Kiss Him Not Me – Review

This is it guys. This anime threw dirty kitty litter in my mouth and called it pop rocks. That’s all I really have to say on the subject… Actually, that’s not true. I have a lot to say on the subject.

I personally did not like this anime in its entirety. I was actually surprised to see it had its good parts, but I found that there were other aspects of it that overshadowed the good and made it just downright a generic reverse harem with nothing new to add to the table. To make matters worse, it added some shallow attributes that it seemed to be teetering on as to whether or not it was going to fight for or against. It was overall an odd experience for me, one of the weirdest people to ever walk the dino lands.

The Good:

The one thing I was pleasantly surprised to see that the humor wasn’t all poorly founded. In fact, there were a few parts that made me laugh pretty hard! While I didn’t agree with all the ways that this anime utilized its humor, I will say that it definitely had its moments were it didn’t make jokes to put down people. Rather, it was almost tasteful! It was like I ordered a good dessert at a greasy spoon.

I also loved Shima Nishina and Kazuma Mutsumi’s representation in the anime. In a lot of reverse harems I’ve seen, there’s usually never a girl being portrayed as a rival; if there is a female role, she’s usually not seen as a threat. But she was taken seriously by the other boys and she was legitimately caring towards Kae. Kazuma was a legitimate multi-sexual character who didn’t see gender at all (yes, I need more characters like this) and it was pretty fantastic to see! His younger brother was also one of my favorites. I was rooting for him after Shima simply because the two of them didn’t care what Kae looked like.

The Bad: 

It was no secret that I found Kae’s representation to not only be offensive, but also just awful overall. For character development, for story building, for really anything, I have to say it was just done in poor taste. From the way she talked when she was bigger to how she was drawn as “less attractive” it was clear the writers were taking a jab. What was confusing was that they had plots to consider whether or not her love interests would still like her if she was big; the answer to some being yes and others leaving us uncertain. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to make up for the representation given, but if so they should recognize there are other ways to portray plus-sized characters without making them seem goofy, unattractive or undeserving of love.

That aside, this was a classic reverse harem that ended exactly how other harem stories end. I really hoped, somewhere deep down in the caverns of my very soul, that there was going to be a definitive ending, but no. I got my hopes up yet again. Plus, it felt as though there wasn’t a lot of character development for some of the characters. It seemed like some drastic changes came for characters like Asuma or Yūsuke, but a lot of the other boys seemed to stay the same or they didn’t really grow much in comparison. You could see at the end when she showed her thoughts about each guy, it was sort of like this:

“Asuma is so sweet and charming; he’d help me finish my salad if I couldn’t eat all of it… He’s thought a lot of this through and knows what it means to be in love.”

“Hayato is… Trying his best.” 

By far, there was a drastic difference and I think the creators could sort of see that by the end. I think some choices would have been obvious for her with no contest (Shima or Asuma) because they clearly fit better in terms of personality as well as their care for her without a thought on her appearance.

Kitty Rating:

Okay so I can’t really overlook some of the issues this anime posed. And overall, despite having beautiful art and animation, I think the story as well as the development of characters was just poorly done. This greasy spoon just did not do it for me. I usually don’t mind reverse harems, but this one bugged me a lot for some of it’s clear tropes and downright rude humor. Elliot liked the boys though, they were pretty. And we were big fans of Shima; she was pretty fantastic. But I couldn’t, in good conscious, give this a better review. I would be lying to my demon overlords if I did.

What did you guys think about Kiss Him Not Me? Tell me in the comment section below!