Kiss him not me characters12/18/2023 Kae flees, seeking out a staircase so she can spend some time by herself and calm down. Kae, unused to being the center of attention, gets quickly overwhelmed by their flirtation and touching, culminating in Shinomiya falling face-first into her breasts in the haunted house. The boys, tired of only being part of a group, decide to each take some time with Kae individually. The first story that uses the threat of sexual assault takes place early in the series, during the school festival. There have been three instances thus far, using the well-worn trope with deftness ranging from clunky and cliched to surprisingly intelligent. Sexual assault pops up in what seems like almost all shoujo manga, and Kiss Him, Not Me is no exception. Thus the status quo is restored and the series can continue with its conventionally attractive heroine. None of that really matters, however, because Kae decides to lose the weight anyway, especially when the boys come up with a plan to perform PDA at certain weights as a motivator for her. Mutsumi, her history club senpai who she was already friends with, and fellow fujoshi Shima don’t care either way, but her classmate Igarashi has to do some real soul-searching. In one plotline, she gains all her weight back and the other characters confront the superficiality of their attraction to her, and whether or not it’s fair to try to get her to lose weight again. Rather, it just makes fat Kae seem even more repulsive than she would have been otherwise. This change has no bearing in reality – body weight doesn’t affect the vocal cords. When she’s fat, Kae’s voice is repellent and distorted as if she’s speaking through a mouthful of cotton, but when she’s slender, her voice sounds high and girly unless she’s actively drooling over BL. Even more egregious in the anime is the voice work. Her eyes get larger and more expressive, and even her ears and nose change shape. Kae’s physical transformation isn’t just weight loss she also stops wearing her glasses and, in the anime, develops gradient hair. However, that remains undermined by exactly how fat Kae is depicted. It’s easy for a manga to convey the message to be yourself, but Kiss Him, Not Me dares readers to embrace their socially unacceptable qualities. Kae’s ability to stay true to herself is remarkable, as is the boys’ willingness to accept her for who she is. Her love of anime and BL still dictates most of her actions, and she doesn’t much care whether or not her harem decides to join her at things like Comiket or picking up the latest character goods at Animate. The weight loss was purely accidental and she was plenty happy how she was. Kae, however, has absolutely zero interest in changing. Manga about some kind of personal transformation are fairly common, such as Blue Spring Ride and High School Debut, and almost always revolve around the idea that daintiness and prettiness are more feminine and thus desirable. The premise of the show alone raises eyebrows. ![]() However, that subversiveness is inconsistent and regularly mixed in with the typical shoujo cliches, making it hard to take the message seriously. It’s a romantic comedy with very little romance it’s a harem show where the heroine has more interest in the unattainability of fictional characters. When I actually gave the series a try, I was surprised to find it actually has something of a subversive bent, taking shots at romantic shoujo tropes without turning into outright parody. I’m also not a fan of shipping real people or the idea that a girl only needs to lose weight to be lovable. That is, after all, the reason garbage like Super Lovers and Junjou Romantica keeps getting made. ![]() Despite my own fondness for seeing boys kiss, I view fujoshi culture with an extremely critical eye. My expectations going into Kiss Him, Not Me were low, to say the least. Suddenly, the boys that wouldn’t give her the time of day want nothing more than her attention, but she’d rather they pay more attention to each other!Ĭontent warnings : weight loss/gain, strong trigger warning for sexual assault When she emerges and returns to school, she’s lost all the extra weight. When her favorite anime character dies, Kae locks herself in her room for two weeks without food. Whether it’s fictional boys of anime or her handsome male classmates, she lives for the moment where they share a significant glance or touch. Summary : Obese otaku Kae Serinuma loves one thing above all else: witnessing intense bonds between men.
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