Engage Kiss

Episode 10

I shouldn't be this unfazed by the sight of a skyscraper-sized hand fending off an orbital laser blast, yet Engage Kiss finds a way to dull what should have been its sharp edges. Although we're well into the endgame now, the show keeps trapping its characters into dry, long-winded bouts of exposition that interrupt the cohesiveness of both its dramatic and action-leaning aspects. Without any space to explore its (admittedly few) unique particularities, the series has now devolved into a concatenation of unsurprising plot twists and uninspired recapitulations of images and ideas from better anime. When Engage Kiss embraced its trashiness, at least I was having fun, but now it's worse than trashy. It's middling.

The exposition really grinds my gears, because it flattens all of these characters into samey mouthpieces for the sake of expanding on plot and lore that is nowhere near interesting enough to justify sucking up so much time. And despite all the words dedicated to Asmodeus, we still have yet to learn anything about them as a character. Ten whole episodes, and the best Engage Kiss has as its ultimate antagonist is a big bad demon who wants to take over the world. I expect that from a grade school creative writing assignment, not from a high-profile anime production. I'll grant that we're probably headed towards Shu's sister Kanna being the “true” villain, but that also presents the same problem: she's gotten zero characterization so far, so why should I care?

While it would have been nice to allow these expositional woes the space to be spread more naturally over more episodes, I don't think another cour would have solved all of Engage Kiss' problems on its own either. The attempts at being light-hearted and cute in the early episodes were pretty insufferable, after all. What I'd need from it instead is more runtime dedicated to its best aspect, which is, in my opinion, the salacious sexual drama between Shu and his several ex- and current girlfriends. I thought the narrative and characters really picked up in that string of episodes in the middle of the season, and I wish the writing would have committed to that angle.

Even if we narrow it down to the triangle between Shu, Kisara, and Ayano, there's still plenty of pain and spiciness that Engage Kiss has yet to engage with in full. We get the smallest whiff of it this week, with that glare Ayano shoots at Kisara after Shu runs off out of Sharon's room. Of course she's angry at Kisara for “stealing” Shu from her and stealing his memories, but Ayano should really be angry at Shu for giving so wholly into his self-destructive pursuit of revenge. Let her wrestle with that! While Kisara has some agency in this, it's limited, and I'd also like to see her struggle a lot more with that conflicted helplessness—that her bond to Shu is inexorably bound to his own selfishness. Shu is the most cynical and calculating of them all, and if the series were willing to actually engage with that, he'd be a far better protagonist. As is, the writing only wants to wallow in the misery of his fading memories, and that reached its hackneyed breaking point a while ago.

Sharon's the only character who's committed to having fun anymore, and for that I salute her. A better, smarter anime would have dedicated an entire episode to just her swilling booze and scarfing down fast food in her hotel room – at the very least, that would have had personality. But no, she spends the rest of the episode dishing out boring details about Asmodeus and summoning circles. We had a perfect opportunity with her and Kisara running off together, but all they talk about is Asmodeus again. Sharon deserves a show that respects her unrepentant awfulness.

The episode does pick up once we get to the action, thankfully. And by that I mean it's preferable to dry expository dialogue, even if the final setpiece is far from spectacular. If you're cribbing imagery from the likes of Berserk and Evangelion, then you really have a duty to meet their level of cosmic horror. Engage Kiss, however, has a problem with deflating what should be its coolest moments. Why do I care about who they bought the satellite cannon from? Stop wasting dialogue on that. There's no sense of awe towards these larger-than-life enemies and weapons, and that's what hurts this scene. At least Sharon gets some cool kick choreography, and Shu icing a creepy clone of his mom is a good way of hammering how much of himself he's thrown away. But overall, it's so listless.

Engage Kiss is in an unfortunate place right now. Lacking both a strong character-driven foundation and a strong creative vision for its final clash between good and evil, it doesn't have the fuel to propel itself to an exciting climax. It spends this whole episode spinning its wheels on a nothing antagonist, while it drifts even further away from the melodrama I want out of it. I suppose it remains an acceptably skeletal version of a demon-infested action-romance with enough aesthetic flair to stand out slightly from its peers. But its edges have given way to a bland and overwrought narrative with none of its earlier salacious charm.

Rating:

Engage Kiss is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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