Kimikiss Pure Rouge

Genre: Romance, slice of life
Length: 24 episodes
Rating: nothing offensive
Score: Watchable

Kouichi Sanada and Kazuki Aihara’s childhood friend Mao Mizusawa has returned after living in France for a couple of years. Kouichi is surprised to learn that, since her parents are remaining overseas for the time being, his mother has agreed to let Mao stay with them. The three friends help each other deal with the ups and downs of high school romance.

This series is basically a collection of love triangles set amongst a group of friends. I started watching this after reading some positive forum posts about it, but in all honesty it just doesn’t work for me. Aihara’s love triangle is very well done and the conflict between his two female protagonists is very real. Unfortunately Sanada’s love triangle really… isn’t. It feel unnatural, unrealistic and just drags out for far too long. It doesn’t help that Sanada’s a pretty weak-willed individual at the best of time, and trying to get him to make a *decision* is nigh on impossible.

This series is undeniably a sappy romance, and to be brutally honest, there are much better romantic anime out there.