March 19th, 2018 
Charles Solomon 
Like Ouran High School Host Club (2006), the teen romcom Kiss Him, Not Me (2016), plays off the distaff equivalent of the harem comedy. Based on the award-winning 2013 manga by Junko, the Japanese title Watashi ga Motete Dōsunda literally means “What’s the Point of Me Getting Popular?”
High school junior Kae Serinuma (voice by Jeannie Tirado) is a self-styled fujoshi (something like “a dirty girl”), a slang term for female otaku, especially one who’s into boy’s love manga and anime. Serinuma is obsessed with the anime Miracle Saga and its super-cute hero Shion. As she’s fat and keeps to herself, none of the guys in her class pay any attention to her.
When Nozomu Nanashima (Orion Pitts), who looks like Shion–a cute “bad boy” type–falls on top of her after missing a volleyball shot, he says he’s glad he landed on “a cushion”. Handsome, athletic Yusuke Igarashi (Alejandro Saab), the Japanese equivalent of an all-American boy or a Ken doll, makes Nanashima apologize, but he doesn’t really mean it.
Everything changes when Miracle Saga kills off Serinuma’s adored Shion. She’s so devastated, she locks herself in her room for a week and refuses to eat. A week of deprivation transforms her into a slender, curvaceous beauty. Suddenly, she’s surrounded by admirers at school. Nanashima and Igarashi fawn over her. Brash under classmen Hayato Shinomiya (Justin Briner), the pretty boy type—he even gets the role of the princess in his class play—and tall, serious senior Asuma Mutsumi (David Wald) go after her like ants scenting a picnic.
Serinuma doesn’t know how to react to her new popularity. Each would-be boyfriend is attractive in his own way; she can’t pick a favorite. She’d rather see them kiss each other than kiss them herself: “A Prince should be with a Prince,” is her motto. As the four guys jostle for position, they try to sneak off on dates with Serinuma, only to have the other three show up, producing some very uncomfortable outings for five.
Serinuma is afraid she’ll be humiliated if the boys learn about her yaoi fetish, and tries to hide it. But when they pass a sale of limited edition Miracle Saga products, her resolve snaps and she buys everything in sight, including Shion key chains for each of her admirers. Despite her fears, the guys aren’t shocked, and even start playing to her weakness. When Serinuma binges on Valentine’s chocolate and regains the weight she lost, Nanashima and Shinomiya bribe her into slimming down by acting out favorite yaoi scenarios.
A lot of the comedy in Kiss Him comes from the spoofs of the shows Serinuma watches and the products she buys. Director Hiroshi Ishiodori includes clips from Miracle Saga and Kanchu Ranbu, a period adventure in which a devoted retainer transforms into the magic armor that protects the body of his lord. On her shopping spree, she buys a huge pillow with Shion printed on it, a parody of the life-sized pillows of pretty anime heroines maladroit geeks carry with them in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. These parodies would be more fun if Jeannie Tirado didn’t shriek quite so much: Serinuma is supposed to be an over-enthusiastic high school girl, not a screeching annoyance.
The filmmakers complicate things needlessly by introducing a fifth suitor, Shima Nishina (Michelle Rojas), an androgynous sophomore girl who’s both the heiress to a fortune and a successful manga artist. Serinuma accepts her as a friend and possible girlfriend without considering the implications of a same-sex relationship. There’s also a rather creepy sub-plot involving Mutsumi’s older brother appearing as a student teacher and flirting with his pupils. These caveats aside, Kiss Him, Not Me provides the kind of self-reflexive humor anime fans have been enjoying since Martian Successor Nadesico.
Kiss Him, Not Me: The Complete Series
Crunchyroll/Funimation: $64.98 4 discs, DVD and Blu-ray
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