art was alright. If you have seen Amagami SS, then you will find the artwork to be very familiar (perhaps you'll recognize a few characters). The art was done by the same studio who brought us Amagami SS and Amagami SS+ but the art in Kimikiss lacks the charm and colour of Amagami SS. Most of the character designs are solid but Kouichi's face often seems disproportionate. What I mean by that is the distance between his eyes feel awkward, giving him a very stupid-looking face (I don't believe it had significant literary meaning to it…).
The sound is pretty decent. The OP is pretty upbeat and light compared to the emotionally heavy second ending. That second ending is really good and was well-suited to the drama that was happening in those episodes. The OST is not memorable except Futami's theme, which they happen to play it very loudly during her scenes. The voice actors were decent but not memorable. Doing a search of their resumes, I found out the voice actor for Hoshino, Koshimizu Ami, lent her voice to Holo of Spice & Wolf. Unfortunately, she was not as charismatic in this anime as she was in Spice & Wolf.
Kimikiss Pure Rouge doesn't do much to the romance genre but it's not a story that should be thrown in the trash. If you like watching pure romance anime, then I believe you would enjoy it. If you like your romance to have some sort of greater themes enveloping the story, then Kimikiss may fall off your radar.
Let me know what you think of Kimikiss Pure Rouge! Who did you ship? Did you think everyone ended up with whom they should end up? I would love to hear from you!!
