Engage Kiss

Episode 9

Par for Engage Kiss' demon-smooching course, this episode takes its pedestrian plotting and seasons it with a few pinches of compelling melodrama. Faint praise though it may be, I can at least say I liked this more than last week's installment. Even predictably arranged heartstring-tugging is preferable to a complete dearth of emotional appeals. That said, Engage Kiss' attempts at conveying operatic tragedy fall short, and they're especially pitiable when compared to the stiff competition it has this season.

Let me actually address the competition for a paragraph. I only bring this up because I saw these shows mentioned in passing while browsing the comments on Crunchyroll, but I do also think it's instructive to think about why one show works when another doesn't. Made in Abyss, for example, similarly deals with obsession and the border between the human and the inhuman, which is crystallized especially powerfully in the second season's arc. As a story, however, it is more openly philosophical and thematically complex (and grosser and more objectionable, to be fair). But you can't deny that it's about stuff, whereas Engage Kiss doesn't tend to look far beyond its own nose. Maybe Lycoris Recoil is a more apt comparison, though, as another action-forward and crowd-pleasing original series animated by A-1. And to that effect, I'd point to the breezy chemistry forged between Chisato and Takina, and the painful familial bonds between Chisato and her foster dads. In fact, this week's LycoReco flashback is thematically similar to the one in Engage Kiss. The difference is LycoReco had previously laid groundwork that the flashback complements, while Engage Kiss feels like it's scurrying to fill in blanks before it's too late.

In isolation, I think it's the right move to give Miles' betrayal some pathos. Most of the demonization victims we've seen so far have been emotionally vulnerable people, and Miles deserves at least that much depth. But the timing here, on the heels of a “big” twist and prior to his defeat, is clunky. We should have seen more of his paternal feelings for Shu during their past conversations—not just through the dialogue, but through the framing and performances. Having that context would have made his sense of regret here that much more potent. Along those lines, his daughter is introduced only as a convenient excuse for his demonic bargain. Smarter writing, which would have integrated her into the plot before this episode, could have avoided this feeling so cheap. I need a little more substance than generic anime wasting disease.

On the upside, I like that we get the most potent example yet of Shu weaponizing Kisara's memory meals toward his own selfish ends. It's a twofold attack: his memories literally provide the fuel that lets Kisara fight Miles, and his specific choice of memories removes any hesitation he might have had in killing Miles. The Memento-esque note he writes on his hand further proves that he's willing to manipulate even himself if it means carrying out his goals. And those goals, it's worth mentioning, are even more nebulous now that we know his mom is Asmodeus. Her wording implies that Shu is not her biological son, but she's still a part of the family he's seeking to avenge. And the sister he's seeking to rescue is a confirmed half-demon. These are promising developments on the trolley track towards Shu's tragic realization of what was truly taken from him—and what he's taken from himself.

Let me be petty about another thing this week: the translation. I've noticed clumsy wording in prior episodes, but there are some real clunkers sprinkled in here. For example: “Apparently, they're behind the phenomenon where humans turn into monsters that's been happening often in the City lately.” It's parsable, but flows about as well as a jar of molasses. From the same scene, “Sorry, but I don't deal with talk of that sort” is just an unnatural way to refute that, especially in a conversation between friends. As I've been teaching myself more Japanese, I've only respected the plight of the translator more and more. I recently experimented with translating some simple tweets featured in LycoReco, and even there I missed a pretty obvious pun right away. It's tough, thankless work, which is why I lay the blame entirely on the distributors for not providing adequate resources. And when the show in question has other flaws, a subpar translation does it no favors.

Despite delivering some important revelations, Engage Kiss has no real surprises this week. The plot and emotional beats are rote, and the main characters have little space to act out the compelling main melodrama. And why is the show wasting more scenes on Mikhail when that precious runtime could be used for better things, like a longer action sequence of Sharon and Ayano fighting side by side? I want more pining and more combat nun hijinks. I'm hoping Engage Kiss can recalibrate itself going into its presumably final arc, because this kind of bland grimness is a one-way ticket to being memory-holed faster than the scraps of remembrance still wafting about in Shu's grey matter.

Rating:

Engage Kiss is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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