Anime Review - Kimi-kiss ~ Pure Rouge

Director: Kasai Kenichi
Length: 24 episodes
Year 2007-08

I'm not quite sure why I suffered through this. Well, that's a bad thing to say, I know why. I had to. The worst thing about this anime is the reason I watched it fully, it only gets really bad after episode 10. The further along the plot went, the less I cared about the characters, and the easier I could predict exactly what was going to happen, down to facial expressions and body movements. In the last few episodes I was barely paying attention anymore, choosing to talk to people on MSN and check my facebook and twitter. It was getting that boring.

Anyway, enough of me hating on the anime...Well, it's not actually; I'll be doing it for almost the whole review. Especially this part. The plot and, more importantly, the characters of this show were horrible. There were two characters I cared for, sort of. Well, more like one, and she doesn't even get to be with the person she loves which irritated me. There were a few minor characters I liked, but they got screen time so negligible I honestly can't remember their names. Actually, I can't remember many of the names of any of the characters. That's not a good sign really. This anime is generic. So very, very generic. Such a standard childhood friend love triangle that I was angry at anyone who approved of this anime. That being said, the love triangle doesn't show up until after episode 10 or so. That's what annoyed me most. You could almost see it coming, but you dearly hope it doesn't. When it does, you just have to vent rage at the nearest wall, or the internet. However, that's only half the story since there are two love triangles in this show. Thank god. The other is far more interesting, and surprisingly I felt it to be more realistic even if the main focus of it wasn't. I can't empathise with hyper geniuses, but I sure as hell liked Futami as a character more than almost anyone else in the show. The only problem about this second love triangle...Well, there are a few actually. The guy involved in it reminded me far too much of the lead from Fate/Stay Night, Shiro Emiya. I found myself making multiple cracks at this fact, even going so far as to renaming his two love interests to match other characters from Fate/Stay Night just so I had more fun while watching. The other problem with this triangle is that he ends up with the wrong girl. I know this is subjective, but it really annoyed me for some reason. He ends up with the far shallower character in terms of exposition, in my opinion, and I just felt sorry for him. I'm also surprised at how generic I found this anime to be. I mean, I don't even watch romance animes often, or read any romance novels. I'm not knowledgeable in them at all, but this still felt boring and predictable to no end.
I've probably insulted the plot enough. Well, I haven't, but I'll leave it alone for now. The animation was pretty good. That's all there is to say really. Nothing spectacular, nothing horrible. Actually, that's a lie. The mouth movements are pretty bad, a lot of the time sounds are heard but no movement of the mouth. But that's all that was bad really. Crying, something rarely handled well in anime was quite good in this though. I suppose that's a plus. Overall, there really isn't anything to talk about here.
Moving along, the music. Oh dear god the music. Why? Just...Why? I've mentioned generic a few times in this review haven't I? Well, I'm doing it again. Normally when I'm watching an anime, or a tv show, or anything, I'll notice the music and think 'hey, that's a nice tune, maybe I should download the soundtrack.’ Not so here. I didn't notice the music, I can't remember any of the music. I lie actually. The opening song is stuck in my head...All the first line of it that I can't skip quickly enough to get to the show. The closing song is horrible too. An extremely weak effort by anyone involved here. I'm pretty disappointed really. In my pretty unknowledgeable opinion (but still clearly correct one) music makes a scene a lot of the time, even more so in dramatic scenes or the like. So for a romance, which relies heavily on drama and caring about the characters, the music for this series just failed. It failed so very hard.So, you'd think with all these scathing comments and bad words for the series I'd have hated watching it? You're right actually. This is one of the least enjoyable animes I've ever watched. Only surpassed by another romance story called Zero no Tsukaima, but only the second and third seasons (don't ever expect reviews of them, I am not watching them a second time. Ever.) As I've already stated, this series was boring me by the end, or from halfway through really. The biggest problem is that it starts out so well, with seemingly interesting characters and what could become a great romance story, but it falls prey to bad clichés and fails to expand characters properly or in a satisfying fashion. I really can't recommend this to anyone.
Scores
Plot 3/10
Animation 6/10
Sound 4/10
Enjoyment 1/10
Overall 14/40
Grade E+

Pros
- Crying looks nice
Cons
- Don't care about the characters crying
- Or anything else for that matter