KimiKiss ~ Pure Rouge is a Slice of Life, Romance anime about the daily lives of high school students. Unlike most of the “visual novels” – to – “anime adaptations”, this one does not carry an overall theme or concept but it’s just about normal daily lives of the characters. The story itself is very casual so some may get bored of it but as a person who’s seen numerous romance anime, I enjoyed the lack of comedy and intense drama. Seeing how there’s not too many relationship dilemmas that make it feel overbearing, all that is left to do is relax and enjoy the flow of the steadily paced story.
With no real emphasis put on the story, it's the characters that bring it all to life. Instead of being focused on the protagonist and heroine(s), like most shows tend to do, we get a bunch of teenage boys and girls that get a fair bit of time and development each. Of course there will be certain characters you’ll favor over others; it just feels good to have a choice.
The animation both had its good and bad points. The environments and backgrounds had a painted watercolor look, which made the superbly drawn characters stand out. Yet due to the lack of detail in the backgrounds, the bits of CG used really stood out but these are only minimal issues. The music was alright, I guess, but it felt uninspiring and the OP or ED themes aren’t something you’d really want to listen to either, until we get to the 2nd ED.
Overall KimiKiss ~ Pure Rouge is a surprisingly enjoyable Rom/Com to watch with its best merit being that it develops each of the different characters well and also their different relationships are also quite refreshing to watch. Being a Rom/Com there are bound to be some typical clichés but it still manages to do a good job in focusing on the various romances without getting too dramatic. So in the end this series has enough for romance lovers enjoy or feel content with but it isn’t good enough to convert non-romance anime fans.
^_^
