From our earliest ages, when the phrase “Once upon a time” promises us nothing but magic, we’re told that a prince must marry a princess. Thus has been the core of every fairy tale ever told, but according to Kae Serinuma, this is some straight up bullshit. I mean, who came up with THAT stupid rule, right? Princes should be with other princes, duh! This is the conviction shared by Kae and her best friend Amane Nakano, and it’s one they’re content to live their lives by. While Amane has to hide her otaku nature from her boyfriend, Kae has no such obligation, enjoying her life of hedonistic indulgence until one fateful day, when something tragic happens... Her husbando dies! Distraught, Kae refuses to leave her bed for an entire week, and when she’s finally forced to by her family, she emerges from her cocoon having lost a ton of weight. This transformation does not go unnoticed by the boys at her school, who begin to hound her for her affection. This should be every girls’ dream, but for Kae, the idea that they’re all in love with her instead of each other is more of a nightmare.

At first glance, I don’t think I’ve seen any anime out of Brain’s Base that didn’t look amazing, putting them right up there on the same pedestal as PA Works. I haven’t seen very many of their titles, but I have reviewed one of them before, God only knows how long ago. I reviewed Amnesia back in my blogging days, and while Amnesia was a huge pile of shit, it was an immaculately polished turd to say the least. Kiss Him, Not Me goes even farther in proving my past statements about their production style, that being that they are really good at making a show look pleasing to the eye without pouring a ton of money into it. Brain’s Base tends to do an outstanding job while very likely using far less resources than it may appear at first glance. For this show in particular, I was noticing constantly how it would take me a second or even a third look at the screen to tell that the extras in the background weren’t moving, because the characters in the foreground were framed so well, and the color palette was popping out at me so hard, that I was honestly just transfixed.

One of the big issues I’ve always had with the shoujo aesthetic is that it has boundless potential, but it never really has any reason to live up to it. Shoujo anime is usually populated by gorgeously drawn male characters, and female characters who, while stated in-universe to be ultra-plain, are still exceptionally pretty. Whether you love or hate the shoujo market, you have to admit, shoujo anime and manga are at least consistently beautiful to look at, largely because the artists behind them have an extra incentive to make each screen/panel as pleasing to the eye as possible, to make up for the lack of action and movement. Okay, well, what if you were to take this technique, and diversify the tone? A shoujo anime that had enough range to dip it’s toes in dumb slapstick comedy is thus something you can’t not be curious about, and as bishie as Kae and her harem may be, they look just as crisp and natural as chibis, as reaction memes, and even as fucking goblins, such as whenever Kae goes on an otaku rant. The shoujo aesthetic can pull off far more than just portraits surrounded by flowers, and this show is a prime example.

As far as the actual animation goes, it’s not super lavish, it’s not anything breathtaking, but it also never slacks off. Brain’s Base pulled just as much money out of the animation budget as they needed from scene to scene, and not a yen more. The character designs are more or less what you’d typically expect from a shoujo reverse harem anime, albeit slightly more cartoony, but like I said before, the shoujo aesthetic is usually fairly attractive, and that goes just as true here. My only two complaints are that I occasionally had trouble telling two of these boys apart(the first time around, especially) and the fact that Kae’s weight loss felt grossly inaccurate. I’m not saying staying in bed and starving yourself for a week wouldn’t make you lose some weight, but you definitely wouldn’t come out of it looking like a healthy or attractive skinny person. Still, it’s just an anime, animation is meant to convey exaggerations, and at least they didn’t go the route of pretending weight loss equals immediate athletic prowess. Although what happens to her glasses, I have no fucking idea.

The English dub was a Funimation effort, and while there isn’t a sour note in the entire cast, I have to give endless praise to Jeannie Tirado for playing Kae as likeable and upbeat for the majority of the material, but also launching into some genuinely unhinged rants whenever the character starts to perv out. I was honestly starting to pick up some early-2000s Jessica Calvello energy from her. I will say that there’s a dimension of the character that she didn’t capture, but it’s for the better. In the Japanese track, Kae’s voice changed dramatically depending on her weight, as she had a deliberately less flattering “fat voice” before her transformation, but we’re better off without that, so good call on director Tia Ballard’s part. The rest of the cast is just as strong, but I especially like how David Wald played Mutsumi as a big snuggly teddy bear, how Ryan Pitts played the bad boy turned soft, and it was nice to hear Britney Karbowski pop in for a cameo as Nanashima’s little sister. The sub is good too for the most part, but I’m going to enthusiastically recommend the dub.

I wouldn’t go as far as to call Kiss Him, Not Me a full on parody or deconstruction of its genre, but it does have those elements in it, so let’s talk about what I think makes this sort of material work. In my opinion, a good parody comes from a place of respect and honesty... In order to properly parody a genre, you have to have some degree of love and respect for it, but also enough honesty to understand what needs to be sent off. For an example that I’ve used before, Detroit Metal City is a bad parody because it paints Death Metal music as repetitive, misogynistic drivel that corrupts the innocents, and it paints the fans as braindead, morally repulsive sheep. On the other hand, Metalocalypse is its polar opposite, as it celebrates the awesome parts of Death Metal while lampooning everything that’s maybe not so awesome about it. Kiss Him, Not Me feels like it came from a similar place, and sure enough, it did. The author of the manga was previously an accomplished yaoi mangaka before a high-end magazine hired her to write a comedy manga about otome games and fujoshi culture.

A good deconstruction works when the writer takes a common cliche that most people take for granted, and creates a game changing reason behind that cliche. For example, Madoka Magika built its tragic tale on a foundation that deconstructed the ‘magical mascot who gave the magical girl her powers’ cliche. Hi, my name is Kyuubey. Well, in the case of Kiss Him, Not Me, the most important cliche they went after is how the vast majority of harem stories feature several hotties inexplicably throwing themselves at a comparatively boring protagonist who keeps their guard up, refusing these advances for God knows what reason even though most people in their shoes would take advantage of this(yeah, like in School Days). What the author came up with was, the harem is throwing themselves at the protagonist because she suddenly became hot, and she doesn’t reciprocate their advances because she’s a yaoi fan who would rather see them with each other, which might sound like a questionable idea at first, but good lord does it open up a world of comedic possibilities.

Having said that, this premise also had a lot of room to go wrong. While there were some genuinely unique details surrounding it, there are also some familiar elements that historically haven’t been handled well in anime OR western cartoons, and I have to commend the writers for every low hanging fruit they didn’t pick. It would have been easy, for example, to have Kae’s weight loss significantly improve her life,in order to convey some forced, bitter commentary about conventionally attractive people having it easy. She could have been bullied at first, and then after everyone started being nice to the slim her, she could be corrupted by popularity, and we could all sit here and pick apart some heavily flawed message about true beauty being on the inside, and looks and popularity not being everything, and I’m sure that wouldn’t be the WORST Family Guy episode you’ve ever seen, but it would still be your average Family Guy episode. Instead, the writers went an entirely unpredictable route with this show, and I’m here for it.

First off, before her weight loss, Kae was already happy. She was content with her circumstances, perfectly comfortable in her own skin, and while she wasn’t a Mary-Sue, she was kind and cheerful. Granted, nobody was knocking down her door for dates, but they weren’t bullying her either. A couple of people were sorta dicks to her, but it didn’t feel personal or cruel. After she lost the weight, she was still the same person, it just felt like she no longer had that barrier to protect her from social situations that she wasn’t necessarily comfortable engaging in. More importantly, her reaction to all of this unsolicited attention isn’t to take advantage of it, isn’t to try and use or manipulate her new suitors, but instead, she responds by making a genuine effort to adapt and become the normal girl she thinks they want... And when that fails, but they continue to pursue her after finding out she’s a yaoi obsessed otaku, she takes this as blanket acceptance, even though it really just means they’re willing to put up with her weirdness to get into her pants.

And thus the vicious cycle begins; Kae tries to indulge in her fantasies while accommodating her new friends, who occasionally make her uncomfortable by making moves on her, and the harem putting up with all of her eccentricities in order to romantically pursue her, no matter how much her objectification of their friendship makes THEM uncomfortable, and somehow through it all, they all develop as friends, not only with Kae, but with each other, simultaneously enjoying each others’ company and getting on each other’s nerves, in a very strongly written show that never runs out of ideas about how to further explore its concept. It is true that Kae doesn't develop much as an individual, but sometimes a story works better when the protagonist goes full circle. I obviously can’t give everything away, as it is a comedy, but there are jokes about the fujoshi fandom that only a long time fujoshi fan could possibly tell. Some of it is fairly relatable to all forms of otaku... Kae has a strong emotional interest in Japanese historical figures because she knows them from a bishie husbando anime... And some are actually kind of educational. Like, I had no idea that shippers argued just as much about the order of a ship as they did about the ships themselves until I saw this anime.

And yet, it has inspired its fair share of controversy, which surprisingly isn’t centered around Mutsumi’s brother, the adult student-teacher who constantly attempts to groom both male and female minors. Fuck that character. Fuck that story arc, actually. But no, for the controversy people actually seem to care about, we’re going to have to start going into some serious spoiler territory. If you don’t want to see any spoilers, just skip right to the final paragraph of this review. First off, this show has been accused of having really poor LGBT representation. Part of this is due to the fact that shipping actual people in real life is a pretty shitty thing to do, but I would argue that since Kae is just a teenager, it’s innocent enough. She’s probably too young to know any better, and just because she doesn’t change her ways by the end, doesn’t mean the writer supports stuff like that. I’ve heard the inclusion of a female harem member who doesn’t wind up with Kae referred to as queerbaiting, but like, she was never the best option of the group if we’re being honest, and the fact that she’s treated like a serious competitor for Kae’s heart without regard to her gender is still pretty progressive on it’s own.

Besides, there is one really strong element of LGBT representation on display here, but to get to it, we’re going to have to look at one more big issue people have with this show, and here is where the spoilers get serious; Kae doesn’t pick anybody. People don’t like this, even though that’s in no way uncommon in harem anime. It was kind of inevitable, seeing how the manga was still ongoing when the anime wrapped up, but they COULD have picked somebody for an anime exclusive ending, right? Well, maybe, but I’m kinda glad they didn’t. Yes, the manga eventually has Kae confess to one of her suitors, and they apparently live happily ever after following a huge timeskip, and don’t get me wrong, I think they chose the right option for her, but I still prefer the version where she doesn’t pick anybody, and for a few reasons. First off, realistically speaking, most people don’t meet their spouse in high school, especially not when it’s their first serious girlfriend/boyfriend. Second, Kae never asked for any of this attention, and at no point during the show does it feel like she actually wants a girlfriend or boyfriend, so by deciding not to decide, it feels like she’s actually showing some agency in the situation.

And finally, going back to that ‘one good piece of LGBT representation’ deal, I’m pretty sure Kae’s asexual. Now, I’m gonna place a huge fucking disclaimer here, I am purely speculating from the position of a viewer who hasn’t read the manga, has no idea what the writer or the studio ever intended, and is expressing what is entirely his own opinion, speaking as an asexual person myself. This is just my interpretation of the material, but in my eyes, it’s clear as day that this character is somewhere on the Ace spectrum. I’m basing this not only on her complete and utter lack of drive or initiative to choose a romantic partner out of the bishies that are throwing themselves at her, but the fact that while she’s open to giving romance a chance, if only to accommodate the attention she’s receiving, she has no fucking clue how to treat someone like they’re more than just a friend to her. It’s even more clear when you consider one of the weirder details about Asexuals... That we’re incredibly likely to have some kind of powerful and all consuming fetish that we would theoretically be able to enjoy as a spectator, or more realistically fantasize about in the third person... And that lines up perfectly with Kae’s desire to watch from the sidelines as two guys get it on.

But even if I’m wrong, Kae is still an incredibly strongly written protagonist, with very clear interests and a personality that’s both distinct and striking. She has flaws, especially with her barely concealed perversion and objectification of queerness in men, but the way she expresses these flaws is both hilarious and, in some cases, even kind of thought provoking. Another piece of controversy surrounds an accidental sexual assault, and while the circumstances surrounding it are admittedly dubious, I still found it surprisingly poignant when, after the incident, Kae remarks on how something she really likes in fiction(the bizarre trend of sexual aggression in yaoi) is actually really scary in real life. You just don’t see that kind of self-awareness in a lot of anime. On the other hand, I’ll admit that even outside of this incident, Kiss Him Not Me goes to the ‘attempted assault’ well a few times too often. Moving on, I don’t want to give away any massive spoilers on her harem members, as they really are a fun batch of characters to get to know, but they’re all just as unique and distinctive as Kae, featuring their own individual dynamics with her, and their own flaws that hold them back from her. I do wish her best friend Amane got more of a spotlight and was involved in more storylines, but I’m still happy with what I have.

Kiss Him, Not Me is currently out of print from Funimation, but the manga is available stateside from Kodansha comics.

I think I can understand, on some level, the issues people have with this anime. I can at least agree that it’s not for everybody. I can understand if certain choices it made disappoint some people, especially those who are faithful to the manga. But aside from Mutsumi’s creepy older brother, none of that really bothers me, and I just really enjoy this anime. It’s incredibly funny to me, and I have a hard time watching it without a giant smile on my face. A lot of this is due to just how accepting everyone is of both each other and, in some cases, themselves. You should also be aware by this point that I generally have a soft spot for any anime that offers up a bizarre and unique scenario, and actually goes the extra mile in exploring that scenario, and this show fits that bill perfectly. I get really tired of the absolute glut of media that tell you you can accomplish anything just by being yourself, since that is objectively not true, but Kiss Him, Not Me throws all of that out the window by suggesting that being yourself should be its own reward, and that feels a lot more gratifying to me. But above all, this show is just really funny, and like a lot of my favorite anime comedies, it radiates with confidence and upbeat energy.

I give Kiss Him, Not Me an 8/10.