Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 12

And so Kiss Him Not Me comes to an end, with the ending pretty much in the title all along. Mutsumi’s sudden realization of his romantic feelings for Kae make her other four suitors scramble to keep him away from her, but he eventually outsmarts them with a P.A. announcement calling Kae to the school roof.

Mu, however, does not discourage the others from joining him on that roof and letting their feelings be known. With everyone saying they like her, clearly, and asking if she’ll go out with them, the onus is on her to choose.

Kae flees to A-chan with her predicament; A-chan is understandably frustrated with Kae putting everything in fujoshi terms, but the solution they come up with is for Kae to do things dating-sim-style. The scene is another hint that Kae simply isn’t ready for a 3D romantic relationship.

She goes on dates with each of the suitors, and has a wonderful time with each of them, as each of their charms are laid bare before her. But it doesn’t make it any easier to choose among them; indeed, it only make the choice harder and more confusing.

All five are great, they’re just lacking that special something that would compel her to choose one over the others. Which is why, in the end, she chooses no one. The status quo prior to their confessions is the situation at the end, for Kae doesn’t “love” any of them the way she loves Shion, who may be resurrected in a new season of his anime.

So there you have it. Kae has never subscribed to the notion that the princess belongs with the prince, or even that the princess belongs with another princess. She’s all about 5×7, tops, bottoms, and lords. Furthermore, she lives a full and happy life not with a boyfriend or girlfriend, but with her sixteen waifus.

“Sorry, that’s how it is,” she says to her shocked, former suitors. And I can’t really feel that bad for them. They’re all still friends, both with her and with each other. Hopefully they can get over the fact she’s not the kind of girl who’d date them, and never was.

It’s a fitting end to a satisfying, if not perfect show that centered on a genuine ‘unconventional’ girl (whatever that means) who may be a bit naive when it comes to romance, but in the end knows what she wants and what she loves, and isn’t about to conform.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 11

Mu’s ill-advised attempt to convince his brother that Kae was already his girlfriend is undermined by everyone else, and only ends up emboldening Kazuma, who now knows that all of them are into Kae, and he’s only too happy to throw his hat in the ring.

One by one, the group falls before Kazuma, who uses tactics that exploit the weaknesses of each person, be it Shi’s skittishness, Nana and Iga’s reputations, or Shina’s first doujinshi.

It feels a little Wile E. Coyote, in that each character gives up after one attempt to thwart Kazuma, but the point is that only one person can stop him, and he can only stop him by shedding the “meek little brother” act of always conceding everything to him.

Kazuma is the way he is because Mu always gave him what he wanted. But as he demonstrates in the obscure Sengoku era-themed card game duel, Mu is not willing to cede ground to his brother. He cares too much about Kae.

In an amusing, if not particularly thrilling card duel (during which the gathered crowd and everyone but Kae constantly mention they have no idea what’s going on) Mu executes a just-barely-legal, gutsy move Kazuma did not expect, defeating him by all means at his disposal.

Mu’s newfound intensity and confidence gets through to Kazuma, who accepts defeat graciously; not something I thought would happen after he locked and taped Mu in a locker just a couple days before. But Kazuma is happy Mu finally stood up for himself.

The group is happy Mu won…right up until the moment he capitalized on his victory by confessing his feelings to Kae, who seems to react positively. That naturally puts the others on edge, as with Kazuma (probably, hopefully) out of the picture, Mu is now back to being their rival for Kae’s heart. Even though she’s content to have sixteen fictional waifus.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 10

This week marks another single guy-centric episode, but like Shinomiya’s, instead of the same Mutsumi we’ve gotten week-to-week, we get an overdone charicature, only not quite as overdone as the klutzy Shi. Combined with a somewhat lame first half involving a cave adventure that turns out to be pointless and a disaster of a second half, this was Kiss Him Not Me’s worst outing.

The adventure is stale, and while the idea of Mutsumi not knowing whether he romantically likes Kae (like the others) is interesting, Mutsumi has always been the kind but rather dull one, and having him carry an episode, even half of one, just doesn’t do it for me.

Nor does his sudden intense fear of darkness, which is not much more than an excuse for Kae to take his hand and lead him through the cave. This is a guy who stripped both himself and Kae down to warm up her underheated body. It makes zero sense for him to be so flustered about holding Kae’s hand now.

Things only get worse when Mutsumi’s older, creepier brother shows up as a student teacher. Setting aside the fact that his bisexualism (if it’s really even genuine) is handled about as seriously as a show like this could be expected to handle it; this guy straight up tells underage kids he could totally sleep with any one of them. That’s a fireable offense at best.

Not only that, he takes an interest in Kae, to the point he invites her to lunch after running into her in Shinjuku (despite her clearly being uncomfortable with the idea), then takes advantage when he has to catch Kae from falling to make a move on her. Mutsumi is able to stop him before anything happens, but the look on Kae’s face is all you need to know to determine that this guy’s a sketchy creep, and I’m not sure how else we’re supposed to see him.

That he intends to “bide his time” until he’s no longer teaching there to “pursue” Kae (without any input from her about what she’d think about such a pursuit) doesn’t make him any less detestable. Even if he’s only putting on an extra-skeevy act to try to motivate Mutsumi to ask Kae out, it doesn’t change the fact he’s being totally inappropriate with a student.

I can forgive this show’s dancing around the whole weight thing, but not this. The fact is, the show just isn’t that funny right now, and that’s a problem.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 09

It’s a beach episode, folks, with a lot of familiar elements from that subgenre, including vertical pan up to unveil the ladies’ swimsuits. Shiny! It’s also a rare Shinomiya-centered episode, in which most of the inner dialogue comes from him as he struggles to impress Kae, and makes mess after mess of trying.

From accidentally launching himself into her boobs on the beach to having to hide behind his bigger friends as they scare off some creeps, Shino’s feeling particularly inadequate this week. When he knocks her down trying to save her from a snake, causing her to drop all her kebabs on the ground, it’s the last straw, and he runs off in tears.

Concerned for Shinomiya’s well-being, the gang chases after him, but he manages to get way far ahead of them for some reason, while Shina seems oddly un-knowledgeable about the environs of her family’s beach manse. The gag with the bridge that breaks but the gang (sans Kae) only “plummets” a little is funny enough, until you wonder how that fall (which is at least ten feet) didn’t hurt anyone. They can’t blame mushrooms this week!

Some odd choices about the journey to save Shino aside, I did enjoy how the two fujoshis embrace him for his “klutz appeal”, which ties into the themes of the show thus far. But it felt like someone jacked up Shino’s Klutziness and Anxiety Quotients to 11 for this and only this episode.

In trying to deepen the character, the show turned him into a outlandish caricature of himself. Of the episodes thus far that have centered on a single guy, Shino’s has been the worst. It wasn’t a bad episode, but I know Kiss Him Not Me can do better.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 08

Every time it looks like one guy, say Iga, has the inside track (gradually teaching Kae to be comfortable touching a guy with innocent handshakes), conditions allow for a shake-up. Enter Nana, who is concerned about being the least close to Kae of all the others.

When Kae, dirt broke from the pilgrimage, gets a job at a theme park dancing in a Puri Puri Moon show, it’s Nana’s time to shine, as he’s watched, danced, and sung every song in PPM’s repertoire every weekend with his adorable little sister Kirari.

As such, Nana is the one and only one who can get closer to Kae this way. The others try, but the hiring staff of Usami Land find other part-time jobs that better fit their particular skills and circumstances. As for Nana, he puts everything he has into training for the role of the Dark Prince, even at the cost of his health, suddenly collapsing with fever.

Kae has him brought home, then takes care of him by cooking him food before he takes his medicine. She manages to bond with Kirari a little, but not to the point Kirari is willing to let Kae have her brother, whom she wants to marry. But their shared knowledge of PPM is a definite ice-breaker.

Then things get dark, and I mean really dark, as a fever-addled Nana, essentially dreaming while awake, grabs, kisses, and holds down Kae, who isn’t strong enough to break away. If it wasn’t for an improbable Iga to the rescue, who knows what might have happened.

The show does not contend for a second that Nana was just getting the better of his hormones to awful result; he was well and truly not in his right mind. I have no reason to doubt that, and neither does Kae, but that doesn’t change the fact it was an awful and terrifying experience; one that makes her nervous about touching any guy again, including Iga, the guy she was making such nice gradual progress with.

After apologizing profusely both on the phone and in a very public display of begging outside Kae’s bedroom window (much to the chagrin of her older brother), Nana regains Kae’s trust in the heat of a PPM show gone awry, when three otaku n’er-do-wells must be dealt with, requiring Kae to take Nana’s arm/hand on numerous occasions.

I’ll admit the frozen faces of the character outfits were a little unsettling (not to mention an obvious trick to save money on animation), but that’s often how such theme parks operate; the labor they have at their disposal isn’t always going to remotely resemble specific anime characters.

Indeed, the frozen faces served at least two laudable purposes: they provided a literal “padding” between Kae and Nana to facilitate healing between them, and it also served as a semi-biting commentary on the culture of such shows: play the right tune and bust the right moves, and facial expressions, to say nothing of plot and character, are all irrelevant.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 07

In the most bizarre and surreal episode of WagaMoDo, the newly-restored duo of Kae and Shina suddenly declare they have to go on a pilgrimage to the resting place of Hyakki Sametora, the feudal lord upon which the Lord in their anime is based. The only truly enthusiastic guy is the history buff Mu, but the other three tag along nonetheless. Reasonably priced-but-not flashy hot spring innage ensues.

The night they stay at the inn, Iga accidentally falls on Kae during a pillow battle, and her reactions indicate to Iga that she didn’t dislike that accident. When they end up on the same swan boat (to the possibly cursed island where the lord’s head is believed to reside), he takes her hand and tells her if she’s not used to being so close to a guy, to get used to it…and she does not protest.

Unfortunately for Iga (but fortunately for us), when a sudden storm maroons the group on the island, Kae ends up rescued by Mu (while Iga has to give Nana mouth-to-mouth; an event Shina captures from many angles with her waterproof phone). When Kae collapses from fever, Mu has no choice but to get her to shelter, disrobe her, and use his body heat to get hers up. He does so with the utmost gentlemanliness, while Kae is too out of it to be embarrased.

After that…things kinda go off the rails, as the show suddenly picks up a lot of supernatural elements. The ghost of the lord makes the others walk around in circles, then attacks Kae and Mu, who use the charms they bought at the gift shop to neutralize him. Eventually Kae “exorcises” Sametora when he realizes his legend is not a negative one (thanks in part to the anime that pretties him up and makes him either a top or bottom).

All the supernatural elements are (mostly) explained at the very end once the group gets to shore by a very unexpected and hilarious twist: the restaurant where they ate lunch accidentally used hallucinogenic mushrooms, so they were tripping balls the whole time, likely including during the storm and “lake whirlpool”. Overall a pretty fun episode.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 06

This week’s WagaMoDo explores one of the pitfalls of fujoshi friendships: what happens when they develop opposing views on which guy in a new anime is on the left side of the shipping “x” and which guy is on the right. Kae is adamant that it’s Lord x Akane; Shina the opposite.

Once the guys figure out what the heck the girls are actually on about, they set to work trying to mend fences. Igarashi in particular tries to counsel Shina on the error of her ways, but both girls remain ruthlessly stubborn, finally entering into a fan-fiction writing duel that Shina will likely win with her superior writing experience.

Shina is so caught up in her “justice” that by the time she’s loudly gloating her (surprisingly narrow) victory, Kae is on her hands and knees on the roof, sobbing her eyes out, still not willing to concede Shina’s right. That’s when Iga brings the hammer down: Shina, who claims to love only what is beautiful, has done something ugly…and she knows it.

We get a lot of Shina’s backstory, from when her talents were shrugged off as a product of her family’s wealth and status, to her need to “find a place for herself” in the world, to her interactions with Kae, whom she always thought was beautiful.

Reminiscing on the events that led to her friendship to Kae, Shina soon realizes she must make amends. Enter Iga once more, giving up Kae’s whereabouts when she won’t answer Shina’s call. Shina arrives just as Kae is also coming around to realizing that she doesn’t want her friendship with Shina to end just because of a relatively petty squabble.

They both compromise, stating Akane and his Lord to be “versatile.” A great episode that deepens our understanding of Shina and presents a very realistic situation in which something small and seemingly innocuous can turn into something big and destructive, but the two girls’ friends never stopped trying not to force them back together, but get them to see for themselves that together is where they belong.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 05

This week Kae quickly gains a lot of weight and puts her gang of boys on the spot about why they stay with her. It’s an episode that tries to have its failed Valentine’s chocolate and eat it too, and it almost worked.

First, I like the idea that Shina, whom we don’t know that well, may have actually planned to fatten Kae back up, even if it’s never explicit that’s the case. All we know is, she wan’t entirely joking in drawing a line in the sand between her and the guys for Kae’s heart. She likes Kae, and not simply because she’s thin.

When Kae shows up at school back to her original self, the guys’ reactions are predictable: Nana and Shi don’t know what to do with themselves and what it to just be a bad dream, as they’re the shallowest and least adaptable of the guys. Kae’s weight has never been much of an issue with Asuma, but he barely makes an impression in the episode.

And while Kae is willing to train to lose weight back, Nana and Shi are overzealous and as a result she ends up overworked and exhausted, without any quick loss to show for it. That gets the protective Shina mad at them for having ulterior motives for her “re-self-improvement”, but she’s no saint herself, as she goes on record as saying she loves round cute things like Kae has become.

I like then how neither Shina nor Nana are portrayed as right or wrong, only that they both need to think about what’s motivating their actions (their own desires), blinding them from what Kae might actually want herself.

It’s Igarashi who attains a certain level of growth this week, when after a whole day of being doted on by Shina, he takes Kae to the roof and her inner beauty of kindness and honesty is re-revealed to him. Regardless of Kae’s appearance, Igarashi is certain that he likes her.

Where the episode kinda falls down is when Kae inevitably returns back to her rail-thin, magazine-gorgeous self by the end, returning things to the status quo. I liked how despite some very vigorous attempts by the guys, simply changing Kae back wasn’t as quick or easy as her regression-by-chocolate.

While Fat Kae really yuk-yuks it up with her exaggerated voice and movements, I still would have preferred a more gradual, less black-and-white transition that felt less “magic”. The first time she slimmed down, it was due to an extended fast. At least this time it was coming from a far more positive and healthy place, but it’s still rushed, moving us along without fully exploring the ramifications.

It makes me wonder if the show will bother with another “regression” to her original self, or if this has closed the matter of whether the guys will stick with her no matter what.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 04

Because they all have the hots for her, the guys let Kae drive the itinerary for Christmas Eve, and because Kae is not your conventional young woman, that itinerary is similarly unconventional.

It also takes place at a convention center, but even that is unconventional because it’s Tokyo Big Sight, which to many looks like a conventional convention center flipped upside-down.

The plan is to attend Comiket, split up to buy everything on Kae’s list, and get out early enough to still have the “Cris-Pa” the guys want to have with Kae.

Only they sorely underestimate the popularity of Winter Comiket, and that the lengths required to get there and back take up most of the day and night. It takes six hours from the time they wake up just to get inside.

Once there, however, the guys find that it’s not all bad. Even though Kae feels kinda bad she’s being so selfish, no one has a gun to the lads’ heads; they want to help her out, and also to make her stay there shorter so they can spend more time with her.

Not only that, but because all four guys are hot in their own ways, they attract quite a bit of attention from the female authors and artists, many of whom imagine (as Kae does) that they are BL couples, and swooning accordingly.

Kae also experiences something at Comiket for the first time: a pushy creepy photog, snapping every angle of her against her wishes. She is eventually castigated, shamed and forced to apologize by an exceedingly debonair young man doing butler cosplay. Just as the guys arrive, late because they were lost, they see this butler all close and personal with their Kae, and they don’t like it.

In a nice nod to Kae’s years of “training” by going to these day-consuming things, the four guys are utterly spent by the end of it, and still not quite right the next morning at school. Kae on the other hand looks like she could sing karaoke all night, and seems, if anything, energized by the Comiket visit.

Then she, and the guys, learn that the young butler who helped her wasn’t a guy, but a girl, and a student at their school: first-year Nishima Shina, voiced by Sawashiro Miyuki. Mind you, I knew she was a girl all along, because she’s in the OP as such, but the shock isn’t meant for us, it was meant for Kae and the guys.

And they are shocked. Kae, because she and Shina hit it off so quickly; the guys, because Shina swiftly and efficiently threatens to edge them out entirely, claiming Kae to herself by inviting her to her place. The guys invite themselves, and Shina doesn’t object…but like Comiket, they don’t know the magnitude of what they’re getting into.

Shina is perfect. She’s perfect-looking, she does everything just about perfectly, and she’s obscenely wealthy, having not just a room but an entire wing devoted to her many hobbies, many of which are also Kae’s hobbies, only on steroids.

Kae quickly falls under Shina’s “spell”, and at times, all Shina has to offer, and how earnestly complimentary she is, the guys drop their guards one by one.

Shina is also the perfect otaku; someone for Kae to look up to, even though she’s the senpai here. The “small favor” Shina requested of the guys in exchange for letting them come over turns out to be a private BL photo shoot, which is of course heaven for Kae.

The thing is, the guys are nervous and a little confused about what’s going on, so they’re not that great at posing. So Kae, who knows far more about the subject than they do, demonstrates the proper way to do it, using Shina as her partner. She gets so into it, she doesn’t realize she’s actually turning Shina on.

That’s right: Shina isn’t just competing for Kae’s time as a friend. She’s after her heart, like they are, and she won’t stand for them not taking her seriously. When Kae presents an opportunity by play-acting, Shina can’t help but pull her in for a long kiss.

Like the guys, Kae is initially confused. But it’s quite simple: her gang of four is now five, and while the guys have their various strengths and weaknesses, Shina is poised to outshine all of them with her perfection, wrapped in a feminine package Kae is much more comfortable with.

It will be interesting to see if this competition remains diplomatic, or if another, less perfect side of Shina comes out when provoked. Until then, Shina is an interesting new wrinkle in this milieu, and Sawashiro Miyuki brings her characteristic sultry wryness to the role.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 03

R to L: Snow White, Eren Yeager, Shion

The Japanese government mandates that at least one episode of romantic comedies must be a cultural festival episode, but Kiss Him Not Me didn’t treat it like legal compliance; it put quite a bit of effort and its own wonderful brand of energy into it, making for twenty minutes of television that felt much longer, but had me wishing by the end it was longer still. All the positive aspects I mentioned in the first two eps apply here, and then some.

This KHNM took its real life otome game theme to its natural next step: growing mutual resentment among the boys. The four of them are only together because they like Kae. Kae, a fujoshi, its perfectly content to keep things this way, but they aren’t. They want to court Kae properly, which means they need alone time with her (the last thing she wants).

It’s a great dynamic, and I’m glad it comes to a head so quickly in the series, and so organically, as a result of the give-and-take of the otome scenario. Kae formed a coalition so her class would vote for a cosplay cafe, and she gets to dress up all her boys the way she sees fit. But in exchange, she has to tacitly accept it when they set up time slots for alone time with her during the festival.

To the show’s credit, despite her amazing physical transformation, Kae remains steadfastly Kae, even if she often manages to hide her baser instincts from the lads. She worries she won’t do well alone with guys, and then she goes and doesn’t do well alone with the guys. It’s the English title in a nutshell: She wants them to Kiss (or do other romantic things with) Him, not her.

It doesn’t help that the guys are a little overeager. Nana backs her into a wall and they come close to a kiss, Mu achieves an indirect kiss through chopsticks; Iga takes her hand in his, then puts it on his knee; and Shi leaps into her arms in the haunted house, resulting in a fall and his face in her bosom.

It’s all just too much for Kae, who is completely un-inoculated against such romantic gestures. She rushes into the arms of her friend Akane, lamenting how impossible it all is. A-chan was initially amused that Kae had four dates with four hotties, but she’s quick to drop the ribbing and offer support when it turns out badly.

But while A-chan is grabbing Kae a drink, Kae is accosted by three less-than-savory classmates, who make her guys’ aggressiveness seem coy by comparison. These guys aren’t even trying to be subtle: this girl’s hot and they’re going to get as much out of her as they can.

Then she gives one of them an uppercut, which both he and she thought was overreacting…but how the hell else is a girl supposed to act when there are hands all over her and a crotch in her face?

They chase her down the hall, but she’s rescued by Iga and Nana in the nick of time. Soon Mu and Shi are also there and the four locked in combat with the punks. Kae stops gawking and spluttering and yells, at the top of her lungs, “KNOCK IT OFF!” 

Kae’s four guys hear her, and realize that and how they erred, and apologize, and all agree to take things slower so as not to overwhelm her again. Thus we return to the status quo, as expected, but it was a fun ride. The show didn’t want us to forget not just that these four guys really like Kae, and not just in a buddy-buddy way, but that when it comes down to it, they also don’t hate each other’s company.

When the time comes for the bonfire dance, the four agree to drop the romantic pursuits for the day and give Kae a little something for tolerating their forwardness (and the brawl, for which there was somehow no punishment). That something turns out to be another dream come true not just for fujoshi Kae, but her fujoshi BFF Akane: the four pair off and dance with each other.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 02

After just two weeks, Kiss Him Not Me is shaping up to be my top Fall comedy (Euphonium is my top drama), as it manages to pack so much fun in its episodes. This week efficiently covers the sports underdog and study group scenarios with vigorous aplomb and a unique, contagiously feisty energy.

The members of Kae’s ‘he-rem’ are already very well-defined: Igarashi (Iga) is the friendly athlete; Mutsumi (Mu) is the kind, mature senpai; Shinomiya (Shi) is the smitten kohai; and Nanashima (Nana) is, well, so I liken him to the tsundere of the gang.

I say this because of the four, Nana is least amenable to carrying around otaku tokens she gave them on their group date, and when she tries to translate her newfound ease of motion with a soccer gig, he’s the most skeptical. Mind you, he’s not far off base: As self-described “indoor person”, Kae soon finds out lighter isn’t stronger.

I’d also point out that for someone typically uncomfortable with anime, Nana picks up on Kae’s Captain Tsubasa reference about being friends with the ball, even getting combative about her arrogance (Tsubasa practiced 24/7). But when Nana hears the same girls who recruited Kae shitting on her disappointing showing in practice, he can’t help but rebuke them and help coach Kae up, a dedication that surprises the others.

Everything is resolved with a big come-from-behind draw, (not win, mind you) when Kae decides to use her nigh-impossibly backwards kick to score the equalizer in extra time (managing not to hit herself in the face, showing improvement.)

While not a true victory, it demonstrated Kae’s dedication to trying hard at something totally new, as well as Nana’s willingness to prove Kae’s haters wrong and instill some soccer knowledge in a girl who suddenly makes his heart skip.

With sports out of the way, the episode effortlessly moves on to exams. If Kae fails her next round, she’ll have to take summer classes, grenading her summer plans, all involving otaku events such as formally saying goodbye to her beloved Shion, who is as far as she’s concerned as real a person as any of the boys.

Studying is not Nana’s strength, and because first-year Shi studies at second-year level, the two are almost constantly at each other’s throats, getting the whole study group kicked out of all public venues. This leads Mu to suggest they all study at Kae’s house, requiring Kae to do a super-quick cleaning session (referring to her room as the “Sea of Rot”, perhaps referencing Nausicaa). 

The otaku gags fly freely, from Kae’s Shion pillow and sheets and store cut-out, to the pristine shrine she keeps in her room. Kae’s mom embarrasses her by using a makeup gun, and Kae’s brother (who resembles the other main lead in Kae’s anime) tries to scare off the lads, but to no avail.

Even if they’re not to-a-man comfortable with her passion (like Mu), they are willing to keep open minds, and are rewarded by having a good time. Mu confidently mans the rudder of this stormy sea of otakuness, asking if everyone can pray at Shion shrine with her, pointedly asking Kae’s bro to beat it, and insisting everyone help Kae carefully pick up the BL stash that means so much to her. The result is, the study group works, and Kae avoids extra classes.

Her new challenge: Summer Vacation, already packed with otaku events, just got a lot more full, as her gang will surely want to supplement that stuff with their own preferred Summer activities, from going to the pool to exploring castles. Kiss Him Not Me offers an embarrassment of riches, and Kobayashi Yuu continues to do superb work voicing the multifaceted Kae.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda – 01 (First Impressions)

The Gist: Serinuma Kae, a plus-sized fujoshi second-year high schooler, loves to pair off hot guys in her head. When her favorite anime character dies, she inadvertently loses a bunch of weight, becoming a stunning beauty who garners the persistent attention of four guys at her school. On a group date she tries intently to hide her “flaws”, but in the end they accept her for the otaku she is; as long as she’s happy, they’re happy.

Why You Should Watch: While the Ugly Duckling trope is as old as time, WgMD (AKA Kiss Him, Not Me) freshens things up by making said duckling a closet otaku, then building a reverse harem around her, so quickly it makes her head spin.

And yet, as her friend Akane points out, Kae has always had a way with hot guys, even before she lose the weight, because while she can be privately creepy, she’s always been kind. She wants only what’s best for the guys, which she thinks is…each other.

I enjoyed how peripheral the guys were; this is Kae’s show, and they’re in the dark for most of her inner conflicts and conversations with herself. Akane is a solid friend who suddenly finds herself no longer “the hot one” among them (though she already has a boyfriend, so it’s no biggie).

It’s also interesting to see how all four react to Kae compared to how they treated her when she was bigger. In particular, her senpai Mutsumi is the first to immediately recognize her post-transformation. He’d always been more attuned to Kae’s inner beauty and kindness.

Why You Shouldn’t Watch: Stepping back a bit, Kae’s transformation strains credulity, and there don’t seem to be any consequences to, ya know, starving herself. While pre-weight loss Kae is treated relatively well by her peers there’s still the feeling she’s regarded by most as a lovable mascot-like figure. And while society is more or less works this way, it doesn’t exactly look great that these four guys only pursue Kae when she becomes slim and hot.

Those problems aside, this show could definitely just get repetitive, with Kae going through the romantic motions with guy after guy. We’ll see if she can have her otaku otome cake and eat it too. We’ll also see what will happen if (when?) she gains her weight back; after all, Shion can only die once (unless the show brings him back and kills him off again).

Zane’s Verdict: WgMD takes what could have been a mess of trite gimmicks and executes a solid rom-com that’s more than the sum of its parts. Kobayashi Yuu excels at giving Kae a wide range of voices to suit her emotional state, and the guys differ enough in personality to provide some interesting dynamics down the road. It’s far from perfect, but it’s more than watchable, and for now I’m interested to see how things play out for Kae & Co.