Sep 21 2008 05:34 PM I'm rather late coming to this discussion: I just finished watching KimiKiss today after a five day marathon of viewing. I originally downloaded one episode about 9 months ago but at the time it looked like some superficial story which was just an excuse to parade a lineup of cute girls so I dropped it, but a few days ago I took a second look at that episode and decided it might after all be pleasant to watch what I took to be a laid back slice of life story about developing relationships so I started d/l'ing more episodes....
Five days on I've reached the end and the whole thing was just
so different from what I was expecting! Although it kept the realistic slice of life feeling it developed into a great tragic romance with a bittersweet ending; let's see, we end up with two happy (if tearful) couples and three broken hearts.
Really, once the cats cradle of romantic entanglements started to form there was no way to avoid this kind of ending I think, in making it bittersweet they retained the true to life feeling, to do otherwise would have been trite.
For me it was unexpected that the stalwart and mature figure of Mao, with her supercool boyfriend, would be the one who caused everything to unravel, destroying first her own relationship and then Kouichi's. I really liked her character though. But I was sad that Sakino didn't have a more central role, for me she was the real belle of the series, she was the fittest girl in both senses of the word! At least she managed to steal a kiss from Kazuki at the end though.
I was also impressed by the maturity of Kai who I thought treated Kouichi very well, he was a man of few words but those few words were just right, as were his silences, like when Kouichi asks him why he and Mao broke up: he could have said "because of you", or he could have said "you should ask Mao" but instead he walked away. It was the Zen answer which unasks the question.
The relatively slow pacing means I don't think the series has much rewatchability appeal, but the story was certainly strong enough to keep me going during the huge two-day 4GB download ordeal (I didn't even have 4GB of space on my disk and had to archive a bunch of stuff to make room for it).
Incidentally I liked the special, it was a bit of light relief after the heaviness of the final few episodes of the series, a bit like the Air summer specials which served a similar purpose.
