Kiss Him, Not Me - The Complete Series (Review)

By: EyeSpyeAlex I have finally gotten over the extremely debilitating con crud! While I was out of commission, I was able to use the time to catch up on my boxsets. Next on the list was Kiss Him, Not Me, a delightful romantic comedy anime where I found myself relating way too much to the main character.

Story

Kae Serinuma is an overweight otaku and fujoshi, someone who prefers manga involving romantic relationships between men. She enjoys being a wallflower and someone not deemed worthy of being a love interest. Rather than daydream about potential boyfriends, Kae prefers to watch from the sidelines and pair up her classmates in her head. She is perfectly content being a fujoshi, ogling her classmates, and watching her husbando Shion in Mirage Saga. That is, until Shion dies.This sudden loss causes Kae to mourn for over a week under the covers. When she finally emerges, she realizes that she’s undergone a miraculous transformation – she’s become hot! Suddenly Kae finds herself the object of everyone’s attention, including five of her classmates. How can Kae handle people wanting to kiss her when all she wants is to watch them kiss each other?!Kiss Him, Not Me is an absolutely hilarious show from start to finish. It’s awesome watching Kae switch from a total sweetheart to a lecherous girl ogling after boy love. The story does a good job of balancing the romantic aspect with the comedy, while having an overarching otome vibe. The only downside was the divergence from the manga. It would have been interesting to see that explored a little.

Animation

One thing that made watching Kiss Him, Not Me so enjoyable was the animation. The animators did an incredible job drawing the characters, especially their faces. The scenes where Kae or the other characters had goofy expressions were especially hilarious. Coupled with the dialogue, the scenes that looked serious but were actually comedic were amplified by how the characters were drawn. All in all, Kiss Him, Not Me is a visual delight.Voice ActingOn top of having great animation, the voice acting for Kiss Him, Not Me is top notch. While all the voice actors did a wonderful job, I especially want to commend Jeannie Tirado, Michelle Rojas, and Whitney Rodgers. Their portrayal of Kae Serinuma, Shima Nishina, and Amane Nakano respectively was phenomenal. They managed to capture that classic shojo girl voice while simultaneously giving them an epic female nerd voice. Their ability to voice the characters differently based on the situation at hand added a nice layer of comedy and depth to already wonderful characters.

Characters

Speaking of the characters, this show had a fantastic cast of them. Yudukr Igarashi, Asuma Mutsumi, Hayato Shinomiya, and Nozomu Nanashima, joined with Shima Nishina made great love interests. Not only did the characters each have their own fleshed out likes and dislikes, their interactions with Kae and each other felt very real. They had to figure out what exactly they had in common with Kae before they could really bond, and that took a lot of trial and error. It made the moments when they finally found out how to connect with Kae feel authentic and heartwarming.The show also did a great job of expressing the need to get consent before making a move on someone. This was a welcome surprise from the typical media advice of “Go for it and worry about consequences after!”. Several times one of the boys accidentally or intentionally makes a move on Kae which she doesn’t reciprocate. Each time, she makes her feelings of discomfort known and they *gasp* learn from the situation! And apologize! It was great to see characters owning their actions, both the good and the bad.

Packaging & Bonus MaterialsI often seem to be disappointed by the lack of materials included with boxset releases, but I wasn’t this time. The DVD and Blu-Ray discs say “I heart BL”. I heart boy love. I was so incredibly happy with this that I couldn’t care less about what else was or wasn’t included. As a note though, the bonus features include textless opening and closing themes, along with some trailers.I highly recommend that everyone check out Kiss Him, Not Me. Fans looking to add this to their collection can purchase it here from Funimation.