When a fujoshi named Kae Serinuma loses weight rapidly, due to grief over the death of her favourite anime character, she suddenly finds herself capturing the attention of a number of handsome young men. Kae, who’s used to watching from the sidelines rather than being the center of attention, finds it hard to deal with their interest in her and quickly becomes overwhelmed, but the boys don’t back down. They’re determined to win her heart, even though fujoshi Kae would much prefer to see them pair up amongst each other and watch their gay romances unfold. She thinks princes should be with princes, rather than with princesses and loves watching out for little hints of gay pairings, not just in the anime she watches but also in real life. The group of boys that flocks around Kae quickly discover her true nature, but remain interested each for their own reasons.
Although most of the boys start hanging around Kae just because of her looks, they soon discover there is much more to her than just that. Her cheerful personality and friendly nature shine through, even once they know her for the otaku that she is. Watching their feelings for her develop is fun to watch, as their feelings get tested along the way. At the same time you watch Kae struggle with the fact that she can’t focus on a guy the way normal girls would, her fujoshi mind often takes over. She’s trying to go from otaku to otome, but that doesn’t always work out as well as she’d hope. Despite this she does manage to get closer to them, but is still thrown off by their romantic advances.
The characters in this series are all easy to distinguish from one another, not only by their looks but also by their unique personalities. Because of the variety in personalities there are a lot of fun interactions and conflicts, especially because they all seem to desire the same thing: becoming Kae’s boyfriend. Unfortunately their backgrounds aren’t delved into very deeply, but because I’ve read the manga I do know there is more to these characters than just what you see in the series.
Watashi ga Motete Dousunda, or Kiss Him, Not Me!, is a shoujo series filled with funny moments and attempts at romance. The series genres are harem, comedy, romance, school and shoujo. Although plenty of parts of this anime don’t take place in at school at all.
The series is based on the eponymous manga by Junko, a mangaka known for her shounen ai manga, among which Conveni-kun and Recipe no Ouji-sama. Brain’s Base is the studio behind this anime, they are also known for Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, Durarara!! and Hotarubi no Mori e, among other titles.
For those of you who have read the manga this anime series might be a bit confusing. Up until episode 5, which ends at the end of chapter 12, the anime lines up with the manga chronologically. After this episode however the order of the manga isn’t kept to at all. Episode 6 starts with parts of chapter 22 and 23 and from there on it continues to chapter 24 and so on. Until episode 9, which skips back to chapter 15 and continues from there. Personally I found the storyline a bit confusing this way.
When it comes to the animation and drawing style in this series I wasn’t able to see any flaws. The drawing style appeals to me, because it’s pretty, but also because it resembles the drawing style in the manga. The animation seems to run smoothly and there was never a moment where I was confused about what any expression on the characters’ faces meant.
‘Prince×Prince’ by From4to7 is a cheerful and catchy song that allows for a great intro for this anime, the animation shown in the intro shows the many characters and subjects of this anime well. The ending song, ‘Dokidoki no Kaze (ドキドキの風)’ by Rie Murakawa, is cheerful as well, but the rhythm is slower and the way some of the words are vocalized is a bit over the top for me. It sounds like the singer is trying to sound overly cute, but that does fit with images shown, I suppose.
Honestly I expected to enjoy this series more, but what withheld me from enjoying it as much as I wanted was the mixed up timeline. The story progresses too fast and skips over background information on some of the characters. It was still a fun anime to watch, but this was a huge letdown for me. Other than that Kiss Him, Not Me! had a lot of funny moments and was filled with a genre I love to watch: Romance. That combined with the subject of fujoshi, shounen ai and otaku make it worth watching for anyone who loves comedy or any of these subjects mentioned before.
If you haven’t read the manga, but want to, I’d suggest to start at chapter 1. This way you won’t miss the story as it’s meant to develop.
Studio: Brain’s Base
Started airing: 7th of October 2016
Number of episodes: 12
Rating: 70/100
