Kimikiss Pure Rouge – Should have been about just Aihara and Futami
I for one was pretty bored watching Kimikiss Pure Rouge, and most people on MAL seem to give it some what high scores for the romance. Although, I found it to be more on the cliche side. Kimikiss isn’t an original story. For those who didn’t know, it is actually based on a PS2 love simulation game by the same name. I found the game to be better since it was a lot more focused, but what can you do when you have to make a 24 episode series out of a love simulation game? No way to really make that smooth transition although that doesn’t stop studios from making eroge adaptions and the like.
I liked how for the anime they actually split the main character of the game into two people. Instead of just trying to have one male character get with one of the many females in the show. They can at least cover more ground with two male leads. In the game your default name is Kouichi Aihara so they took that name and used it for the names of the two main male characters in the anime. Aihara is more outgoing/sporty guy and Kouichi is more reserved/traditional kinda guy. I didn’t like Kai much because he was just so aloof. He isn’t even in the game either but I guess he was more trendy and modern.
Pure Rouge had some filler and dumb elements to it that I think could have been left out. I mean, the original game was about you finding love. You never had a girlfriend so you wanted to get to know a girl and whatever before the day of the student festival. So it should of spent more time developing the relations between the characters but I felt they developed said relations at a rather slow pace. Oh god, especially Kouichi and Hoshino. The cliche shy lovers combo.
Things really didn’t happen fast enough until close to the end. Maybe this is a little realistic, but I wasn’t very interested at times. Sometimes I would watch and find such and such episode as a pretty good one and think that it must be getting good now. Things are starting to pick up. Only to be let down in the next episode.
Even maybe a little drama and shouting would have been nice. I mean, for having one character end up liking another character and that character liking another character, Pure Rouge sure had a lot of the characters keeping those pent up feelings to themselves a whole lot. Totally on the other end of the spectrum from say True Tears.
The whole movie club element was okay, but they changed Hiiragi to have a personality more like Taishi (overbearing and kinda bossy) from Comic Party which I really didn’t like. They totally turned Nana and Narumi into a stupid comedy duo as well. I didn’t like this too much either since Nana in the game is really the typical younger sister type and she never came off to me as a stupid character. The same with Narumi. Also, Narumi has that “I like you sempai.” thing going on which was taken out in the anime. It was just annoying because they portrayed two characters I thought were maybe a little childish, but also had a mature side too, which was never shown.
Unlike the other relationships in the show, I really liked watching Aihara and Futami. Futami really reminded me of Kotoko from Tokimeki Memorial 2. Later in the series she had to deal with her feelings for Aihara and the feelings of Sakino for Aihara. That is what was a lot similar to what Kotoko dealt with in Tokimeki Memorial 2.
Futami isn’t really a tsundere, but she really did run away from Aihara’s feelings for her and was playing hard to get. Even toying with his feelings for her through experiments. I thought their relationship was a little more bumpy and interesting unlike the other ones. I would have been entirely satisfied if the entire 24 episodes was just about Aihara and Futami. Well, I guess there is always the game…
Also, who was going to end up with who at the end was kinda up in the air throughout the whole show. This isn’t really a bad thing but it’s all kinda wrapped up in the last episode which is kinda lame. I mean, wtf. It’s not even all that satisfying of an ending too. :/
Oh jeez, I wrote a lot for this show even though it was a pretty average high school romance show. I liked the game a whole lot more, but after being exposed to some of the characters more like Futami, through the anime, maybe I’ll give them a shot. I would check out the game and even the manga is a lot better too. The one series of it is even getting brought out by Tokyopop oddly enough.
I was excited about the anime since I think I saw somewhere that same person that made Honey & Clover made it. It was pretty disappointing though.
Kai looks like Chad from Bleach and Futami/Aihara was the best match in it.
Yeah, I had failed to mention it in my entry but yes it was directed by the guy who directed Honey and Clover. Pretty disappointing I agree.
jeze you actually remembered their names.
Well, I played the game after all.
Needed moar YuumixMao
That’d be hot.